Marc Thiessen: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an economic illiterate -- And that's bad news for America
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The left complains that conservatives are "obsessing" over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez . Well, there is a reason for that: Ocasio-Cortez is driving the agenda of today's Democratic Party -- and her economic illiteracy is dangerous.
Case in point: Last week, Ocasio-Cortez celebrated the tanking of a deal negotiated by her fellow Democrats in which Amazon promised to build a new headquarters in Long Island City, New York, right next to her congressional district. Amazon's departure cost the city between 25,000 and 40,000 new jobs. Forget the tech workers whom Amazon would have employed. Gone are all the unionized construction jobs to build the headquarters, as well as thousands of jobs created by all the small businesses -- restaurants, bodegas, dry cleaners and food carts -- that were preparing to open or expand to serve Amazon employees. They are devastated by Amazon's withdrawal.
Ocasio-Cortez was not disturbed at all. "We were subsidizing those jobs," she said. "Frankly, if we were willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district, ourselves, if we wanted to. We could hire out more teachers. We can fix our subways. We can put a lot of people to work for that amount of money if we wanted to."
No, you can't. Ocasio-Cortez does not seem to realize that New York does not have $3 billion in cash sitting around waiting to be spent on her socialist dreams. The subsidies to Amazon were tax incentives, not cash payouts. It is Amazon's money, which New York agreed to make tax-exempt, so the company would invest it in building its new headquarters, hiring new workers and generating tens of billions in new tax revenue.
As New York Mayor Bill de Blasio explained, the Amazon deal would have produced "$27 billion in new tax revenue to fuel priorities from transit to affordable housing -- a nine-fold return on the taxes the city and state were prepared to forgo to win the headquarters." Unlike Ocasio-Cortez's imaginary $3 billion slush fund, that is real money that actually could have been used to hire teachers, fix subways and put people to work. With Amazon leaving New York, that $27 billion leaves with it. Genius.
Sadly, Ocasio-Cortez doesn't learn from her mistakes. She made the same kind of error in December when she tweeted, "$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions 'could not be traced, documented, or explained.' $21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon." But, as Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood told The Post, "DoD hasn't received $21 trillion in (nominal) appropriated funding across the entirety of American history." Once again, Ocasio-Cortez did not grasp that the Pentagon did not have a magic pile of $21 trillion in cash sitting in a vault somewhere.
Her economic illiteracy matters because she is the principal author of the Green New Deal, which has been endorsed by most of the leading Democratic candidates for president. From this unschooled mind has sprung the most ambitious plan for government intervention in the economy since Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's train pulled into Petrograd's Finland Station.
If Ocasio-Cortez doesn't understand how tax subsidies work, how can she be trusted to plan the federal takeover of the health-care, energy and transportation sectors of our economy? Think she and her allies have any idea how to, as her now infamous talking points put it, upgrade or replace "every building in America" ... or replace "every combustible-engine vehicle" ... or connect every corner of America with high-speed rail ... or replace all fossil-fuel energy with alternative energy sources -- all in 10 years' time? Apparently, they think we just have to find all the magic pots of cash the government is hiding.
Marc Thiessen is a columnist at The Washington Post, a Fox News contributor and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Thiessen served as chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush and to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
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I don't think it's particularly bad news for America. I don't think her outrageous ideas are going to gain much traction ... they simply don't make sense. She thought she should be appointed to committees despite her lack of experience and her lack of practicality, but that didn't happen.
I do wish she'd just shut up, sit back, and spend some time learning. Maybe a few economics classes?
I'm not 100% positive, but I think she was put on the Foreign Relations Committee. Stunning, because she's shown that she doesn't know much about the topic.
Some congresspeople have already suggested that she do this.
She graduated 4th in her Boston U class with degrees in Economics and International Relations. Seems like she slept through those classes.
nahhhhhhh let her keep doing what she is doing... LOL
that chick is a god send for the right.
cheers
I just checked, you're correct. At least she wasn't given any leadership roles as she wanted! Not to disparage all millennials, but it's ridiculous to expect leadership roles without the necessary experience.
