The representative for New York’s 14th District said she couldn’t understand the people who both defend the country’s tax system and question how changes to the health care system and other progressive initiatives could be funded.
Ocasio-Cortez’s comments came in the wake of a report on Trump’s tax returns published by The New York Times Sunday. Trump’s tax returns have long been in question due to his refusal to release them before the 2016 presidential election and in the four years after. Though Trump said in 2014 that he would be open to sharing his tax information with the American public, he has repeatedly said in the years since that he was under audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), an assertion the paper said was due to a tax refund he claimed worth more than $72 million.
In the report, the paper’s investigators said that Trump paid $750 in 2016 and again in 2017 but had 10 years’ worth of tax returns since the turn of the century where he did not pay any income tax due to his business losses. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that the report, which a lawyer for the Trump Organization told The New York Times was inaccurate, revealed a “question of national security” in the midst of a contentious election season.
Ocasio-Cortez has been an advocate for a wide range of progressive legislation since she entered office in early 2019. She supports the Student Debt Cancellation Act of 2019, introduced the Green New Deal early in her first term and is also a vocal supporter of Medicare for All, which proposes cutting health care costs in the U.S. by creating a single-payer system.
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
