Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Monday it’s “immoral” to allow billionaires to exist in a society where others do not have access to healthcare.
“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 told a reporter Monday at a forum in New York honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
“I don’t think that necessarily means that all billionaires are immoral,” she added. “It is not to say that someone like Bill Gates, for example, or Warren Buffett are immoral people.”
Ocasio-Cortez also said younger generations are worried the world will end in 12 years if climate change is not addressed.
The socialist, who has championed progressive ideas like the “Green New Deal,” has pitched raising taxes on the wealthy in order to fund the proposal.
Younger generations are thinking, “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change, and your biggest issue is how are we going to pay for it? This is our World War II,” she said of climate change.
[Also read: Aaron Sorkin’s call for freshman lawmakers to quit ‘acting like young people’ draws ire from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez]
