Ocasio-Cortez tweets and other news

JuanValdez · Jan 8, 2019

Os Trigonum said: ↑

slow news day for AOC
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Scalise trying to soak up some of the reflected glory shining off of AOC.

Os Trigonum · Jan 8, 2019

alright, here's one that's actually worth reading--whether you agree or not. WaPo has already gotten 9 articles out of AOC's 60 Minutes interview, and the author is curious why the centrist/mainstream media is so pre-occupied with AOC. Here's the punchline:

"But the motivation behind the centrist tut-tutting here is probably to find some lefties committing errors so that they can be set against the gargantuan pile of lies and errors from Trump and the right, and thus produce a few scraps of evidence that this journalism is politically neutral — and centrist moderation is the only fact-based political coalition. That centrists can build up an 'Ocasio-Cortez is similar to Trump' argument on top of an article which itself contained a major factual inaccuracy that went uncorrected for five months just gives the game away."

https://theweek.com/articles/816346/why-centrists-are-obsessed-alexandria-ocasiocortez

Why centrists are obsessed with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Ryan Cooper

It's Tuesday, so once again Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is dominating the national conversation. At time of writing, The Washington Post has gotten at least nine articles out of her 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper over the past two days. Some are supportive, but centrist "straight" reporters and columnists are skeptical. Aaron Blake says her response to complaints about bungling facts "just so happens to be the underlying ethos of the entire Trump presidency," while former neocon Max Boot compared her to both Trump and Sarah Palin for the same reason.

This hysterical reaction, while wildly off-base, is also an instructive lesson in the political ideology and functions of centrist journalism.

First, let's go through the complaint here. Ocasio-Cortez really has fumbled a few facts. Most notably, she incorrectly stated that leaks in the Pentagon budget could finance a big portion of Medicare-for-all, which is not true at all. The Washington Post's fact checker Glenn Kessler identified a few other more suspect claims in an article from August (more on this later).

When Cooper asked her about this, she responded:

OCASIO-CORTEZ: If people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, I would argue that they’re missing the forest for the trees. I think that there’s a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct than about being morally right.

COOPER: But being factually correct is important —

OCASIO-CORTEZ: It’s absolutely important. And whenever I make a mistake. I say, "Okay, this was clumsy," and then I restate what my point was. But it's not the same thing as the president lying about immigrants. It’s not the same thing at all. [60 Minutes]
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Thus Boot argues that she "cares more about ideological correctness than factual correctness. "The Post’s Fact Checker has documented her reign of error," he writes, citing Kessler's article. He concludes that if "this attitude takes hold among the broader populace, responsible self-government becomes impossible, and radical demagogues will succeed reactionary ones."

We should first note that Boot isn't being quite accurate himself. Ocasio-Cortez did not say ideology is more important than accuracy, she said accuracy is not more important than being morally right. But let's dig into the more pressing factual question here.

When I started my journalism career, I worked as a fact checker for many months. Focusing on strict empirical truth is a devilishly tricky business (and a decent introduction into the basic problems of epistemology), but one that is key to quality reporting. It also bears scant resemblance to The Washington Post's Fact Checker column.

For instance, one of the key tasks of fact checking is figuring out not just when something is mistaken, but how it might be fixed. Very often a writer will say something that is not strictly accurate, but is pretty close and might be corrected with a slight change of wording. Your job as the fact checker is to help the writer both by correcting errors and by figuring out how they might make their case stronger.

Many public fact checkers hardly ever do this. Much more frequently, they do gotchas — reading something to find a narrow inaccuracy, proclaiming a Truth Harm, and moving on. Thus are the partisans on the left and right put in their place, and the centrist reporter raised up as the neutral arbiter of facts.

