Jeff Bezos takes aim at Biden over inflation crisis and 'misdirection' of the country; wants 'disinformation board' to review Biden's claims

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos slammed President Joe Biden on Sunday over the ongoing inflation crisis and for claiming he has personally lowered the budget deficit.

What did Bezos say?

Bezos, the third-richest person in the world, took aim at Biden for contributing to the inflation crisis, which Bezos observed most impacts the "least affluent."

He was responding to a Twitter thread that itself criticized Biden for claiming he lowered the budget deficit.

"In fact, the administration tried hard to inject even more stimulus into an already over-heated, inflationary economy and only Manchin saved them from themselves," Bezos said. "Inflation is a regressive tax that most hurts the least affluent. Misdirection doesn’t help the country."

The comment was the second time in three days that Bezos publicly criticized the president.

On Friday, Biden implied that driving down inflation is somehow connected to raising the corporate tax rate to ensure that businesses "pay their fair share." However, that claim, according to Bezos, needs to be reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security's controversial new disinformation governance board, because there is no connection between corporate taxes and inflation.

"The newly created Disinformation Board should review this tweet, or maybe they need to form a new Non Sequitur Board instead," Bezos responded. "Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection."

Has Biden actually lowered the deficit?

Biden has claimed repeatedly that he lowered the deficit and has placed the U.S. on track for record deficit reduction in 2022. But the claim is highly misleading.

That is because, as CNN reporter Daniel Dale explained last week, the budget deficit was already projected to fall before Biden entered office. The deficit exploded in 2020 because of short-term pandemic-related spending. But that spending was not permanent, which meant the deficit was always going to fall.

Even more problematic for Biden, his policies meant deficit reduction was not as great in 2021 as it could have been without them. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the deficit would have fallen about a half-trillion dollars more than it actually did.

"So, when President Biden talks about a projected $1.5 trillion decline in the deficit this year, even if that does happen, the deficit would still be higher this year than initially projected when he took office," Dale explained.