Steve Scalise, House Republican Whip, reads Hot Air. At least that’s my takeaway from a Twitter skirmish he and freshman legislator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got into Saturday night. Scalise referenced a Hot Air piece from Saturday on Twitter as he took AOC to task. The subject was taxes and the responses from AOC’s supporters got ugly quickly. Referencing Ed’s piece about AOC’s idea that soaking the wealthy is a fine idea to fund her pet project, the Green New Deal, Scalise pushed back.

Republicans: Let Americans keep more of their own hard-earned money
Democrats: Take away 70% of your income and give it to leftist fantasy programs https://t.co/NxJPSCqvrt

— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) January 5, 2019

Innocent enough, right? Scalise was making a run-of-the-mill point that Republicans believe taxpayers should keep more of their own money instead of sending it off to the federal government. That is about as basic of a Republican principle as you can get. AOC decided she would respond disrespectfully by calling Scalise ignorant about marginal tax rates. I know.

“Oh that’s right, almost forgot,” the Democratic socialist wrote. “GOP works for the corporate CEOs showering themselves multi-million bonuses; not the actual working people whose wages + healthcare they’re ripping off for profit.”

Bless her heart. The incoming class of socialist freshmen and the far left legislators (like Senator Elizabeth Warren) love to pin the troubles in the world on corporations. They prefer to wage class warfare and support ideas that they think will be more equitable, whatever that means. The corporate CEOs she references answer to corporate stakeholders and Boards of Directors. She studied economics at a tony East Coast college and should know that the tax rates she longs for from back in the day are counterproductive. The high tax rates don’t produce the revenue hoped for, as Ed explained in his piece and never did. Democrat President John F. Kennedy slashed tax rates and the economy greatly benefited.

Yes, as Scalise tweeted, AOC is full of “leftist fantasy programs” and she’s not alone in her thinking. We find ourselves in a battle to push back on a socialist takeover of our economy. The far left, “radicals” as AOC likes to describe herself, believe the problems of working-class people will be solved by more government intervention, whether it is sharply increasing taxes on the wealthy or randomly choosing a dollar amount like $15.00 per hour as a minimum wage for all workers.

AOC’s supporters showed up in replies to Scalise and one immediately took the low road. “Snipe his ass” was the response most offensive that I saw. This is a vulgar reference to the mass shooting at baseball practice with congressional Republicans in Virginia as they prepared for an annual charity game. Scalise was gravely wounded by the shooter and barely survived.

Scalise decided to end the Twitter discussion and let it go at that point. He said he looked forward to the debate on the House floor.

Hi @AOC. Happy to continue this debate on the Floor of the People’s House, but it’s clearly not productive to engage here with some of your radical followers. #StayClassy pic.twitter.com/lZCO3oiLUZ

— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) January 6, 2019

#StayClassy, indeed. AOC’s soak the rich idea is floated during an interview with CNN anchor and 60 Minutes interviewer Anderson Cooper. It can be noted that Steve Scalise sat for his first interview after the shooting with 60 Minutes conducted by Leslie Stahl. Far left politicians should discourage the violent tendencies exhibited in the speech of their supporters and in protests that frequently turn violent. Jumping to violent threats during a disagreement in a policy debate is not the way to go.