AOC unveils anti-poverty bill that gives illegal immigrants access to government benefits and makes ALL urban housing in US rent stabilized
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveils six-bill package known as ‘A Just Society’
- Proposals ‘aim to combat economic inequality and climate change’
- Bronx native says these are ‘greatest threats to our country, democracy, planet’
- House Democrat wants to make apartments nationwide rent controlled
- She also wants to guarantee access to benefits for illegal aliens and ex-convicts
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is promoting a bill that would make all housing units in the country rent stabilized while giving illegal immigrants access to health care and other social welfare services.
The first-term House Democrat from New York this past week rolled out her six-bill proposal that has been given the title ‘A Just Society’.
The set of bills ‘aims to combat the greatest threats to our country, our democracy, and our planet: economic inequality and climate change,’ the Bronx native writes on her web site.
Ocasio-Cortez wants to adjust the federal poverty line so that it takes into account factors like geography, health insurance costs, and modern living essentials which would include internet access.
AOC also wants to cap the amount that landlords can increase rent.
House Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, unveiled a sweeping anti-poverty proposal that includes six bills. She is seen above speaking at a town hall in New York on Thursday
Under her proposal, landlords would only be able to raise rents by a maximum of 3 per cent every year – or in line with the increase in the consumer price index – whichever is greater.
The set of proposed laws would also allow anyone convicted of a crime to gain access to federal poverty programs.
A study by the Brookings Institute found that nearly half of freed former inmates have no reported earnings in the first several years after leaving prison while half of those who do find work earn less than $10,090 a year.
Formerly incarcerated people are also often denied government benefits because they have criminal records, thus perpetuating the cycle of poverty.
‘I think this really starts to approach, head on, economic injustice in America,’ Ocasio-Cortez told The New York Times last week.
‘We are at our richest point that we’ve ever been, but we’ve also been our most unequal.’
Perhaps one of the more controversial elements of her proposal is to grant those without legal status in the United States unfettered access to social services.
‘Notwithstanding any other provision of law … an individual who is an alien (without regard to the immigration status of that alien) may not be denied any Federal public benefit solely on the basis of the individual’s immigration status,’ her proposal reads.
‘A Just Society’ would institute rent control nationwide while granting illegal immigrants and released convicts access to federal benefits
Ocasio-Cortez defines a federal public benefit as ‘any grant, contract, loan, professional license, or commercial license provided by an agency of the United States or by appropriated funds of the United States; and…any retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary education, food assistance, unemployment benefit, or any other similar benefit for which payments or assistance are provided to an individual, household, or family eligibility unit by an agency of the United States or by appropriated funds of the United States.’
AOC acknowledges that there is virtually no chance that any of her proposals could win passage given the current makeup of Congress and the White House.
Still, she doesn’t appear to be deterred.
‘I don’t think there’s any shortage of obstacles that we have ahead of us, but I don’t think that we not do things just because they’re hard,’ she told the Times.
‘In fact, sometimes the hard things to do are the most worthwhile.’