CNN Threw Ocasio-Cortez an Easy Question. She Butchered It on National TV
For many on the far-left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents a great new hope.
Ocasio-Cortez is a young, socialist woman whom the far-left seems to have placed all of their anti-Trump hopes into. Even if you disagree with all of her policies, you have to admit, you can at least see why the far-left adores her so much.
And on paper, she certainly hits all the check boxes that the far-left wants in a presumably post-Hillary Clinton world.
Well, except for one slightly important checkbox: She seems to have no idea what she’s actually talking about.
As such, one could assume that Ocasio-Cortez’s most ardent supporters will want her to avoid too much limelight so as not to embarrass herself.
So it should be little surprise that when Ocasio-Cortez appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” morning show on Sunday, she was lobbed some softball questions.
And it worked out great… for her detractors.
CNN host Jake Tapper asked Ocasio-Cortez how she would plan on paying for all of her expensive programs like “free” healthcare for all.
Tapper rightly pointed out that Ocasio-Cortez’s programs would cost around $40 trillion over 10 years. Even left-leaning prognosticators estimate that her programs would only bring in $2 trillion.
Now there are any number of responses Ocasio-Cortez could’ve gone with.
Saving money elsewhere through cuts, promoting other programs meant to boost the economy, or even citing longer-term economic benefits would have all been fine and acceptable answers.
Instead, Ocasio-Cortez once again proved that she generally doesn’t seem to know what she’s talking about when it comes to political and economic issues.
“Right. When you look again at how our health care works, currently we pay — much of these costs go into the private sector. So, what we see, for example, is, you know, a year ago I was working downtown in a restaurant. I went around and I asked how many of you folks have health insurance? Not a single person did. They’re paying — they would have had to pay $200 a month for a payment for insurance that had an $8,000 deductible. What these represent are lower cost overall for these programs,” Ocasio-Cortez said when Tapper asked her about the exorbitant costs of something like Medicare for all.
She didn’t exactly answer the question, but surely, she could do better if she elaborated?
“Additionally, what this is, it’s a broader agenda. We do know and acknowledge that there are political realities. They don’t always happen with just a wave of a wand but we can work to make these things happen. In fact, when you look at the economic activity that it spurs — for example, if you look at my generation, millennials, the amount of economic activity that we do not engage in. The fact that we delay purchasing homes, that we don’t participate in the economy as purchasing cars as fully as fully as possible is a cost. It is an externality, if you will, of unprecedented amount of student loan debt,” she said.
Okay. So we’ve gone from trying to explain how to pay for Medicare for all to talking about the toll massive student debt can have. That seems like a logical connection.
But Ocasio-Cortez’s most baffling statement, which is saying quite a bit, came when she addressed how much Medicare for all would save.
“One of the things we need to realize when we look at something like Medicare for all, Medicare for all would save the American people a very large amount of money. What we see as well is that these systems are not just pie in the sky,” she said.
It seems rather important for any politician or lawmaker to ask themselves, “How will I pay for what I’m proposing?”
Ocasio-Cortez seems to not have given that question any credence.
Last I checked, wishing for the best without giving any forethought is quite literally “pie in the sky.”
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