If you liked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, you’ll love her latest proposal: establishing a government-run not-for-profit “public option” for banking services. And the best part is that she wants to model the program on the United States Postal Service (USPS), the least successful government-run business in the history of the cosmos. According to the Associated Press (via the Boston Globe), the USPS ended up in the red for its twelfth straight year in 2018, posted a loss of $3.9 billion.
The former economics major unveiled her novel plan last Thursday during at an economic brainstorming session with fellow socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who proposed the equally brilliant idea of capping credit card interest rates at 15%. Apparently Sanders, who grew up in New York City, learned nothing from its ill-fated experiment raising the minimum wage for restaurant workers to $15 an hour.
Here is Ocasio-Cortez laying out her proposal:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
.@RepAOC "We should have a not-for-profit public option for basic banking services, and we should be piloting these projects through the @USPS" #postalbanking pic.twitter.com/dobyU4hdT2
— Take On Wall St (@TakeOnWallSt) May 9, 2019
One familiar with New York finds it difficult to believe that Ocasio-Cortez, who clings to the myth that she grew up in the “barrio” in the Bronx, is unaware of the plethora of check cashing facilities that blanket that borough and what they connote. Namely, the percentage of low-income households that lack a primary bank account is skewed well above the national average of 6.5%. These people, who would prefer to manage their finances via check cashing stores (for accounts received) and money orders (for accounts payable), have no use for banks, government-run or otherwise.
This past week, Twitter banned an account that parodied Ocasio-Cortez’s antics. Based on her latest innovation, it’s safe to say that the parody account lives.
