Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, who is challenging lefty firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the June 23 Democratic primary, has championed free-market and limited-government policies that might resonate more with Republicans than the liberal voters she needs to win over in the Queens-Bronx district.
Caruso-Cabrera, the former CNBC anchor running to unseat AOC in the 14th Congressional District Democratic primary, laid out her policy positions in her 2010 book, “You Know I’m Right. More Prosperity, Less Government.”
The foreword was written by Larry Kudlow, now President Trump’s top economic adviser as head of the National Economic Council and a former fellow CNBC anchor.
One of the people she dedicated her book to was free-market guru Milton Friedman.
In the book, Caruso-Cabrera said she wanted to “get rid of” Social Security and Medicare and abolish the federal departments of Commerce, Education, Energy and Labor.
“I might sound like a broken record but we need to shrink, shrink and shrink government. It’s too big, and so is the budget — overwhelmingly huge,” Caruso-Cabrera said.
“Want to know where I’d cut first. It’s time to take on that third rail of politics. It may not be popular to say it, but I am going to do it anyway. Let’s get rid of Social Security and Medicare altogether,” she said.
She said “ending” Social Security and creating personal savings accounts would lead people to work longer.
Caruso-Cabrera talked up converting Medicare into a corporate-type 401(k) plan.
Public-sector unions come under withering criticism in the Caruso-Cabrera book for “choking our state and local governments” with “overly generous benefits that those in the private sector can only dream about” because unions have “overwhelming influence on our political process.”
“Government workers should not be allowed to unionize at all,” she said.
She criticized the public school system as a “monopoly,” adding, “There is no competition among schools. There is no incentive or reward for high-quality programs and teachers. There is one undeniable fact about monopolies: they harm the public.“
Caruso-Cabrera said she had more faith in parents to make decisions about their kids’ education than the government. She endorsed school vouchers giving taxpayer dollars directly to parents, who can then determine which schools they want to enroll their child in — private, parochial or public.
She backs publicly funded charter schools as an option for kids and supports expansion of for-profit schools.
Caruso-Cabrera also wrote that the Security and Exchange Commission should be abolished and argued for the legalization of insider trading, saying: “prohibitions on insider trading are akin to price controls. If insiders were able to buy and sell, a stock would move quickly to the price that most accurately represents its true economic fundamentals.”
“The SEC is supposed to protect us against things like insider trading, right? So while we’re getting rid of the SEC let’s just make insider trading legal,” Caruso-Cabrera said.
The Ocasio-Cortez campaign declined comment when asked about Caruso-Cabrera’s more conservative views.
In a statement, Caruso-Cabrera walked back her position in the book to “get rid of” Social Security and Medicare.
“Let me be clear I support Medicare and Social Security. Without reservation. Throughout this campaign voters have heard where I stand on saving Medicare and Social Security, that our seniors have counted on,” Caruso-Cabrera said.
“I believe in fighting for unions who have negotiated for their health care and given up other rights. And government must work for the people especially today,” she said.
She turned her fire on AOC. “Desperate tax cheat AOC voted against New York 2 weeks ago. Now AOC is using decade old material to smear an opponent. Polarizer, divisive. That’s AOC. She voted against health care and jobs for Queens and the Bronx as the only Democratic member of Congress to vote against the first stimulus bill.
“AOC wants to take health care from unions and voted to take money from NY’ers when she voted with Donald Trump to eliminate the deduction for state and local taxes raising taxes on middle class people, all the while owing New York state thousands of dollars in back taxes for a failed business venture.”