Even a liberal billionaire who’s spent years dumping fortunes into lefty pet projects understands how economics really works when push comes to shove. Enter The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos.
Bezos gave CNBC co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin a reality check on how ludicrous the left’s tax-the-rich scheme really is when measured up against the data during the May 20 edition of Squawk Box. Sorkin tried cornering Bezos on the bevy of headlines in the media excoriating billionaires, decrying their wealth accumulation and vilifying them for supposedly not paying their fair share in taxes.
Bezos wasn’t fazed: “Politicians [vis-a-vis Sen. Elizabeth Warren] are using the age-old technique … of picking a villain and pointing fingers, but the problem is that doesn’t solve anything.”
For all the bluster about the need progressive taxation, Bezos anecdotally analyzed how a nurse in Queens in New York City (the literal epitome of lefty taxation) making $75,000 is stuck with a $12,000 annual tax bill. “How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes at all? Why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year paying over $1,000 a month in taxes?” Sorkin didn’t have one of his typically snarky retorts to whip out in rebuttal, so he just deflected to another gotcha question on whether he should be paying higher taxes?
The billionaire again dropped another truth nuke: “We already have the most progressive tax system in the world.” He continued: “The top one percent of taxpayers pay 40 percent of all the tax revenue. The bottom half pay only three percent.” The unspoken issue, as Bezos concluded, is “a [government] spending problem. And that’s a skills issue. Let me give you an example: The New York City school system — they spend $44,000 per student — $44,000! That’s thirty percent more per student than other big cities like Chicago, L.A. and Boston. And it’s three times more than Miami and Houston. And by the way, New York City doesn’t get better outcomes.”
Bravo @JeffBezos. Credit where credit is due. You could tell that Sorkin wasn't even listening to a thing he was saying. pic.twitter.com/h2FnO2mPPd
— Joe Vazquez (@JV3MRC) May 20, 2026
Sorkin then used the bourgeoisie-hating ramblings of Sen. Warren to embarrass Bezos for paying a lower effective tax rate when deductions are accounted for, despite the fact that the sum he pays is still measured in billions. Bezos swatted that talking point down like an annoying fruit fly: “People sometimes say I don’t pay taxes. It’s not true. I pay billions of dollars in taxes and again, if people want me to pay more billions then let’s have that debate. But don’t pretend like that’s going to solve the problem. You can double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens, I promise you.”
One of the other major points Bezos hit Sorkin with is that the progressive tax scam routinely involves subsidizing demand through bad tax policy while constraining supply through regulations. It’s self-defeating, as Bezos concluded. “You cannot subsidize demand and constrain supply. If you do, prices are going to skyrocket. But this is not anybody’s fault other than government policy.”
Earlier, Bezos emphasized this point by juxtaposing his company Amazon with how the NYC public system is currently run under the leftists who run it:
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 a $100 delivery fee and then when the package did finally arrive, they’d have the wrong item in it anyway.
Is efficient government even a real thing? No, and even a liberal billionaire who profiteered off of American capitalism understands this. It’s about time the rest of the low-IQ flunkies in the media got it through their thick skulls too. But who are we kidding?!
