Ocasio-Cortez challenges Nancy Pelosi by opposing her 'dark political maneuver'

Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y) lit into what she called a "dark political maneuver" by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a tweet that challenged the likely next Speaker of the House.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted against "paygo" which is a policy meant to keep government spending far too much by instituting revenue increases to offset any new spending, or "pay as you go."

Ocasio-Cortez agreed with fellow member of Congress Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) who tweeted against the policy Pelosi was supporting in order to rein in members of her own party.

"Tomorrow I will also vote No on the rules package, which is trying to slip in #PAYGO. PAYGO isn't only bad economics, as @RoKhanna explains," she tweeted, "it's also a dark political maneuver designed to hamstring progress on healthcare+other leg."

"We shouldn't hinder ourselves from the start," Ocasio-Cortez concluded.

She added a link to Khanna's objection.

"I will be voting NO on the Rules package with #PayGo. It is terrible economics," Khanna tweeted.

"The austerians were wrong about the Great Recession and Great Depression," he added. "At some point, politicians need to learn from mistakes and read economic history."

The anti-paygo faction also received ample support from Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a tweet Wednesday.

"At a time when climate change threatens our planet, when our infrastructure is crumbling, when 30 million people have no health insurance, I'm concerned that the concept of PAYGO will make it harder for Congress to address the many crises facing our working families," he said in the social media missive.

Ocasio-Cortez, who identifies as a Socialist Democrat, has been a thorn in the side of the Democratic establishment since she stunned the political world by defeating a Democratic party boss in a primary for a U.S. House seat from New York.

Other members of the Democratic party have criticized the upstart politician, most recently the outgoing Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, who warned Democrats from tying themselves to the "bright shiny new object."

"I hope she also realizes that the parts of the country that are rejecting the Democratic Party," McCaskill said, "like a whole lot of white working class voters, need to hear about how their work is going to be respected, and the dignity of their jobs, and how we can really stick to issues that we can actually accomplish something on."