"She graduated 4th in her Boston U class with degrees in Economics and International Relations. Seems like she slept through those classes."
Holy crap. I haven't had formal economics education, and I'm apparently far more knowledgeable about it than she is.
Ditto!
Some people on the Left claim that the Right is petrified of her. If anything, all I've seen from the Right is them laughing at her utter stupidity.
The Amazon deal was economically stupid.
Amazon is a distributor for factories located in communist and socialist countries. Amazon does not create jobs; Amazon transfers jobs from the industrial sector to the retail sector.
The sweetheart Amazon deal shifted the tax burden onto workers and away from Amazon. Amazon wasn't going to contribute to building and maintaining infrastructure the business needed to operate. The argument is that Amazon would have brought 35,000 jobs to New York and those workers would pay taxes. But New York didn't need Amazon to bring those jobs to the city.
So what other business, or in this businesses, are chomping at the bit to replace Amazon? The Dems that brokered the deal, and businesses in the area that were going to come in, or expand, to cover the workers are really upset over the lost deal.
Part of the problem is the belief that one company is needed. NYC could have provided the same incentives to small business startups that had potential to grow and potential to create more jobs and tax revenue than Amazon would provide.
A $300 million/yr incentive doesn't mean much for a business as large as Amazon. The purpose of demanding that incentive is to prevent the city from providing incentives to other businesses.
NYC could have provided incentives of $1 million/yr for 3 years to 300 start up businesses. Over 10 years that would be 900 new businesses.
Those 900 new businesses would have been spread throughout the city. The new businesses would have supported the existing commercial property market. The city would have avoided the congestion and cost of providing infrastructure for commuters travelling into a small centralized area. Maintenance of existing infrastructure throughout the city would have been adequate and improved maintenance would have benefited existing businesses.
Attracting a single large business carries higher cost for the city than would attracting a larger number of small businesses.
With the failure rate of start-up small businesses, do you really think it would be prudent to offer tax breaks to them, and when small businesses typically have very few employees? And how long would it take a bunch of small business startups to get to the point they would collectively employ at least 25 thousand people?
Can you provide any evidence that Amazon demanded or even asked any city for breaks?
I question the intelligence of the writer. She is just a cog which needs a little repair. People have to remember that the Post is a highly bias paper and is greatly in to squing the story to please the right.
It is rather comical to watch the right lies and misrepresent the Green New Deal, but whatever floats your canoe
I see that you haven't bothered reading about it Wally. Here's a link for you.
Green New Deal
Which part do you disagree with??
Please consider commenting on the seeded topic, Don. Thiessen and WaPo are not the topics. Only warning.
Why did you omit:
It's gonna be damn tough to travel from San Fran to Tokyo or NYC to London on a train... or if we drive our electric cars across those oceans, will the socialist nanny state also be providing thousands of charging stations, hotels, restaurants, and rest stops on those non-existent highways?
A Little ?
REALLY ?
In comment 1.2 , Don veered off topic and was trying to demean Marc Thiessen, the author of the article. He even called Marc a "she".
Detroit was their testing grounds.
One can only pray that both sides if the aisle will use common sense and do their best to marginalize AOC to the extent that she can do no real damage. We have enough of that going in DC already as it is.
I'm fairly confident that they will. Not that I generally trust them to do the right thing
[deleted]
Agreed.
[deleted] Trump with all his lies and racism? I would like how you can ignore all his verbridge and still stay with him
I cannot speak for Dean, but I in no way support or "idolize" Trump in any way. I do not like him bery much and did not even vote for him. I voted 3rd party. I just disliked HRC more than Trump. I invite you to show or post anything that says I have ever done so. I await your response...
I sure wish the GOP would come up with some decent candidates to challenge Trump in the primary. But the RNC is doing everything they can to make that impossible. South Carolina may even disenfranchise their voters by cancelling the GOP primary if there are any contenders.
With all the crap the DNC caught over clearly pushing Hillary over Bernie, this is much worse IMO. If they think Trump is such a great president, why are they so scared?
