Just as the White House lacks an understanding of the causes of inflation, it does not understand that the rich, such as Jeff Bezos, are already paying their fair share. Our country’s roughly 700 billionaires and the 1 percent they are part of are helping others more than the rest of us are, even if they paid nothing in taxes.
While the rich are often portrayed as not helping out, the argument is completely divorced from economic logic and assumes that sending taxes to Washington is the only way to help. Indeed, a large literature in economics finds that nearly all of the benefits of technological change, often spearheaded by entrepreneurs such as Bezos who wind up personally wealthy, are passed on to consumers through lower prices and access to new goods and services. In addition, the super-wealthy often give away much of what they earn as charitable donations — a more efficient way to help the poor than paying taxes.
Jessica Melugin of the Competitive Enterprise Institute writes against Europe’s Digital Services Act:
Like past European tech regulation, the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) will bring harmful unintended consequences for consumers and businesses. American politicians should reject this approach and keep to the regulatory regime that’s helped make the U.S. a global tech leader.
The DSA mainly focuses on content-moderation issues and digital advertising practices. While the final text of the legislation has yet to be released, it’s known that the regulations demand transparency for how algorithms operate, outlaw certain targeted advertising and impose new obligations around content moderation.