(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty)
U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D) recently aimed his inflation anger at video streaming services, saying major television and movie streamers have been raising prices while paring back their content offerings — something that fits in to Casey’s “greedflation” campaign platform in which he blames corporations rather than government spending for the inflation that has eroded the purchasing power of average Americans for the last three years.
In making the attacks, however, Casey goes head-to-head with corporations like Disney, Hulu, Paramount, and Netflix, but he gives only light mention to Amazon Prime, the second-largest video-streaming service in America.
Amazon, meanwhile, has been the greatest corporate donor out of all the streaming services to Casey’s campaign committee as well as his leadership PAC, donating more than three times more than all other entertainment streaming services combined.
Publicly available records at the Federal Election Commission show Amazon has given $38,000 to the two Casey committees. Disney and Paramount, meanwhile, have donated $9,000 and $4,000 respectively to Casey’s committees.
In a press release hosted on Casey’s official U.S. Senate website, he tries to publicly shame “Netflix, Spotify, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus, Hulu, and Max” but makes no mention of Amazon at all.
The online press release also links to a longer paper that goes in-depth on how streamers have worked to increase profits in recent years.
According to a Broad + Liberty analysis, the paper makes mention of these companies the following number of times (omitting the citations pages and graphics):
Netflix — 27
Disney or Disney Plus — 9
Max (previously HBO) — 7
Paramount — 5
Amazon or Prime — 1
Yet when it comes to monetizing video streaming, Amazon has been at least as controversial as any of its other top competitors.
When Amazon first introduced Prime TV as a companion streaming service to its Prime membership services, the streaming service had no advertisements — a major selling point to induce customers to buy a membership.
But in January this year, Amazon introduced advertising into much of its natively produced content, allowing people to opt out of ads by purchasing more expensive “tiers” of Amazon Prime.
“The company promises to have ‘meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers,’ without being specific. But some ads are more than no ads. Viewers are angry, creators are angry and there isn’t even much demand from advertisers themselves, but the change is here nonetheless,” a report from USA Today said about the changes.
It didn’t take long for someone to launch a class-action lawsuit against the tech behemoth, which as of this publication was one of only six American companies with a market capitalization of over one trillion dollars.
Keeping with his campaign theme of “greedflation,” Casey calls these tactics “streamflation” as he tries to pin inflation on corporate tactics and not government spending, knowing that the inflation that has occurred since 2021 will certainly be one of the top issues in a year in which he seeks re-election to his fourth term in the U.S. Senate.
An inflation calculator provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics shows a person in July, 2024 would need $120 in order to purchase the same amount of goods as $100 could buy in January of 2021.
While hundreds or thousands of factors can influence inflation, a study by several Massachusetts economists, including a professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that “federal spending was two to three times more important than any other factor causing inflation during 2022.”
Business interests have not taken Casey’s attacks lying down.
In April, the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce pushed back on Casey’s “greedflation” narrative, saying the attacks “inappropriately scapegoats the business community and the constituents you represent.”
Requests for comment sent to Casey’s Senate office and campaign office were not returned.
Disclosure: The author of this article holds individual shares of Amazon, Inc.
