Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has done more to improve the forgotten man's quality of life than any do-gooder, politician, or "courageous" journalist alive, and his latest commendable deed was reaching out to the part of the country most in need of his aid: the Washington, D.C., area.
Washington, D.C., a.k.a. The Swamp, is a dispiriting cesspool of pettiness and inefficiency. With Amazon's new headquarters coming to Northern Virginia, denizens of the Beltway have an example of good citizenship and industriousness to look up to, while their economy rises from the muck and their property values receive a much-needed lift.
Of course, Bezos' motives aren't purely altruistic. One of his new Arlington neighbors, the Defense Department, is a key client and the state of Virginia offered a tribute of $573 million in tax breaks and incentives, which he graciously accepted with the knowledge that the little people will benefit most.
Virginia taxpayers are lucky to have such a worthy cause as the further enrichment of Amazon. The neo-Soviet environs of Crystal City National Landing could also use some bulldozing and a futuristic new office complex that complements the spherical west coast HQ affectionately known as "Bezos' Balls."
Giving the underserved D.C. area an economic boost is only half the good Bezos did with this new Amazon expansion. New York's humble offering of $1.5 billion in publicly funded incentives was rewarded with its own wing of the east coast HQ, located in the quaint outer-borough afterthought Long Island City. This will hopefully be the catalyst needed for repairs of NYC's crumbling infrastructure to begin. With any luck, Mr. Bezos's beneficence will result in New York rescuing its residents from the wretchedness of their present existence.
For showing the forgotten towns of America some love, Jeff Bezos is a Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year.
