15 hours ago
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Draws On Bartending Experience To Slam Trump's Bill
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) delivered on Wednesday a fiery breakdown of how she believes President Donald Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill would actually hurt service workers, drawing on her past experience as a bartender and server.
She argued that the way a popular campaign proposal, 'no tax on tips,' was written in the bill meant it would have a small impact for most tipped service industry workers — and potentially come at the expense of food assistance, health care and other essential government benefits.
The congresswoman spoke for around two minutes on the House floor during a period of debate on the legislation. She began by responding to an insult from Trump.
'He says he doesn't think I'm too much of a smart person,' she said. 'It doesn't take a smart person to know if you're being lied to. President Trump, you're either being lied to, or you're lying to the American people because this bill represents — in the text of this bill — the largest and greatest loss of health care in American history.'
Then she pivoted: 'On this point, on tax on tips, as one of the only people in this body who has lived off of tips, I want to tell you a little bit about the scam of that text, a little bit of the fine print there,' she said.
Ocasio-Cortez worked at a Manhattan restaurant to help her family make ends meet before winning her seat in 2018.
She continued: 'The cap on that is $25,000 while you're jacking up taxes on people who make less than $50,000 across the United States, while taking away their SNAP, while taking away their Medicaid, while kicking them off of the ACA [Affordable Care Act] and their health care extensions. So if you're at home, and you're living off tips, you do the math. Is that worth it to you? Losing all your health care, not being able to feed your babies, not being able to put a diaper on their bottom, in exchange for what?'
An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office found that the bill would likely leave some 16 million Americans uninsured.
'This bill is a deal with the devil,' Ocasio-Cortez said. 'It explodes our national debt. It militarizes our entire economy. And it strips away health care and the basic dignity of the American people for what? To give Elon Musk a tax break?'
'You should be ashamed,' Ocasio-Cortez told her Republican colleagues before walking away from the podium, inspiring a rebuke from House Speaker Pro Tempore Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) about avoiding personal attacks.
An analysis by The New York Times based on an earlier version of the bill — which did not set a cap — found that the Republicans' 'no tax on tips' plan would benefit a narrower category of workers than the slogan implies. The $25,000 limit on the amount of tips that workers can claim in their deductions would shrink the benefits of the policy further.
The broad idea remains popular though, both with elected officials and voters.
With the Senate having very narrowly passed a different version of the 'big, beautiful bill' on Tuesday, the legislation is now back in the House for possible revisions and approval.
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