Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) responded to potential 2020 “centrist independent” presidential candidate Howard Schultz‘s criticism of her proposed marginal tax rate on Tuesday night.
Schultz criticized the New York lawmaker’s 70 percent tax rate proposal during a town hall-style event hosted by CNN on Tuesday.
During the discussion, Schultz, a billionaire, said that he believed he should be paying more taxes, but called the plan floated by Ocasio-Cortez “punitive.”
“You’re a billionaire, give me a sense: Are you talking about you should pay two percent higher? Ten percent higher? Twenty percent higher federal income tax?” Poppy Harlow, the host of the CNN town hall, asked.
“I don’t know what the number is, I think what I’m saying is we need comprehensive tax reform,” he responded.
When pressed by Harlow, Schultz continued:
“I think what is being proposed at 70 percent is a punitive number and I think there are better ways to do this,” Schultz said, later adding: “I don’t know what the number is, but what I’m suggesting is I should be paying higher taxes.”
In response, Ocasio-Cortez suggested that Schultz didn’t have a tax plan of his own because “things are already going fine” for billionaires.
“Reminder that their plan = no plan. Why? Because for billionaires, things are already going fine,” she wrote on Twitter, quote tweeting someone criticizing Schultz’s remarks.
Reminder that their plan = no plan.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 13, 2019
Why? Because for billionaires, things are already going fine. https://t.co/YrZlU5zvdh
Schultz has been criticized by left-leaning people ever since his announcement last month that he was considering running in 2020 as a “centrist independent.”
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