Jeff Bezos SLAMS NYC: 'Doubling My Taxes Won't Help a Teacher in Queens'

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]The New York City school system. Right.

[00:00:03]They spend $44,000 per student.

[00:00:09]$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.

[00:00:25]A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year pays 12 more than $12,000 a year in taxes.

[00:00:37]Does that really make sense? Some people talk about, you know, making the tax system more progressive. How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes Why is at all? Why is some Why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year paying more than $1,000 a month in taxes?

[00:00:58]That's $1,000 a month that could help with rent or groceries or anything.

[00:01:03]And so And And by the way, do you know what that all adds up to? The The The bottom half of income earners in this country pay only 3% of the taxes.

[00:01:14]So >> It's only 3%. We can find 3%. So, we don't have It's It's It's a small amount of money for the government, you know, that. And really, it's And 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.

[00:01:37]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 need to be paid for, if not more than that, given the debts we have? The It's certainly [clears throat] 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 a distraction.