Of course, most of the facts in the Fact Checker articles — particularly the hundreds of Trump ones, because he is a veritable daily piñata of lies — are fine. Pretty much everything Trump says is wrong or deceptive and they do a good job pointing that out. But occasionally they are astoundingly sloppy, which is nowhere more obvious than with Ocasio-Cortez herself. Kessler himself epically botched a fact about Medicare-for-all in his Ocasio-Cortez fact check back in August, claiming that the Medicare-for-all bill she supports would "slash payments to providers by 40 percent." This is off by a factor of at least 3.5 — a gigantic mistake that is absolutely ridiculous as a matter of basic arithmetic, which reveals Kessler has little or no familiarity with the structure of medical spending.

Despite being hounded about this ever since the article was first published, Kessler only fixed the error this week — in the process appending another false excuse, claiming the problem was "too much shorthand" instead of (embarrassingly) getting his facts wrong. Sounds like someone has a less-than-absolute commitment to rigorous empirical accuracy!

Even Ocasio-Cortez's worst mistake — saying the Pentagon has lost $21 trillion, which could pay for two-thirds of Medicare according to a Mercatus Center study — isn't completely off-base. This comes from taking a poorly-presented Nation article at face value, and it's not correct. But let's think like a fact checker: The military does in fact spend a ton of money and a whole lot of it is either waste or stuff we plainly don't need.

I estimated here that if we really attacked administrative waste, drug prices, and medical cost bloat in the American health-care system, we could cut total health care costs by $800 billion. That leaves only roughly $210 billion in revenue to make up. Annual military spending is $892 billion (if you count all the stuff that isn't in the Department of Defense base budget). We could absolutely find $210 billion in there — indeed, it would only take America back to the 2006-level of Pentagon spending. The tweet in question, while wrong, isn't quite as silly as it sounds.

As Ocasio-Cortez herself admits, accuracy is important. But the motivation behind the centrist tut-tutting here is probably to find some lefties committing errors so that they can be set against the gargantuan pile of lies and errors from Trump and the right, and thus produce a few scraps of evidence that this journalism is politically neutral — and centrist moderation is the only fact-based political coalition. That centrists can build up an "Ocasio-Cortez is similar to Trump" argument on top of an article which itself contained a major factual inaccuracy that went uncorrected for five months just gives the game away.
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Os Trigonum · Jan 8, 2019

actually if you watch the clip Harris doesn't answer the question

I think there's something to the comment that says AOC is being used as a "stooge" by Democrats planning to run in 2020

King1 · Jan 8, 2019

glynch said: ↑

Typical alleged lack of "stupidity from right wingers and sadly self proclaimed sophisticated is fake outrage about misstatements no matter how minor, that are then freely acknowleged and corrected. Meanwhile no problems that most people in Congress or the media constantly pretend that they do not understand the difference between taxing marginal income over 70% vs all income 70%.

They fools at best only themselves.
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Ok. This is why I stay out of this place. You're so delusional and caught up in which side people are on you can't see anything.

Fool is an appropriate term for you.

RocketsLegend · Jan 9, 2019

She's insane. "The future of the party" is batshit crazy

dachuda86 · Jan 9, 2019

AOC has got the crazy eyes.

Ottomaton · Jan 9, 2019

RocketsLegend said: ↑

She's insane. "The future of the party" is batshit crazy

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Your right. Trump is definately firmly rooted in the American tradition of Preston Brooks, Eugene McCarthy, John E Rankin, and James Wilkinson. Much more American.

dobro1229 · Jan 9, 2019

“Shining City on a Hill” vs “American Carnage”.

I agree with Reagan on immigrants and that their pursuit of the American Dream that is more American than isolationism.

AOC is right... Reagan was right. Maybe Reagan was more eloquent but the point is the same.

The fact is you Trumpers are anti-American in your isolationist stance you share with Trump in some stupid group grievance bull crap and are completely obsessed with AOC for some reason I cannot explain.

RocketsLegend · Jan 9, 2019

Nook · Jan 9, 2019

RocketsLegend said: ↑

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Bro... this is the problem you are going to be facing.

You champion the biggest liar in the history of American politics.... so now, whenever you point out or complain that someone else is less than factual.... no one will care, because you stand behind the biggest and boldest of all liars.

