Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did what she does best now and created another social networking firestorm.
It all started when a Twitter account called Tax March, which apparently advocates for higher taxes, posted a hyperlink to the congresswoman's online merchandise store and complimented a sweatshirt she sells.
The sweatshirt pictured is a plain, black, cotton item emblazoned using the words \”Tax The Rich.\” However the style itself is not what made headlines, rather it was the price tag: a whopping $58.
The usual criticisms poured in quickly.
Never someone to back down from a fight, the congresswoman responded to the criticism on her own Twitter account proclaiming that the merchandise was \”made in the U.S. with dignified, union jobs paying living wages.\”
Republicans are freaking out bc we don’t use slave-wage labor for merch that funds grassroots organizing.
But what’s the difference between Trump’s merch and ours?
Ours is made in the US. 🇺🇸
(& for GOP who joke that we shld give 👕 for free, we actually do – just volunteer 😉) https://t.co/35DnbFYQyC
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 3, 2020
She went on to say that \”Republicans are freaking out because we don't use slave-wage labor for merch that funds grassroots organizing\” and that people could obtain the sweatshirt free of charge if they chose to volunteer on her.
We'll leave the fact that the congresswoman included the word \”slave-wage labor\” in a post that simultaneously required others to work for her for free alone, as we have bigger fish to fry here.
A “Living Wage”
So to summarize, Ocasio-Cortez is selling sweatshirts that say \”Tax The Rich\” at a cost most poor or working class people couldn't reasonably afford. She's making money off of her merchandise that attacks the development of wealth. And her excuse for all of this hypocrisy is that it costs more to buy from whole-sellers who pay a \”living wage\” and employ American labor. There's a lot to unpack here.
While Ocasio-Cortez clearly thinks her choice to employ operations that pay a \”living wage\” is virtuous, it really perfectly portrays how her economic ideas hurt people – particularly the poor.
As the cost for labor increases, so the prices of goods and services.
As almost as much ast Ocasio-Cortez likes to think she's sticking it to the rich by buying from companies that pay their employees a lot more than their fair market value, the truth is she's just passing those increased labor costs onto her supporters.
When companies are forced to pay too much for labor, either because of governmental rules or regulations, they simply bake those costs into the price of their product.
When that method is something as frivolous as a luxury sweatshirt peddling trite socialist slogans, we are able to laugh about it. But Ocasio-Cortez wants to use big government to force these costly business conditions on every industry – meaning the cost of essential goods like food, automobiles, and essential clothing items would all increase. That doesn't uplift struggling people – it spells disaster for the poor.
Real Income
Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk might counter that their mandates would increase peoples' take-home pay, so that they could afford higher prices but still obtain a higher quality of life. However, you'll want to remember that when the price of products or services increases, real wages fall.
We can forgive everyday people for making the kinds of Econ 101 errors that plague this agenda. But as an educated congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has no excuse. We are able to laugh about her expensive sweaters, yet there is nothing funny about the fact that the policies she pushes will make life less affordable for all Americans.