Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once again took a stab at President Joe Biden over White House policies on inflation and acknowledgment of deficit reduction in a tweet on Sunday.
Bezos, retweets an account bearing the name @ne0liberalargued that the inflation crisis could have been worsened had West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin not declined to vote on more COVID stimulus.
“The government has gone to great lengths to provide even more stimulus to an already overheated, inflationary economy, and only Manchin saved it from itself,” Bezos wrote. “Inflation is a regressive tax that hurts the least well-off the most. Misdirection doesn’t help the country.’
Bezos is referring to Manchin’s efforts to shut down Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, as well as other COVID stimulus payments early in Biden’s tenure.
The White House responded to Bezos’ criticism over the past two days with a statement on Sunday.
“It doesn’t take huge leaps to find out why one of the richest people in the world is opposed to an economic agenda for the middle class that lowers some of the biggest costs families face, fights inflation over the long run, and contributes to deficit reduction that the President is achieving by asking the wealthiest taxpayers and corporations to pay their fair share,” said Andrew Bates, deputy White House press secretary.
Bates added in a shot about the President’s recent appearance with Amazon Labor Union leader Chris Smalls.
“It’s also not surprising that this tweet comes after the President met with union organizers, including Amazon workers.”
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once again took a stab at President Joe Biden over White House policies on inflation and acknowledgment of deficit reduction in a tweet on Sunday
Bezos, who retweeted an account called @ne0liberal, argued that the inflationary crisis could have been worsened had West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin not refused to vote for more COVID stimulus
“The government has gone to great lengths to provide even more stimulus to an already overheated, inflationary economy, and only Manchin saved it from itself,” Bezos wrote. “Inflation is a regressive tax that hurts the least well-off the most. Misdirection does not help the country
Bezos asked the Biden administration’s new disinformation panel to review the president’s tweet, which claimed that rising inflation could be tamed by raising corporate taxes.
Joe Biden, who has been criticized for 40 years of high tax rates of 8.3 percent, tweeted Friday that taxing companies more would help ease the economic burden on Americans.
“You want to lower inflation? Let’s make sure the richest companies pay their fair share,” Biden tweeted.
Bezos responded within hours, claiming the president was confusing two separate issues that only amounted to misdirection and should be held accountable by the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Committee.
“The newly created disinformation board should review this tweet, or maybe they need to form a new Non Sequitur Board instead,” Bezos tweeted.
“An increase in corporate taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is crucial. Throwing them together is just misdirection.’
President Joe Biden claimed that raising corporate taxes would help fight inflation
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said the president’s claim was just misdirection and called on DHS’ new disinformation panel to review Biden’s tweet
Inflation is at its highest level in 40 years as Biden appears to blame corporate taxes and the Russian invasion of Ukraine
The Disinformation Panel was set up last month to combat the spread of disinformation in minority communities and to provide communities with resources and tools to prevent individuals from radicalizing into violence.
However, the board has drawn much criticism for being set up ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, in which the president’s party is expected to suffer big losses, and appears hypocritical as the Biden administration has been criticized for trying to fix problems turn in their favor.
The government had previously claimed that the war in Ukraine was sending inflation and gas prices skyrocketing, although both were already significantly high before the Russian invasion.
Instead of corporate taxes, interest rates were seen as the key number to rein in to bring down inflation.
The Federal Reserve has started raising interest rates to slow borrowing and spending to cool inflation after the pandemic peaked.
“Inflation is way too high and we understand the distress it is causing and we are making quick efforts to bring it back down,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said earlier this week.
Inflation started to rise in April 2021, meaning annual increases are now from a higher base
In an interview with Marketplace on Thursday, he was asked what he would say to someone who might lose their job or miss a raise as the Fed tries to choke off inflationary spending.
“So I would say that we fully understand and appreciate how painful inflation is and that we have the tools and the determination to bring it down to two percent and that we will do that.
“I will also say that the process of bringing inflation down to 2% will also involve some pain, but ultimately what would be most painful would be if we didn’t deal with it and inflation became entrenched in the economy at high levels , and we know what that’s like.
“And that’s just people losing the value of their paychecks to high inflation, and ultimately we’d have to go through a much deeper downturn. And we really have to avoid that.”
Wednesday’s Labor Department report said the consumer price index rose 0.3 percent month-on-month in April, up 8.3 percent year-on-year, compared with an 8.5 percent rise in March.
The food index rose 9.4 percent from a year earlier, the biggest 12-month rise since 1981, and the energy index rose 30.3 percent from a year earlier.
Excluding fluctuating food and energy prices, so-called “core” inflation reached 6.3 percent in the 12 months to April, slightly below the annual rate of 6.5 percent in March.
In a worrying sign that inflation is still tightening, however, core prices rose 0.6 percent in March-April – double the February-March 0.3 percent increase.
These increases were fueled by rising prices for airline tickets, hotel rooms and new cars. Rental costs also rose sharply.