Bernie Sanders, the socialist darling from Vermont, is at it again, railing against the evils of capitalism. His target this time is Amazon. His weapon of choice is a new tax bill. But other companies could be collateral damage. Thankfully, like most ideas coming out of the offices of U.S. Sen. Bernard Sanders, this bill is going nowhere.
The Wall Street Journal reports Sanders has introduced legislation called the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies bill. Get it? The Stop BEZOS Act.
The Journal continues, "The legislation is aimed at ending what Mr. Sanders has said is middle-class taxpayers' subsidization of large, profitable companies owned by billionaires. The bill . . . would tax companies with 500 or more employees an amount equal to federal benefits received by their low-wage workers, effectively forcing them to pay more one way or another."
Ol' Bernie wants to target large corporations with employees getting things like food stamps and other federal assistance and force them to pay an additional tax. The "thinking" goes that this would force those companies to pay a livable wage and get their workers off government assistance--the assistance that Sanders says a number of Amazon's factory workers use.
A quick glance at the data shows some misleading figures, which happens in the good senator's offices occasionally. Whether these misleading numbers were ignored for political expediency, who knows? Mr. Bernie claims the median U.S. salary is $28,446 for Amazon's employees, but that number includes global and part-time workers. (And 28K for part-time work is good money. But 28K for some people living outside the United States would be big money.) The company says the median salary for full-time Amazon employees working in this country is $34,123. Including cash, stock and incentive bonuses, that's over $15/hour before overtime for factory workers.
With his legislation, Sen. Sanders also named Walmart as a company that reaps "massive profits while paying wages that leave many of its employees dependent upon public assistance programs financed by taxpayers."
So his solution is more government and, of course, more taxes. Because in Bernie Sanders' world, the government knows best.
In the real world, employees don't have to work where they feel they're not wanted. If Amazon really is mistreating its workers, they could easily leave, especially in this economy. Amazon says it pays a competitive wage, and it has to--or a sub-4 percent unemployment rate would send employees a-walkin'.
Besides, if the government really did take away enough profits from Amazon (or Walmart) to pay for the federal assistance some of its part-time workers and a few of its full-time workers might use, how would that make the lives of those workers better? Answer: It wouldn't. But making lives better isn't the point of this legislation or most of Bernie Sanders' lifetime work. It's punishing business and those who dare build a better mousetrap.
In an unusual move, this time Amazon responded to this broadside by Bernie Sanders. It asked its employees to share their stories with the senator and the world online. Some have. It's amazing that the company had time to get involved in this spat. It's busy. It created 130,000 new jobs last year.
Editorial on 09/07/2018