But not excited enough?
Leftists have been quick to remind right-wingers on social media this week that AOC’s proposal of a 70 percent top rate is squarely in line with federal policy under… Dwight Eisenhower. They love pointing to instances years ago when Republican preferences mirrored modern Democrats’; scarcely a day passed during the ObamaCare debate that GOPers weren’t reminded that O-Care was in vogue a decade earlier on the right when it was known as RomneyCare. True, but (a) if we’re holding the other side to the standards of its forebears, there’s a lot that can be said to Democrats about the national debt, entitlements, and defense spending, and (b) in light of the party’s completely predictable shift towards single-payer, maybe the ObamaCare debate has come full circle. Maybe the right should focus more on reminding liberals that they were quite supportive of a policy endorsed and enacted by Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi that left health insurance in the private sector’s hands.
“Preferences change,” the left would say to that. Well, exactly.
Anyway, this clip is as interesting for what isn’t said as what is. It’s true that Harris calls it “fantastic” that AOC floated a big tax hike on the rich — but she never quite gets around to endorsing it, despite the fact that she’ll be running to the left in the 2020 primaries. What she’s trying to do here is simply flatter Ocasio-Cortez, knowing that progressives will appreciate it and hoping that it puts her in contention for AOC’s endorsement. All she says with respect to the actual proposal is some anodyne dreck about how it’s good to challenge the status quo and take a look periodically at old, longstanding policies. The problem with expecting her to break sharply from Reagan-era tax rates, though, is that she has plenty of rich friends whom she’s hoping will help bankroll her campaign who want America to be more socialist but not quite so socialist that another 30 percent of their income is up in smoke every year.
