In a Saturday morning tweet, President Donald Trump wrote that the far-left Washington Post should register as a lobbyist for the online mega-retailer Amazon.
Jeff Bezos owns both the Post and Amazon.
“[I]t is reported that the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for Amazon. That amounts to Billions of Dollars,” the president wrote. “The Failing N.Y. Times reports that ‘the size of the company’s lobbying staff has ballooned,’ and that does not include the Fake Washington Post, which is used as a ‘lobbyist’ and should so REGISTER.”
Trump also added that if the United States Post Office raised its shipping rates on Amazon, the company’s shipping costs would balloon by $2.6 billion.
Trump closed his statement with, “This Post Office scam must stop. Amazon must pay real costs (and taxes) now!”:
This is not the first time Trump has accused the anti-Trump Post of lobbying for Amazon. In July, he tweeted, “Is Fake News Washington Post being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly?”:
Trump is referencing reports that, although it is the third-biggest corporation in the world and Bezos is the richest person in history (net worth $105 billion), Amazon enjoys a $1.46 subsidy for every package it ships through the post office. And, if you can believe this, after earning $5.6 billion in 2017, Amazon paid no federal taxes.
The federal corporate tax rate in 2017 was 21 percent.
Amazon paid zippo.
On Wednesday, while referencing Amazon’s ability to avoid taxes and enjoy that delivery subsidy, Trump blasted the company for “putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”
“I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!” he tweeted:
Obviously, Trump believes the tax avoidance and the post office’s paying money to ship packages for Amazon give Bezos an unfair advantage over companies that do pay taxes and the full cost of their own shipping.
In July, Trump pretty much said exactly that: “Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!”:
In reaction to Trump’s tweets on Thursday, the Washington Post acted just like a lobbying firm with a sugarcoated and misleading defense of Amazon, beginning with the claim that Amazon pays a sales tax in 45 states. Like a lobbying firm, though, the Post is not telling the full truth. Amazon does not pay a sales tax. Amazon’s customers pay that sales tax. The company merely collects that money for the government.
Also, like a lobbying firm would, the Post failed to inform its readers that the president is correct that Amazon does not pay a single penny in federal taxes.
Finally, just like a lobbying firm would, the Post wrote, “Trump’s use of social media to call out individual people and companies has been unprecedented for a president.”
With that sentence, what the left-wing Post is dishonestly doing is winnowing this down to social media as a means to pretend Trump’s “call[ing] out individual people and companies [is] unprecedented” for a president.
It is not.
The truth is that Obama frequently attacked Fox News and, without knowing all the facts, singled out a police officer as “stupid. He also took a swipe at the Washington Redskins and regularly demonized individual Republicans who dared stand in his way.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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