Like her good friend Muslim congressman Ilhan Omar, socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is struggling to understand how the federal government actually works. She demonstrated this Friday by touting her willingness to pay her staffers what she calls a “living wage.”
“Leadership starts with our choices. That’s why I decided that no one on my staff will make less than $52k/year. It’s likely one of the highest entry-level salaries on the Hill. We pinch pennies elsewhere, but it’s worth every dime to pay a living wage,” she proudly boasted on Twitter.
Leadership starts with our choices.
That’s why I decided that no one on my staff will make less than $52k/year.
It’s likely one of the highest entry-level salaries on the Hill. We pinch pennies elsewhere, but it’s worth every dime to pay a living wage.https://t.co/IxfNH4632h
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 23, 2019
AOC is among the far-left Democrats who believe the minimum wage needs to be skyrocketed so as to ensure every cashier, every burger wrapper and every fry cooker can afford to live as nicely as she does.
This week she reportedly instituted an office-wide policy that boosted every one of her staffer’s salaries to no less than $52,000. She thinks this boost makes her immune to accusations of hypocrisy.
She thinks wrong. She thinks very wrong. How so? Because she’s not the one funding her staffers’ salaries, as noted by outspoken conservative commentator Dan Bongino:
She’s NOT paying this “living wage,” YOU are. Does she really believe her own nonsense? https://t.co/tW1WskOCqf
— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) February 23, 2019
Correct. The American people are the ones funding her staffers’ salaries and thus their newfound raise.
So if anything, her latest move makes her look like even more of a hypocrite, especially in light of her own luxurious $174,000/year salary and her reportedly poor-people-free apartment.
Our taxes pay her staff, she doesn’t. She makes $174,000 a year (again tax dollars). She has a luxury apartment in DC. Why doesn’t she take some of her personal money to pay her staff increased salaries. I mean, not very socialist of her to not spread it out evenly. No? ?
— DroMoney (@Dro_Money21) February 23, 2019
The underlying argument against AOC is that it’s easy to live by socialist principles when you use other people’s money to pay for your socialist expenditures. It’s much harder to use your own money.
Were Ocasio-Cortez a business owner — versus a congresswoman whose every office expense is funded entirely by the government — she’d not be as generous with her money. And that’s a fact proven by her own past behavior.
During her stint as a bartender prior to running for Congress, she tried to stiff waitresses of their tips.
“[O]ne waitress has a bad memory of working with Ocasio-Cortez, 28, as Ocasio-Cortez tended bar during the very busy Cinco de Mayo celebration in 2017,” Page Six reported last summer.
“At the end of the night, when it came time to split the $560 in tips she had gotten at the bar, Ocasio-Cortez gave the waitress only $50. After the waitress complained to her manager, her take was doubled to $100, a source said.”
“It says so much about her character. From that point on, I wouldn’t talk to her. I couldn’t look at her,” the source reportedly said.
Hypocrisy much?
It’s not her first bout of hypocrisy, nor will it be her last. Her entire agenda reeks of hypocrisy, from her widely panned “Green New Deal” to the way she first lectured other members of Congress about why they shouldn’t accept a salary during the government shutdown, but then turned around and kept accepting her own salary.
The latest hypocrisy revolves around her self-created image of a people’s champ who’s never accepted money from PACs or super PACs. That too has turned out to be a lie.
And in regard to the GND, which calls for banning air travel, combustion-engine vehicles, nuclear energy, fossil fuel energy, meat and cow farts to stave off imminent doom, social media users are curious why — if she really believes the world’s about to end — she’s not implementing any of these changes in her own office?
If @AOC really wanted to lead from the front, her and her staff would implement socialism at the office, stop eating beef, pay higher taxes, and share paychecks, even with staff unwilling to work, by investing amazon tax breaks! “Wait, this sounds dumb”…yeah it does ?
— Dsbrego41 (@MichaelAbrego10) February 23, 2019
Just like her mentor, Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, AOC never lives by the stipulations that she seeks to impose on others.
The young congresswoman has tried to deflect the latest criticism against her by claiming it’s others who don’t have a clue how things work:
A lot of people commenting don’t know how Congressional salaries work.
Each member is given a set amount that they disburse. GOP has refused to increase budgets in years to give hard-working staff a raise, which means people helping to run the country are getting paid $30k/year.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 23, 2019
It’s pretty sad that people think low Congressional staff pay is a good thing.
Low pay a big reason why money in politics is a problem – you can make a lot more money becoming a lobbyist & setting up a relationship w/ one, since the actual job doesn’t pay enough.
Domino effect.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 23, 2019
But what she wrote proves nothing:
Actually you do not know how Congressional salaries work. We pay them not you.
— Carmine Sabia (@CarmineSabia) February 23, 2019
I think what most people are contending is that YOU are not giving them a raise, WE are. Like a typical socialist you are spending other people’s money on other people and want a trophy for it. Interns get into politics knowing it leads to lucrative jobs like lobbying so, yea.
— Beckycanismash (@beckycanismash) February 23, 2019
You really should step down and go back to school and then run again! This is pathetic. You have no idea of how things work. Where in the world did you think that money from the Amazon deal was coming from? Did you not understand that it was coming from jobs and new taxes???
— jwsetters (@jwsetters1) February 23, 2019
Not that there’s a point in trying to explain this to her, since it’s clear she’s not interested in listening and learning.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.
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