Biden's unlikely allies

Billionaires who want to ... raise their own taxes?

President Biden, Jamie Dimon, and Jeff Bezos.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

President Biden has apparently found some unlikely quasi-allies in his quest to pay for his infrastructure package with higher taxes: Jeff Bezos, former CEO of Amazon and the world's richest person, and Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the biggest bank in the country.

Amazon is "supportive of a rise in the corporate tax rate," wrote Bezos in a brief statement Tuesday. In a letter to shareholders published Wednesday morning, while Dimon said the current corporate tax rate is about right, he also suggested it would be good to increase taxes on the wealthy more generally to fund infrastructure, and that the "maze" of tax breaks that benefit the rich should be abolished — including the carried interest loophole, which benefits hedge fund managers exclusively. A few other wealthy executives and financiers have also expressed various levels of support.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.