--- title: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Suggested a 70% Tax Rate on the Rich. These 5 Famous Economists Say It Could Work description: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's suggested a plan that would tax the rich 70%. Here's 5 famous economists say it could work. authors: - name: Sergei Klebnikov url: https://money.com/author/sergei-klebnikov/ at_money_since: 2017 articles: 74 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Education - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Personal Finance - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology former_staff: true published: '2019-01-08T20:30:55.000Z' modified: '2019-01-08T20:30:55.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - economists - income tax - marginal tax rate word_count: 571 canonical: https://money.com/ocasio-cortez-tax-rate-economists/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![190108-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-tax-rate-economists](https://img.money.com/2019/01/190108-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-tax-rate-economists.jpg?crop=0px%2C56px%2C3000px%2C1687px&quality=85) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just proposed a 70% top marginal tax rate for the rich. While critics have been quick to dismiss the prospect, prominent economists – including Nobel-Prize winners – have supported similar ideas in recent years. Ocasio-Cortez, who at age 29 just became the youngest Congresswoman in history, floated the notion in a [*60 Minutes*](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-the-rookie-congresswoman-challenging-the-democratic-establishment-60-minutes-interview-full-transcript-2019-01-06/) interview with Anderson Cooper that was released Friday. She framed it as one possible way to fund her so-called [Green New Deal](https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/21/18144138/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez), an ambitious plan to reduce inequality and eliminate fossil-fuels by 2030. A 70% rate on income over $10 million would only affect less than 1% of households, and could bring in up to $72 billion in taxes per year, according to experts [consulted by the Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/05/ocasio-cortez-wants-higher-taxes-very-rich-americans-heres-how-much-money-could-that-raise/?utm_term=.a8312c3deab1). Many quickly denounced Ocasio-Cortez's plan: Anderson Cooper called it a "radical agenda" and former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said it was “[a terrible idea](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/07/alan-greenspan-thinks-the-ocasio-cortez-70percent-tax-plan-is-a-terrible-idea.html)" that would crimp economic growth. In fact, a 70% marginal tax rate would hardly be unprecedented. In the Eisenhower years, the top U.S. tax rate eclipsed 90% and rates didn't fall below 50% until the Reagan administration. So can a 70% top tax rate work? Here are five top economists who think so: ## **Paul Krugman** In a [*New York Times* op-ed](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-tax-policy-dance.html) published on Saturday, Krugman fleshed out Ocasio-Cortez's tax proposal, calling it "fully in line with serious economic research." He went on to add that: "What we see is that America used to have very high tax rates on the rich — higher even than those AOC is proposing — and did just fine. Since then tax rates have come way down, and if anything the economy has done less well." The Nobel-Prize winner pointed out that high tax rates for the wealthy were routinely applied in “the United States, for 35 years after World War II – including the most successful period of economic growth in our history." ![](https://img.money.com/2019/01/190105krugman1-jumbo-e1546963497323.png) ## **Mark Mazur** A former Treasury Department official who is now a director at the Tax Policy Center, Mazur [spoke to the *Washington Post*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/05/ocasio-cortez-wants-higher-taxes-very-rich-americans-heres-how-much-money-could-that-raise/?utm_term=.a8312c3deab1) about Ocasio-Cortez's tax plan on Saturday. While stopping short of a full endorsement, he said the plan was certainly feasible. “The difficulties of monitoring and compliance are huge,” Mazur admitted, “but it could be done and raise a lot of money.” ## **Peter Diamond** A Nobel laureate, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one of the world’s leading experts on public finance, Diamond has long advocated for a bigger tax rate on high incomes. In a [2012 paper](https://eml.berkeley.edu//~saez/diamond-saezJEP11opttax.pdf) co-authored with Emmanuel Saez from the University of California, Berkeley, Diamond argued for an optimal top tax rate of 73% in the U.S. ## **Christina Romer** The former head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers has called for the ideal top marginal tax rate to be even higher than what Ocasio-Cortez suggests. Drawing upon historical data, the macroeconomist estimated in a [2011 paper](http://ceg.berkeley.edu/research_117_2123314150.pdf) that it should be at more than 80 percent. ## **Thomas Piketty** The prominent French economist [argued in 2013](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/24/1percent-pay-tax-rate-80percent) that higher tax rates on the wealthy would go a long way towards reducing pre-tax inequality. Using data from both the U.S. and U.K., he mapped out how the Reagan/Thatcher revolution drastically cut top income tax rates – and how they have remained at low levels since. “The job of economists should be to make a top rate tax level of 80% at least ‘thinkable’ again,” he wrote. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/ocasio-cortez-tax-rate-economists/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Politics", "item": "https://money.com/politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Suggested a 70% Tax Rate on the Rich. 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