Jeff Bezos： The bottom half workers pay 3% of all taxes – it should be zero

Good morning. We are here on the factory floor this morning of Blue Origin and we are here with Jeff Bezos, the founder of Blue Origin. Also, of course, founder of Amazon. It is great to see you. This is remarkable, by the way, just the scale of it. We've been talking about it all morning, but of all the people that we could talk to about everything that's going on in the country right now in the economy, AI, jobs, space. We want to talk to you. And there is so much to talk about. We're going to touch on that policy, politics and so much more. But one of the topics that I thought we should talk about and maybe even start with is these days it feels almost impossible to pick up a newspaper without reading a headline about wealth in America, about the billionaire class, about wealth inequality and policy and everything else. And it's taken a uniquely critical turn, I think. And I'm so curious, before we even get into everything else, what you think about that right now? Well, first of all, I'm glad you're asking the question. I think it's a really important topic and I think it's an important one to discuss because I see the same thing you do. You see it in a bunch of headlines, you see it in a bunch of places. And I have been thinking about what is driving this? It does seem different from 10 years ago. And I think what's going on is that it's kind of a tale of two economies. So you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling. Struggling with pay rent, groceries. And so what's happening here is politicians are using the kind of age old technique. So there's this tale of two economies and they're using this age old technique of picking a villain and pointing fingers. But the problem is that doesn't solve anything. And so if you want to help the group of people who are struggling, you have to figure out real root causes and solutions and that takes skill. If we have a problem at Amazon, the way we would fix it is we would go in and we'd do the five whys and we'd try to get to a root cause. We'd try to find a root fix. And then when we fix it at the root, you're fixing it forever. It's a real solution. And what we don't do because it doesn't work is just point fingers and blame people. It might feel good for 10 seconds, but it doesn't accomplish anything. And so what could you really do? Do you have a plan? Well, I have some ideas. I have some places to start. I started thinking about this and doing some research. A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year pays more than $12,000 a year in taxes. Does that really make sense? Some people talk about making the tax system more progressive. How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes? Why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year paying more than $1,000 a month in taxes? That's $1,000 a month that could help with rent or groceries or anything. And by the way, do you know what that all adds up to? The bottom half of income earners in this country pay only 3% of the taxes. It's only 3%. We can find 3%. So we don't have... It's a small amount of money for the government. You know that. And really, the more I thought about it, to me, it's kind of absurd that we're doing this. You know, we shouldn't be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense. Okay, but then on the other end, the question is, should you be paying higher taxes to pay for the 3% component part of this that you think is going to need to be paid for, if not more than that, given the debts we have? It's certainly a perfectly valid policy debate to say, do we want an even more progressive tax system? So, you know, the kind of the line that gets quoted all the time is, you know, the wealthy should pay their fair share. And we can argue about what the fair share is. That's a policy debate. That's okay. But the vilification is the thing that's just the distraction. And by the way, if you really are being honest about it, we don't have a revenue problem in this country. We already have the most progressive tax system in the world. The top 1% of taxpayers pay 40% of all the tax revenue. The bottom half pay only 3%. We have already, and I think it should be zero. I don't think it should be 3%. I think it should be zero. So we'd be making more progressive that way. We actually have a spending problem. And that's a skills issue. I mean, let me give you an example. The New York City school system, they spend $44,000 per student, $44,000. That's 30% more per student than other big cities like Chicago, LA, and Boston. And it's three times more than Miami and Houston. And by the way, New York City doesn't get better outcomes. So listen, let me just say, 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 $100 delivery fee. And then when the package did finally arrive, it'd have the wrong item in it anyway. That's a skills issue, Andrew. It's just competence.