© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos speaks through the UN Local weather Change Convention (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 2, 2021. Paul Ellis/Pool through REUTERS
By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White Home and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:) founder Jeff Bezos squared off on Monday over the Biden administration’s dealing with of U.S. inflation and its plans to tax the wealthy.
Beginning over the weekend, Bezos has been slamming President Joe Biden, accusing him of deceptive the general public on inflation by arguing that climbing taxes on companies and the wealthy would decrease shopper prices.
The administration responded with an unusually private jab that recommended Bezos was making an attempt to guard his wealth and undermine unions.
“It would not require an enormous leap to determine why one of many wealthiest people on Earth opposes an financial agenda for the center class that cuts a number of the largest prices households face, fights inflation for the lengthy haul, and provides to the historic deficit discount the president is reaching by asking the richest taxpayers and companies to pay their justifiable share,” White Home spokesperson White Home Andrew Bates stated in an announcement.
“It is also unsurprising that this tweet comes after the President met with labor organizers, together with Amazon staff.”
Bezos responded that the administration was making an attempt to distract from stimulus insurance policies that stoked inflation.
“They understandably need to muddy the subject,” he stated on Twitter (NYSE:). “They know inflation hurts the neediest essentially the most. However unions aren’t inflicting inflation and neither are rich folks.”
The back-and-forth escalated the disagreement between the White Home and one of many world’s richest males after Biden attacked Amazon for paying too little in federal taxes and appeared to facet with staff in search of to unionize a number of the firm’s staff.
Biden has been below rising strain to stem inflation, which has risen to close 40-year highs, and a few economists suppose that elevating sure taxes may ease worth pressures within the economic system.
Inflation has elevated globally because the pandemic, however some economists attribute the significantly sturdy bout in america to stimulus together with final yr’s Biden-backed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Many economists additionally suppose that spending helped the U.S. economic system keep away from an financial slowdown.
The president needs companies and billionaires like Bezos to pay extra, however his tax and spending plans have fallen in need of securing the required help in Congress.
“Elevating corp taxes is ok to debate,” Bezos wrote earlier on Twitter. “Taming inflation is important to debate. Mushing them collectively is simply misdirection.”