Why are they so against having a candidate that people outside of Trump's base might support, someone who would be much more competent, ethical, and grown up? Why don't they want the voters to be able to make up their own minds?
Political parties suck.
Wally, you've been given LOTS of examples, you just ignore them. Here are a few more.
Racism:
Lies:
Now we all know you will ignore all these examples, but the question is whether you are going to cut and run like you do so much of the time.
None so blind as those that will not/cannot see
I agree. I myself am neither Republican nor Democrat. I am a registered Independent who is right leaning conservative. I also sincerely hope the GOP can field somebody that can help undo some of the the damage that Trump has caused. I am not holding my breath at this point.
No answer. What a surprise...
I did not want to get too many viruses on my computer, but I did look at one of your links...the one about 10 times Trump's comments have been called racist. Called racist by who? Only leftist snowflakes.
The first thing that jumped out at me was that it was from the USA Today, just another in a large pile of "We hate Trump" publications. This one is no different than the others.
Every one of the things that the OPINION writer posted were nothing more than Opinion, and not very good ones at that. None of what he said was racist. The only thing that may have been anywhere close was the one about the judge.
The rest were nothing more than snowflakery and TDS at it's finest.
Better luck next time.
Can't address the message, so just attacking the messenger huh? How about this, then.
All False statements involving Donald Trump
Select one that you feel is a lie, and we'll discuss it.
All comments about Donald Trump will be flagged off topic, so don't even try. If you don't understand why, please consider reading the seeded article.
More drivel against Ocasio Cortez from the "Mexico will pay for the wall" and "I've got the biggest brain" crowd.
Conservative's greatest fear is the chance that taxpayers will get benefits from their tax dollars instead of those who do not need it or deserve it.
Why is the far right scared shitless by a 29 year old first term congresswoman?
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You've made this claim multiple times, JBB, but have never been able to prove it. Would you like to try? I'll give you the opportunity.
For one thing; It is possible the right wing conservative bloc simply abhor an electorate that can sleep at night without 'the fear of bankruptcy' because someone in their family got sick or injured---in other words, protections from the Insurance Cartels.
And I don't see you proving why you are so scared of her. Please explain
Perhaps you should list, specifically, which of her ideas you feel are "wacky"?
I have never exhibited fear of AOC, Don, so it's ridiculous for you to claim that I need to prove that I fear her.
Second warning: I am not the topic of this seed. Comment on the seeded topic.
They keep confusing glee with being scared shitless.
AOC is the every best thing to happen to the GOP since DWS was named head of the DNC.
And I hope AOC rises quickly to power in the Democratic Party.
I really do!
Have you ever noticed that when people ask them to give examples of this mysterious "scared shitless" thing they fantacize about, they never answer?
True!
I think that she scares the shit out of sane Democrats. They know she is way too far left for many mainstream Americans. And they can see how AOC will be a politician's dream source for political ads, what with the stupid falling out of her mouth so often. But Democrats', like Republicans, have misread the public before. Democrats may choose to elevate AOC. And if they do, and what with most "leading" Democrats on record supporting the Green New Deal, the GOP will tie those people to her and it will be like an anvil for those candidates.
Mexico and the wall have nothing to do with my seeded topic. Do not derail my seeds again. Only warning.
let's be fair here... it is not just AOC who is guilty of this. all socialists fit that description.
I wouldn't tout the sweetheart deal provided Amazon as an example of economic acumen. Ocasio-Cortez may or may not be economically illiterate. But whoever put together the deal with Amazon can only be described as economically stupid.
Any economist celebrating the Amazon give-away should have their credibility questioned.
The 'air-head' statements made by this woman are entertaining...not because she believes what she says, but because many others believe what she says as well. People stand right beside her and applaud her stupidity and defend her ignorance.
Calling her the progressive Palin is an insult to Palin.
It's scary to think she's in Congress.
AOC says NYC didn't need those jobs because unemployment in NY is low because everyone works two or three jobs!
Nothing like voting for a "Rydell High" Alum.