Just how corrupt is the left's media-industrial complex? And how much power does Amazon boss and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos wield? How about paying taxes to Bezos.
Example: Chicago has offered to let Amazon pocket $1.32 billion in income taxes paid by its own workers. This is truly perverse. Called a personal income-tax diversion, the workers must still pay the full taxes, but instead of the state getting the money to use for schools, roads or whatever, Amazon would get to keep it all instead.
It is Chicago. But it's still enormously perverse.
But the most far-reaching offer is from Fresno, California. That city of half a million isn’t offering any tax breaks. Instead it has a novel plan to give Amazon special authority over how the company’s taxes are spent.
Fresno promises to funnel 85 percent of all taxes and fees generated by Amazon into a special fund. That money would be overseen by a board, half made up of Amazon officers, half from the city. They’re supposed to spend the money on housing, roads and parks in and around Amazon.
So we've got Chicago offering to let Amazon keep the taxes its employees pay. And Fresno offering to let Amazon determine how its taxes are spent.
The obvious question here is does Amazon have far too much power. And the answer is equally obvious.
While Bezos's paper, the Washington Post, plots a coup against the White House, major cities offer to let Amazon control their spending. Democracy doesn't die in darkness. It dies at Amazon's hands.