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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for a government bailout for New York taxi drivers, emerging as the most prominent voice to back a financial rescue plan for thousands of drivers who were channeled into exploitative loans.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat who said her district in the Bronx and Queens is home to many cabdrivers , jumped into a debate over how to help drivers who were urged to take out loans with high fees, interest-only payments and other one-sided terms. They borrowed the money to buy taxi medallions, the city permit that allowed them to own and operate their cabs.

“This is manufactured financial indentured servitude,” she said during a congressional hearing on lending on Thursday. “And it is wrong. We need to bail out these drivers.”

Two other Democrats from New York, Representatives Nydia Velázquez and Carolyn B. Maloney, also decried the loans in the meeting, the first congressional hearing to address the driver debt crisis since it was revealed by a New York Times series.