O’Rourke accuses Warren of being ‘punitive’ in proposals

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) sparred with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) over her proposed “wealth tax” to pay for her sweeping policy proposals at the Democratic presidential debate in Ohio on Tuesday night, calling her proposed policies “punitive.”

O’Rourke, one of several candidates to question Warren’s and Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) more liberal proposals, which include “Medicare for All” and a tax on the wealthiest Americans, said Warren “sometimes … is more focused on being punitive or pitting one part of the country against the other instead of lifting people up.”

{mosads}“I’m really shocked than anyone thinks I’m punitive. I don’t have a beef with billionaires,” Warren responded. 

O’Rourke was one of several candidates to accuse Warren of promoting policies too far to the left, with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and entrepreneur Andrew Yang also sparring with her on economic and health care issues.

“Medicare for All is the gold standard,” Warren said, adding, “I will not embrace a plan like Medicare for all who can afford it.”

Warren, who has been surging in recent polls, found herself the target of aggressive rhetoric from her fellow White House hopefuls on Tuesday night.