Amazon Hits Back Hard at Joe Biden After he Criticizes Their Tax Payments

I’m not sure what it is about Amazon and Democrat politicians, but perhaps Jeff Bezos should reconsider shamelessly shilling for left given their general distain for him and his company.

Most notably, the fresh faced Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ran Amazon out of New York, costing her constituents 25,000 new jobs and tens of billions in economic development. Why? Well, no one really knows given that Amazon already voluntarily bows to many of the left’s demands, i.e. a $15 minimum wage.

It’s never enough though.

Take this shot Joe Biden took at Amazon, for example.

I have nothing against Amazon, but no company pulling in billions of dollars of profits should pay a lower tax rate than firefighters and teachers. We need to reward work, not just wealth. https://t.co/R6xaN3vXGT

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 13, 2019

While Trump is often called “economically” illiterate by the chattering class because he favors tariffs as leverage in negotiations, the Democrat party position on corporate taxes is truly economically stupid. It completely ignores the value of reinvestment.

Amazon spells that out in a hard hitting rebuke of Biden’s comments.

We’ve paid $2.6B in corporate taxes since 2016. We pay every penny we owe. Congress designed tax laws to encourage companies to reinvest in the American economy. We have. $200B in investments since 2011 & 300K US jobs. Assume VP Biden’s complaint is w/ the tax code, not Amazon. https://t.co/uPUv1Tzlma

— Amazon News (@amazonnews) June 13, 2019

It’s not really a good look to get on the bad side of one of the left’s major boosters. Biden would have done well to think before sending out that tweet.

You see, there’s not actually any magic “big business” tax break that allows these companies to not pay taxes. They also aren’t actually paying less taxes than “firefighters and teachers.” Major corporations pay billions upon billions in payroll taxes no matter what, but in many cases, it makes more sense to reinvest money in new operations vs. hoarding that cash and paying taxes on it.

That’s what Amazon has done as they’ve rapidly expanded the last decade. Some might say that’s unfair but it’d be stupid and short sighted to eliminate such tax incentives. Reinvestments of this type are the major driver of economic growth in this country. They also lead directly to better jobs and higher wages as the market for employees becomes more competitive as a result.

There needs to be a return to common sense in our discussion of economics in this country. We can not continue to be the most prosperous nation on earth if we kowtow to false notions of “fairness” and the harmful calls of punishment pushed by the left. Biden deserved this slap down but he’s no different than Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or Kamala Harris.

In the end, these corporations that spend most of their time donating to Democrats and fluffing liberal policies are going to learn a hard lesson if they don’t change course. The alligator is absolutely looking to eat them and they won’t be spared the public shaming.

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