RocketsLegend · Jan 9, 2019

Nook said: ↑

Bro... this is the problem you are going to be facing.

You champion the biggest liar in the history of American politics.... so now, whenever you point out or complain that someone else is less than factual.... no one will care, because you stand behind the biggest and boldest of all liars.
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the same people that call Trump lair will excuse this Pinnochio as we've seen throughout this thread. Why not have some principles and call her our or is Trump the only politician you want to criticize?

Nook · Jan 9, 2019

RocketsLegend said: ↑

the same people that call Trump lair will excuse this Pinnochio as we've seen throughout this thread. Why not have some principles and call her our or is Trump the only politician you want to criticize?
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I haven’t really defended her. The only positive I have said about her is that she is attractive and very charismatic.

None the less, you really are not the right person to call someone else a liar.... you support the most prolific liar in US Presidential history.

It is just a reality you have to accept.

Os Trigonum · Jan 9, 2019

It seems a shame to bury all the Green New Deal stuff in a thread about AOC, but for now I guess it works.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-70-percet-tax-proposal-unworkable/

The Unworkable 70 Percent Tax
By KYLE POMERLEAU
January 9, 2019 6:30 AM

Any proposal that raises a significant amount of revenue will have to do so through broad-based taxes on all Americans.

During the first week of her new job as a representative from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed a top statutory tax rate of 70 percent. Her stated goal is to raise revenue to fund what she calls the “Green New Deal,” an effort to transition the U.S. economy to fully renewable energy in ten years.

Ocasio-Cortez has yet to release the specifics of her new plan. However, her comments imply that she wants to add an eighth tax bracket of 70 percent on incomes over $10 million. What this means is that if you are a very high earner, such as a successful actor, musician, or business owner, you would need to pay 70 cents for every dollar you report in taxable income over $10 million. It’s not clear yet whether it would apply only to earned income, or if it would apply to all income, including capital gains, dividends, and business income. However, given her stated goal, it is likely the latter.

For sure, there is a lot of money earned by the roughly 16,000 tax filers with incomes over $10 million. IRS data show that this group reported more than $482 billion in adjusted gross income in 2016. The Washington Post recently estimated that on a purely “static” basis (not accounting for any behavioral changes), the federal government could raise more than $700 billion in additional revenue over the next ten years if the federal government enacted a top tax rate of 70 percent.

Unfortunately for the congresswoman, estimates that show a significant increase in revenue from a 70 percent tax rate on incomes over $10 million are unrealistic. This is because individuals — and their accountants — would react to the new 70 percent rate by finding ways to report less income. They would save 70 cents for every dollar not reported above that threshold.

According to the IRS, about 46 percent of all income reported by those earning more than $10 million is made up of capital gains, meaning income from the sale of assets such as stocks. Under current law, capital gains are taxed only when they are “realized” — that is, when the assets are sold, not every time they gain value. This means that individuals can effectively choose when to pay the tax. And individuals who hold on to assets until death can have their gains completely erased through what is called “step-up in basis.”

Researchers at the Joint Committee on Taxation found that there is a strong negative relationship between the tax rate on capital gains and realizations. They found that over the long run, a 10 percent increase in the tax rate on capital gains reduces realizations by around 7 percent. This implies that the revenue-maximizing capital gains rate is around 29 percent; a rate approaching 70 percent would likely reduce federal revenue from changes in capital-gains behavior.

Overall, it is unlikely that Ocasio-Cortez’s plan would see anywhere near the $700 billion the Washington Post estimated.

Leaving aside whether this policy would ultimately help the congresswoman fund her priorities, proponents have defended this new top rate with two arguments. First, they argue this is an increase in the top marginal rate, so it won’t increase the tax burden that significantly. Even for a very rich individual, only the sliver of income over the $10 million threshold would be taxed at 70 percent. Second, they argue that high marginal rates like this were commonplace before the 1980s. Shortly after World War II and until 1964, the United States levied a top marginal tax rate over 90 percent. And from the early ’60s to 1982, the top rate was 70 percent. If the United States was able to fund priorities and prosper during this time, why wouldn’t it be able to do it again?

