Ocasio-Cortez says Dems should embrace high marginal tax rate on rich

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) says it’s time for Democrats to embrace a 70 percent marginal tax rate on income above $10 million in a “full-throated manner.”

The freshman lawmaker says “it’s not surprising” that nearly 60 percent of respondents in a new Hill.TV poll support the idea that some of her Democratic colleagues in Congress shy away from.

“This is a policy that is already popular and it’s time that we embrace working Americans and it’s time that the Democratic Party fights in a full-throated manner for the working class in the United States and to not support a marginal tax rate is to really just allow runaway wealth and inequality to persist,” she told Hill.TV.

The Hill-HarrisX poll conducted Jan. 12-13 found 59 percent of registered voters support a 70 percent marginal rate on income above $10 million.

Ocasio-Cortez first floated the idea during an interview with “60 Minutes” this month.

She thinks progressives can push for the policy during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

“What we are hoping to do is to really be a part of that debate – maybe kind of like the pace dog in a race track – if we as a progressive movement can do that to say, ‘Listen these are what people are asking us, this is what we’re seeing on the ground and we can take a few more risks,’” Ocasio-Cortez said.

—Molly K. Hooper