AOC and Amazon

After a nationwide search for a new headquarters, Amazon finally announced that it would build two, one in New York City and one in the DC area. This meant 25,000 jobs for each city along will billions in new tax revenue. To get their headquarters, New York agreed to several conditions including waving 10% of the taxes. $3 billion out of a expected $30 billion. Alexandria Acasio-Cortez had a fix over this and fought to kill the deal and eventually succeeded. She then suggested that NYC spent the $3 billion on teachers' salaries.

Excuse me while I bang my head on the wall for a few minutes...

Ok. Now, I'm going to make an amazing admission, AOC was right about the tax incentives that cities give large employers. They are unfair. Smaller companies can't get similar concessions so this means that government policy favors large companies over smaller ones. Government should provide an even playing field instead of one that gives advantages to large companies. Also, in many cases the companies would move there anyway, they just want the most advantageous deal they can get.

That's the theory. The practice is that companies can and do give tax breaks and other incentives to attract large employers. The rewards are great - more tax revenues to pay for expanded city services and more people employed. So the practice is not going to stop unless the federal government steps in and forbids it nationwide. That's the reality.

Given that reality, NYC got a good deal. In addition to bringing new jobs and tax revenue, Amazon was going to invest in the area. I can understand people objecting because of the disruption it would cause to their neighborhood to have a giant headquarters move in. And some of the objections came from people with those concerns. But AOC seemed to be morally offended by the tax breaks. To her it's better to forego 25,000 jobs than to give a large, powerful corporation any incentives.

Of course, Amazon still needs those workers so they will just enlarge their other headquarters included the one being built in DC. Other areas will benefit at NYC's expense. Way to go AOC.

But there is still the matte of the $3 billion that she claims NYC was going to pay Amazon. She has that backwards and sideways. Imagine buying a car. You tell the salesman (yes, salesman. I've never had a woman try to sell me a car) that you will buy the top of the line car but only if they will knock 10% off of the price. The salesman goes to his manager who agrees but then the salesman thinks better of it and says full-price or nothing. The customer proceeds to buy the car from a different dealer who will give the 10% off. Now imagine what the manager will say when the salesman says "I just saved you 10% on that car, can I have the money?" That's what AOC did.

And she celebrated that she did it.