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“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” argued billionaire Jeff Bezos on CNBC’s Squawk Box this week. “What’s happening here is politicians are using the kind of age-old technique … picking a villain and pointing fingers. But the problem is that doesn’t solve anything.”
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Bezos didn’t say their names directly, but this was clearly a shot at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, all of whom have called on millionaires and billionaires to “pay their fair share.” It’s a rich argument considering that the top 10% of earners already pay 71% of total federal tax revenue. But to Bezos’s point, a villain is needed in order to push their agenda: Government good. Spending good. Spending cuts bad.
In 2019, AOC successfully convinced Amazon not to build a massive headquarters near her district in Queens. Such a hub would have created 25,000 jobs with an average salary of $150,000, with overall wages totaling $4 billion. Over a 10-year span, approximately $27 billion in taxes would have been collected. In order to entice Bezos, then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered $3 billion in tax breaks. Do the math: $3 billion in tax breaks but $27 billion in new tax revenue. It was a no-brainer to everyone except the congresswoman.
“Today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers and their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation and the power of the richest man in the world,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter in 2019.
“If we were willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves, if we wanted to,” she said. “We could hire out more teachers. We can fix our subways. We can put a lot of people to work for that money, if we wanted to.”
Apparently, she doesn’t understand even the most basic economics. Seven years later, New York City has only seen its teacher shortage grow, with 2,500 fewer teachers than it had in 2019, according to the Independent Budget Office. Subways have only gotten worse in terms of service and violent crime. In other words, she killed the deal and has done virtually nothing to improve the lives of those who live in her district since. Absent from taking responsibility, of course, AOC blames the villains, the billionaires, all while flying on private jets during her Fight the Oligarchy tour.
She also recently claimed the only way billionaires can become billionaires is by victimizing other people.
“You can’t earn a billion dollars,” she said in a recent podcast interview. “You can get market power. You can break rules. You can do all sorts of things. You can abuse labor laws. You can pay people less than what they’re worth.”
Bezos, who employs more than 1.57 million employees worldwide with an average salary of more than $80,000, took issue with AOC’s claim.
“The way you make $1 billion, or $100 million or $10 million or anything, is you create a service that people love, and if millions of people choose your service, you’re going to end up with a billion dollars,” he said.
And he’s right: Look at what Amazon has created. You can get almost any product delivered to your home for free in hours, saving time and money. It’s arguably the most revolutionary company of the 21st century.
So did Bezos earn the billions he’s made at Amazon? Yes.
Does he pay billions in taxes each year? Yes.
Does he employ more people than the populations of New Orleans, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Minneapolis combined? Yes.
So not only is Bezos himself earning his salary and then some, he’s making the world better through employment opportunities and services people love.
Last month, Mamdani found his villain in the form of Citadel CEO Ken Griffin. In a video that went viral for all the wrong reasons, Mamdani bragged about his plan to raise taxes on Griffin and other job creators who own property in the city while standing in front of Griffin’s penthouse.
Of course, if the mayor did any homework, he would see that Griffin famously picked up Citadel in Chicago and moved it to Miami, citing crime around the company headquarters and the tax advantages of Florida, which has no state income tax. Upon seeing Mamdani’s declaration, which Griffin called “creepy” and “frightening,” he announced he was rethinking building a $6 billion hub that would create 6,000 highly paid construction jobs and 15,000 permanent jobs in midtown New York.
“The mayor of New York has made clear to my partners and principally my New York partners that we need to double down on our bet in Miami because we want to be in a state that embraces business, that embraces education, that embraces personal freedom and liberty, and that embraces people having an opportunity to live the American dream and a dream of earned success, not a dream of redistributive handouts that leaves people dependent on government for their lives,” Griffin said earlier this month.
In the end, raising taxes and more government spending do not equate to bettering the lives of state or city residents: it is how that money is allocated and managed.
Take a look at Florida and New York. Florida’s population is currently 23.46 million, having exploded in the past decade as the state has become more red. New York’s population is approximately 20 million, down from the past decade. But despite having a larger population, Florida’s fiscal 26-27 budget is $117.4 billion, while New York’s is far more than double that at $260 billion.
Now, what is the return on investment? According to U.S. News and World Report, Florida’s economy is ranked No. 1. Its education system is ranked No. 2. Conversely, New York’s economy is ranked No. 41 and its education system is No. 17.
Any questions?
“[New York] spends $44,000 per student, $44,000. That’s 30% more per student than other big cities like Chicago, L.A., and Boston,” Bezos noted during his CNBC interview. “And it’s three times more than Miami and Houston. And by the way, New York City doesn’t get better outcomes. … If we ran Amazon the way New York City runs their school system, your packages would take six weeks to arrive. We’d have to charge you $100 delivery fee. And then when the package did finally arrive, it’d have the wrong item in it anyway.”
BARNEY FRANK’S FINAL WARNING FOR DEMOCRATS
Billionaires aren’t the villains. In many cases, they are making the world a better place.
And if a Mamdani or AOC wants to tax the hell out of them, they’ll also show that there’s nothing preventing them from going to a city or state that embraces their contributions to society.
