Billionaire Jeff Bezos on Sunday tweeted another critique of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, praising the lone Democratic holdout against the president’s failed Build Back Better spending legislation, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
Bezos said Manchin “saved” the Democrats by saying he would not support $1.75-trillion bill in December 2021, effectively killing the legislation. The bill would have included money to address climate change and social programs.
“The administration tried hard to inject even more stimulus into an already over-heated, inflationary economy and only Manchin saved them from themselves,” the Amazon founder tweeted. “Inflation is a regressive tax that most hurts the least affluent. Misdirection doesn’t help the country.”
This is the second time this week Bezos has accused Biden of “misdirection” over the economy. On Friday, Bezos called on Twitter’s disinformation board to investigate the president over a tweet in which Biden called for wealthy corporations to pay their fair share as a way to address inflation.
“Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss,” Bezos wrote. “Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection.”
Biden’s “Build Back Better Act,” included a pledge to stop companies from paying zero taxes, placing a 15% minimum tax on the corporate profits of companies making over $1 billion in profit.
While Amazon registered record profits in 2021, it only paid 6% in federal corporate income taxes, benefiting from tax breaks, according to the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy. In 2019, Amazon was one of 60 companies to pay $0 in federal taxes.
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