Fortunately, knowledge of tax policy has evolved and improved over the past 50 years. Research by economists and tax analysts has convinced lawmakers throughout the world that high marginal tax rates are a poor way to raise revenue. High marginal tax rates discourage individuals from working additional hours and discourage businesses from making productivity-enhancing investments.

As a result, tax reform across the globe has moved tax systems away from high marginal tax rates with narrow bases to lower marginal rates and broad bases. The U.S. is not the only country that greatly reduced marginal tax rates over the past 50 years. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the simple average top statutory tax rate has declined from 57.1 percent to 35.8 percent among the group’s member nations. At the same time, revenue collections remained stable or rose as these same countries enacted broad-based taxes such as value-added taxes, payroll taxes, and broader individual income taxes.

Overall, lawmakers such as Ocasio-Cortez, who want to see the government raise a much larger share of revenue as a percent of GDP to fund their priorities, need to get more serious about tax policy. Yes, it is possible to raise additional revenue by raising taxes on high earners through eliminating tax expenditures, reforming capital taxation, and raising rates. But there is a limit. Any proposal that raises a significant amount of revenue will have to do so through broad-based taxes on all Americans, not just the highest earners.

If we look across the Atlantic at countries with significant revenue collections as a percent of GDP, taxes are generally high for everyone. Denmark, Sweden, and Finland all raise more than 40 percent of GDP in tax revenue. These countries have broad-based value-added taxes over 20 percent and high payroll taxes. Their income taxes have high marginal tax rates, but they apply to much more personal income than what Ocasio-Cortez is proposing. For example, in 2015, Denmark’s top marginal tax rate of 60 percent started applying at 1.2 times the average income. If that were enacted here, all taxable income over $56,500 would face a 60 percent tax rate.

Broad-based taxes would be a better way to raise significant revenue for the federal government. However, the need to raise revenue from everyone, not just the highest earners, increases the burden of proof on proponents of new government programs. If they are to get voters behind a middle-class tax increase, they need to convince the public that their new policies are worth it. Simply claiming that someone else will pay for it is not enough.

The design of a tax matters for how it affects incentives and how much revenue it raises. A sharply higher top marginal tax rate would ultimately fail to accomplish the congresswoman’s goal.
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Os Trigonum · Jan 9, 2019

Rashmon · Jan 9, 2019

JuanValdez said: ↑

I'd appreciate it if you kept the updates down to when AOC-related news happened and refrained from posting all this trite "analysis." You're making your own thread unreadable.
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He's the new basso. AOC lives in his head.

At least basso was able to recognize that our mistake-in-chief was not worth it and has gone radio silent.

Nook · Jan 9, 2019

Os Trigonum said: ↑

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How long before she crosses over and does some movie work on the side..... maybe she can play SotoMayor in a serious piece from the producer and director of "Ray".

tallanvor · Jan 9, 2019

Rashmon said: ↑

He's the new basso. AOC lives in his head.

At least basso was able to recognize that our mistake-in-chief was not worth it and has gone radio silent.
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60 minutes gave the incoming freshman her own piece. MSNBC interviews her directly after Trump's speech for her response.

Dems are pushing her out there. I have no idea why since shes incredibly embarrassing, but for some reason they are.

Os Trigonum · Jan 9, 2019

Nook said: ↑

How long before she crosses over and does some movie work on the side..... maybe she can play SotoMayor in a serious piece from the producer and director of "Ray".
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apparently she's getting a bit of blowback from the Maddow clip for sounding like she thinks Americans eat out three times a day

biff17 · Jan 9, 2019

King1 said: ↑

Ok. This is why I stay out of this place. You're so delusional and caught up in which side people are on you can't see anything.

Fool is an appropriate term for you.
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While I agree about getting caught up with which side is which, Why haven't you called out the posters who do this far more often.

biff17 · Jan 9, 2019

RocketsLegend said: ↑

She's insane. "The future of the party" is batshit crazy

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That is actually true.

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