Taxpayers subsidize Amazon. (Amazon?!) We shouldn't have to. -- Sept. 6, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

President Donald J. Trump rails against Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, because Trump hates the Post’s tough coverage of his administration. For Trump, it’s always all about him.

Former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders attacks Bezos because he’s the richest man on earth and chief executive of Amazon. Thousands of Amazon workers reportedly make so little they have to rely on public assistance. For Sanders, it’s about taxpayers subsidizing the rich.

Must be an election year.

“The American people are tired of subsidizing multi-billionaires who own some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America,” Sanders, a Vermont independent, said Wednesday when he proposed the Stop BEZOS Act -- Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act.

Nothing subtle in that stiletto-knife acronym.   

The measure would require companies with more than 500 workers to reimburse, in effect, the government for federal benefits their low-wage workers receive. If an Amazon worker received $2,000 in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly food stamps, Amazon would be taxed $2,000 to cover the cost.

Amazon.com Inc. reached $1 trillion in market value Tuesday, and Bezos’ personal net worth is somewhere in the stratosphere of $167 billion. Naturally people resent him and Amazon’s ever-expanding reach into our lives -- even as we enjoy one-click ordering and same-day delivery.

Amazon is not the only employer that relies on the kindness of taxpayers. Workers at Walmart, Burger King, McDonalds and American Airlines, among others, get federal assistance.     

“Thousands of American workers have to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing to survive. That is what a rigged economy looks like,” Sanders tweeted.

Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, has introduced a similar bill in the House.

But don’t get your hopes -- or your dander -- up. These bills are dead. Nothing will come of them.

Like Trump’s claim Bezos should pay higher delivery fees to the U.S. Postal Service, Sanders is making a political point. Sanders’ bill is still significant because it is ludicrous that taxpayers have to plump the bottom line of companies like Amazon.

A living wage is still a dream for many in this country. Congress refuses to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour, though many states have. About 39.6 million Americans still need SNAP benefits, despite Republican efforts to pare the rolls.

Taxing the companies is pleasantly punitive but it wouldn’t put a dime in workers’ pockets and could provide a disincentive to hire poor people.

Amazon reported its median salary was $28,446 last year but insists that’s the global median and include part-time workers. The median salary in the United States is $34,123, and full-time employees receive generous benefits, the company said. Median, as you know, means half the people make more and half less.

But, Sanders said, the figures are misleading because Amazon hires 40 percent of its workforce as temporary workers, and their pay isn’t included.

At a “CEOs vs Workers” panel Sanders held in July, Seth King, an eight-year Navy vet who worked at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Chester, Va., talked about working conditions.   

On his feet for 10 hours, he was not allowed to sit down or talk to coworkers in his aisle, and work goals were unattainable, he said. Isolated and depressed, he quit after two months. Sanders plans to visit the Chester facility this month.

Sanders Wednesday shared this story from a current employee:  

“I work 40 hours a week at $13.25. I have 2 kids to support. I receive 90 dollars of food stamps . . . I don’t make enough to eat lunch at work so I split a protein shake between 2 meals to make sure my children eat,” the worker wrote.

Is this the kind of country we want?

Sanders says billionaires like Bezos and the Walton family of Walmart need to get off corporate welfare and pay their workers a living wage. A Democratic Congress might nudge them in that direction.

Trump says the economy has never been better, he’s doing the best job of any president ever, and everybody’s rich. He wants a Republican Congress so he can keep things as they are.

For me, there’s no contest.   

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Campaign summer debate: the bacon sundae -- June 14, 2012 column

By MARSHA MERCER

My fellow Americans, we meet today to note a milestone in American food history.

The wizards who brought us monster sandwiches, pizza crusts stuffed with pasta, and tubs of soda big enough for regattas are out with a new temptation. They’ve married sweet and salty, cream and crunch, fat and fatter. It’s the bacon sundae, brought to you by Burger King as part of its summertime menu.

Most of us were blissfully unaware that ice cream and bacon even knew each other, let alone that they enjoy a close personal relationship and have moved in together.

The BK bacon sundae is soft-serve vanilla ice cream drizzled with caramel and chocolate fudge, sprinkled with bacon crumbles, and topped with an insouciant thick strip of hardwood-smoked bacon. It costs 510 calories, 18 grams of fat, 61 grams of sugar and about $2.49 plus tax.

Naturally in this political summer, the dessert is controversial. Its fans say everything tastes better with bacon. Critics say we’re already too fat, and we don’t need help clogging our arteries. Yes it does. Yes we are, and no we don’t.

Can’t we all get along?

The outrage over the bacon sundae – obesity is America’s No. 1 health issue; how could they? – is misplaced. Fast food is a business. The marketplace – that’s all of us -- will decide whether Burger King is smokin’ or flaming out.

Going burger to burger against McDonald’s, BK retired the king from company logos, reportedly to attract women and younger customers. Hmm. This spring, it introduced truffle burgers in Hong Kong. A private equity firm led by Brazilian billionaires took over Burger King in 2010, but the company is about to go public again.

Denny’s offered a bacon maple sundae last year during its Baconalia promotion. Bacon sundaes may not be health foods, but they do generate buzz.

And nobody has to purchase the dessert.

As for sugar content, giant soft drinks pack more sugar wallop than the decadent bacon sundae. A 30-ounce Classic Coke provides 77 grams of sugar and the 40-ounce delivers 102 grams of sugar, according to BK’s nutrition information.
There’s something very American about this particular melting pot of sweet and savory flavors.

Archaeologists say people living in what’s now Turkey domesticated the first pigs 10,000 years ago. Did they also discover bacon? The Chinese claim Emperor Tang (618 to 697 A.D.) invented a version of ice cream. Venetian explorer Marco Polo may have brought it back to Europe in the 13th century, or that may be myth.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both served ice cream and bacon, but never the twain did meet, as far as we know.

“Virginia ladies value themselves on the goodness of their bacon,” Washington wrote the Marquis de Lafayette in June 1786. Really, George?

Several American cities argue over which one invented the sundae. Ithaca, N.Y., says it was first in 1892.

Growing up with bacon and eggs, many Americans have strong views about bacon. On this side of the Atlantic, we insist on crisp strips -- no limp bacon here. Maybe that says something about American drive and determination or maybe it’s just about cooking time.

Any day now, I expect to see President Obama or his Republican challenger Mitt Romney bring the bacon sundae to the campaign trail, rhetorically at least.

What this campaign needs is another Clara Peller, the diminutive octogenarian who charmed the country in 1984 with her whiny question: “Where’s the beef?”

The question -- from Wendy’s TV ads for its hamburgers -- became a catch phrase of that year’s presidential campaign. During the Democratic primaries, Vice President Walter F. Mondale, not particularly known for his wit, told Gary Hart in a debate that his vague promises about new ideas reminded him of the commercial.

“Where’s the beef?” Mondale asked.

In case you’re wondering, I won’t be indulging in any bacon sundaes. When I need a bacon fix, I’ll stick to what can be the world’s best summer sandwich, the BLT on toast. With mustard.

You can have yours with mayonnaise. It’s a free country.

(C) 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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