Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made a big deal about not being able to afford rent in both New York City and Washington, D.C. She said that, without her $174,000 salary as a Congresswoman, she wouldn't be able to afford two apartments. She even had a celebrity chef offer to let the Congresswoman-elect to stay with his family until she got on her feet.
Fast forward a couple months later and Ocasio-Cortez is now living in luxury apartments in Washington, D.C.'s Navy Yard neighborhood, where rent for a studio apartment exceeds $2,000 a month, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
From the Free Beacon:
Her office pushed back against the notion that it was hypocritical for Ocasio-Cortez, who has made housing affordability one of her top policy concerns, to move into a luxury building. A spokesman pointed out that her office also uses a car with an "internal combustion engine that runs on fossil fuels," even though she thinks their use should be eliminated.
Many sympathized with Ocasio-Cortez's stated difficulty with finding an apartment in D.C., where rents have been on the rise in recent years. Affording a second residence in the capital has proven to be a challenge for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, with some choosing to live together with colleagues or to bunk up in their congressional office as cost-saving measures.
According to the Free Beacon's report, AOC's father purchased her apartment building in 1986. She has reportedly lived in that apartment since 2011, when she graduated from Boston University.
Records show the apartment building's mortgage was paid off in 2007 and AOC's father passed away in 2008. Despite what Ocasio-Cortez has said, she wasn't responsible for paying a mortgage. She was only responsible for paying monthly home-owner association fees and property taxes, something her office says costs the Congresswoman between $750 and $1,000 a month.
During her campaign, AOC frequently said she had to have multiple waitressing jobs in order to keep her family's apartment in the Bronx from being foreclosed upon. She also failed to mention that before her father passed away, he purchased a second home in Westchester. The Congresswoman also said her mother was forced to move to Florida because she could no longer afford to live in New York City.
The confusion was caused by Ocasio-Cortez, who avoided mentioning, before it was revealed by the Daily Mail, that her father had purchased a second residence—a three-bedroom home about 30 miles north of New York City in Westchester—where she moved as a young child.
Three days before the Daily Mail report, Ocasio-Cortez had made it seem in an interview with The Intercept that the Westchester home her mother lived in was in New York City.
"With my family we sold my childhood home," Ocasio-Cortez said. "My mother was forced to move to Florida because she could no longer afford to live in New York City, remain in New York City."
Things like this are what make average Americans angry. This is why so many are apathetic and feel jaded about politics. There have been far too many times when Americans think they found a politician who they can relate to and then it turns out her or she was lying. And their motivation was simple: they wanted to win an election.
If AOC wants to live in luxury apartments, fine. But do us all a favor and stop preaching to everyone else about how we should spend our hard earned money, especially when you're not willing to put your own money where your mouth is.