Ocasio-Cortez Slams Fox News Guest Who Called Her a ‘Little Girl’

Republican political strategist and campaign consultant Ed Rollins was on the Fox Business News program hosted by Lou Dobbs and stuck his sexist foot in his mouth as he attacked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). The ancient right-wing operative dismissively referred to the 29-year-old Congresswoman as “the little girl” with a big “mouth.” It didn’t take long for the brilliant Ocasio-Cortez to fire back with a zinger that may go down in history as one of the all-time great comebacks.

In her response on Twitter she called Rollins a “walking argument” for a 100 percent tax on misogyny.

“GOP loves to insult my intelligence, yet offers *this* as their best + most seasoned opposition to my policy proposals.
If anything, this dude is a walking argument to tax misogyny at 100%
Republicans rob everyone the opportunity of real policy debate by resorting to this.”

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Ocasio-Cortez has already attracted a great deal of very aggressive media attention among the incoming freshman class of new representatives. She is young and attractive and very outspoken about her Democratic Socialist principles. This has brought positive reactions from her admiring supporters but at the same time has brought very  negative attacks from her sexist, ageist and conservative right-wing opponents.

Rollins started the firestorm when he told Dobbs on Friday:

“If you’re going to put her out front with her mouth … the little girl who wants pre-Reagan economics of 70 percent taxes, the Democratic women are basically going to be damaged.”

Ocasio-Cortez made a good point in her tweet when she said that such attacks on women are apparently the best argument Republicans have in policy debates. If all they can do is attack her age and sex they are going to lose those debates.

Ocasio-Cortez attracted much media attention last week after she suggested a 70 percent marginal tax rate for income above a certain level for the ultra wealthy in order to fund programs to battle climate change.

It turns out that Ocasio-Cortez may know more about tax policy than she’s given credit for, as her proposal received favorable comments from Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman.

In fact Krugman published an opinion piece Saturday in The New York Times saying that a similar tax rate was imposed in the U.S. for 35 years after World War II, which included some of the “most successful periods of economic growth in history.”

Tax cuts for the ultra wealthy don’t mean as much to them as they do to people with lower incomes, Krugman said. Giving extra money to millions of consumers will boost spending and the economy. But giving extra money to the super rich won’t help much since they just hoard their money, usually in offshore tax havens.

“A policy that makes the rich a bit poorer will affect only a handful of people, and will barely affect their life satisfaction, since they will still be able to buy whatever they want,” Krugman wrote.

Another Nobel economics laureate Peter Diamond who Krugman called “arguably the world’s leading expert in public finance,” calculated the optimum top tax rate at 73 percent. Other top experts on tax and economic policy have supported that assertion.

So, Krugman wrote, Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal “far from showing her craziness, is fully in line with serious economic research. But Republican policy to keep taxes on the wealthy low, on the other hand, rests on research by … well, nobody.”

Krugman’s concluded by saying that Ocasio-Cortez “definitely knows more economics than almost everyone in the GOP caucus.”

Republicans keep making the mistake of underestimating Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is proving that she is both very smart and very talented at playing the political game. She has also stepped forward as perhaps the leading voice in Congress for progressive ideals. Her political career has just began, but it appears that it may last a very long time, and it may lead her to heights that seemed unimaginable just a short time ago.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.