Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said on Monday that a world that allows billionaires is immoral.
At a Martin Luther King forum in New York City, the Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates asked the New York progressive Democrat if a “world that allows for billionaires” is “a moral outcome.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez responded.
The New York congresswoman then said that not all billionaires, such as “Bill Gates, for example, or Warren Buffett are immoral people.”
“I’m not saying that, but I do think a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don’t have access to public health is wrong,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
“I think that it’s wrong that a vast majority of the country does not make a living great wage,” the New York lawmaker continued. “I think it’s wrong that you can work 100 hours and not feed your kids. I think it’s wrong that corporations like Walmart and Amazon can get paid.”
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez also inflamed controversy on Monday when she said that the world will end if everyone does not address “climate change.” She used this rhetoric to push her new “Green New Deal” to confront climate change.
Ocasio-Cortez said, “I think that the part of it that is generational is that millennials and Gen-Z and all these folks that come after us are looking up and we’re like, ‘The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.'” She added, “And your biggest issue is–your biggest issue is, ‘How are we going to pay for it?’ And, like, this is the war; this is our World War II.”