Yahoo Finance Ocasio-Cortez should push for rolling back Trump tax cuts instead of a 70% marginal tax, private equity tycoon says
Private equity tycoon Glenn Hutchins, the Chairman of tech-focused investment firm North Island LLC, said he has a suggestion for popular U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
"For instance, I would roll back the Trump tax cuts," Hutchins said in an interview with Yahoo Finance Editor-In-Chief Andy Serwer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "I would try to get tax reform that made the United States globally competitive, and I'd make the tax system fairer. Calling for 70% marginal rates, I think, is not the path toward that real policy reform."
Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old newly-elected congresswoman from New York, has made waves since the start of her term. During a "60 Minutes" interview, she floated the idea of a 70% marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans. This week, she said "system that allows to billionaires to exist" is immoral.
Hutchins understands the political point she's making, but "from a policy perspective it's not realistic." He also said there were some critical tax initiatives she could pursue.
"[If] I was advising her, I would say, 'You know, you could well be five minutes into your fifteen minutes of fame, and what are you going to use that for?" he said.
A former special advisor on economic and health-care policy during the Clinton Administration, Hutchins has called the Trump tax cuts "ill-advised" and a "one-year sugar high."
"The major consequence is going to be about $1.5 trillion debt left for our children to repay and the interest burden of that hanging over our economy, forcing interest rates up," he said.
When asked how he would advise the president, he said he'd explain that borrowing and spending is "a very bad idea."
"[We] should be finding a way to pay for the tax cuts," he said.
Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
