Jeff Bezos apparently has some time to kill between lavish, decadent, grossly ostentatious public demonstrations of his own wealth and has lowered himself to lecture the unwashed masses:
Amazon Executive Chair Jeff Bezos on Wednesday accused politicians of villainizing the ultra-wealthy and using tax policy as a political wedge issue to distract from bigger challenges facing the country.
“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” Bezos said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani later responded to Bezos’ assessment. “I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ,” he wrote on social media.
Bezos said that while income inequality is a legitimate concern, raising taxes on the rich is not one of the ways to remedy it.
“I think what’s going on is that it’s kind of a tale of two economies — so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling,” he said.
“So what’s happening here is, politicians are using the kind of age old technique ... you know, picking a villain and pointing fingers, but the problem is that doesn’t solve anything,” Bezos said.
“Some people talk about making the tax system more progressive,” he said. “How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes?” It was unclear precisely which taxes Bezos was referring to.
But an estimated 40% of U.S. households did not owe any individual income taxes for the 2024 tax year, according to the Tax Policy Center. This is in line with previous years and other public data.
The bottom 50% of U.S. taxpayers had an average income of only $53,801 per year in 2023, according to recent Tax Foundation data.
Bezos, meanwhile, is the fourth richest person in the world, with a net worth of more than $270 billion.
Tax rates, he told CNBC, are “certainly a perfectly valid policy debate.”
During the CNBC interview in Florida, Bezos repeatedly invoked the finances of New York City, where Mamdani has proved to be a popular foe of billionaires and millionaires since he took office in January.
Bezos lives primarily in Miami, but his companies are headquartered in Washington state.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has raised his national profile in part by championing higher taxes on the wealthy.
Billionaires and high-end real estate agents warned that Mamdani’s victory last year and his policies would drive businesses and the wealthy out of New York City.
But early evidence appears to undermine that prediction.
Media, Republicans and Right wing Democrats already had ample evidence that raising taxes on ultra wealthy people would not cause an exodus from NYC because Massachusetts quietly raised taxes on the ultra wealthy several years ago and the same dire predictions didn’t pan out. So they had a test case. They just decided to pretend the test case didn’t exist in order to undermine Mamdani because they’re dishonest people who never actually argue the merits of anything.
Media, billionaires, Republicans and some moronic fad-following Democrats are now going to pretend that the problem with income inequality is middle class people pay too much in federal income taxes and Bezo’s one neat trick will fix everything.. It’s complete bullshit because as the article states the bottom 40% pay no federal income tax already, but this isn’t a policy argument, it’s lobbying by and behalf of the wealthiest people on the planet.
I expect we’ll see more of these media efforts to soothe the hurt feelings of our coddled billionaires as Mamdani becomes more and more popular and the Left side of the Democratic Party outpaces the Center and Right in public perception and popularity.
I’ll make a deal with Bezos. We double his taxes and see where we are - when we still need more revenue (and we will - Donald Trump has absolutely destroyed the financial health of this country) we can then move on to raising the taxes of the next tranche of the ultra wealthy. We’ll deal with the nurses in Queens after that’s done. Revenue first.
Mamdani scares these assholes not because they’re actually afraid billionaires will flee NYC. Mamdani scares them because he’s on the Left, popular and very, very good at this politics thing.
My youngest couldn’t get a job with his computer science/Spanish degree after graduation last year so drove for Amazon as a 1099 this past winter. They give the 1099 drivers crappy rental vans with after-market interior camera systems installed to (supposedly) do real time monitoring of employees. The drivers quickly learned that no one monitors the cameras - it’s all just a bullshit threat meant to intimidate them out of taking a bathroom break. Jeff Bezos is as concerned with “a nurse in Queens” (or any other working person) as I am with Jeff Bezos, so, not at all.
