US families to receive $12,000 under new proposal from Bernie Sanders — and he takes a direct swipe at Jeff Bezos Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below.
Bernie Sanders is reviving his fight to tax America’s billionaires and send money to working families — and this time, he’s using Jeff Bezos to make the point
In a post on X, the Vermont senator responded to Bezos’s recent claim that raising taxes on him would not help “that teacher in Queens.” Top Picks “Mr. Bezos: Let’s have that debate,” Sanders wrote (1). He then pointed to his proposed tax on billionaire wealth. “Under my 5% billionaires wealth tax, we’d: -Give $12K to a working family of 4 -Expand Medicare for dental, vision, hearing -Guarantee universal childcare -Raise starting teacher pay to $60K,” Sanders wrote.
Then came the swipe directly at Bezos: “And you’d still be worth $269 billion after taxes.” The jab came after the Amazon founder and executive chair’s recent CNBC interview, where he rejected the idea that simply raising his tax bill would solve the problem facing lower-income Americans. “These people sometimes say that I don’t pay taxes,” Bezos said. “That’s not true. I pay billions of dollars in taxes.” Bezos, whose net worth is estimated at $273 billion, argued that linking higher taxes on him to direct relief for ordinary workers is misleading. “Don’t pretend you know that that’s going to solve the problem,” Bezos said. “You could double the taxes I pay and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens — I promise you.” Sanders, however, is making the opposite case: that a relatively small tax on billionaire wealth could fund direct relief and major social programs for working families. How the $12,000 proposal would work The proposal Sanders is referring to is the “Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act,” which he introduced with Rep.