Billionaire Mark Cuban went after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying she seeks attention with bad economic opinions.
“I don’t always agree with her,” the Dallas Mavericks owner said about the New York Democrat’s comments criticizing billionaires. Her comments were “headline porn,” he told Yahoo News in an interview Friday.
“I do think that 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 said in January. She followed her statement saying that did not mean every billionaire was necessarily immoral.
Cuban went on to refer to Ocasio-Cortez’s economic policies as “trickle down taxation.” Ocasio-Cortez has proposed a 70% tax rate for all individual income over $10 million.
“The concept that just tax those who have a whole lot more, then all of a sudden, it’ll find its way to those who need it,” he said. “Doesn’t work, hasn’t worked, won’t work.”
Despite his criticism, Cuban added that he thought income inequality needs to be addressed.
“That doesn’t mean that there’s not an income inequality problem,” said Cuban. “There is, and it’s something we have to deal with.”
Cuban has teased the possibility of a 2020 presidential run. In May, he said “we’ll see” about the possibility and indicated he would run as an independent if he decided to go for it.
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