Left-wing Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez created quite the buzz earlier this week by attending a $30,000-a-plate dinner wearing a stylish gown – so stylish that some of the help carried its train as she exited the event – with the phrase “Tax the Rich” splashed on it.
Now, the former bartender, who before being elected to Congress was intimately familiar with the working class, is having to explain why the billboard she wore at the gala for the Metropolitan Museum of Art should not apply to her.
The latest go-round about the controversial dress came when someone asked AOC on Instagram, “What do you say to people who argue that you’re also rich?”
“This is the trick people use all the time, right?” the congresswoman replied in a video.
“They want you to think that when we talk about rich, we’re talking about a doctor or a lawyer instead of someone with hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars. That’s what we mean by ‘rich.’”
Well, that may not be AOC’s definition, but for most Americans, it doesn’t take a “trick” to see her as among the “rich.”
Members of Congress make $174,000 a year. And unlike almost every other U.S. worker, they have the opportunity to vote themselves a raise every year – not to mention the other perks that come with being one of the 550 most powerful people in the country.
According to an analysis of the most recent IRS data, the conservative Heritage Foundation reported in March that AOC’s salary puts her in the top 10 percent of earners among America’s 150-plus million workers.
Heritage notes that the 10-percenter threshold kicks in at $152,000 a year.
Meanwhile, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, AOC’s salary places her above the national average income for highly skilled or well-educated professions such as lawyers, airline pilots, pharmacists, IT managers and engineers, petroleum and aerospace engineers, and podiatrists, to name a few.
The current IRS income tax schedule puts her in the 32-percent bracket, the third-highest rung on the tax ladder.
AOC may be in progressive denial about what constitutes being “rich.” But by almost any measure, someone who makes more than triple the median income in America – about $51,000 a year – should most certainly be counted among the rich.
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