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Not sure how many pundits talking about Amazon even read the deal or where it was going. $500+ million of the deal was *capital grants.* $2.5 billion in tax breaks. It’s fair to ask why we don’t invest the capital for public use, + why we don’t give working people a tax break.https://twitter.com/erik_engquist/status/1097981360281735174 …
Frankly, the knee-jerk reaction assuming that I “don’t understand” how tax giveaways to corps work is disappointing. No, it’s not possible that I could come to a different conclusion. The debate *must* be over my intelligence & understanding, instead of the merits of the deal.
There’s NO WAY that this deal - one of the biggest giveaways in state history - could possibly have been bad, right? Surely there can’t be anything wrong with suddenly announcing a massive restructuring & pricing out of a community without any advance notice or input from them.
There’s no CHANCE that the speculative insider real-estate buys that were creating immediate spikes in rent in one of the most rent-burdened communities in NYC could have possibly been unpopular?https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-buy-apartments-in-new-york-city-2018-11 …
Or that a technology giant of big-brother-esque potential was selling (notoriously flawed & racially biased) facial recognition technology to ICE while trying to move into 1 of the most immigrant-dense areas of the world? No, it must be because I’m dumb.https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/23/amazon-met-with-ice-officials-over-facial-recognition-system-that-could-identify-immigrants/ …
25,000 high paying jobs, $27 billion in tax revenue. You know tax breaks aren’t physical dollars right?
Jobs that weren't even promised to go to ACTUAL residents? Nah we're super good on that.
They seem to not understand what happened in Seattle and why would have happened in NYC. Also they’re pretending to care about this amazon thing. It’s weird. They like to hyper focus on none issues to derail the convo bc they have no real arguments.
All this concern for the richest man in the world who could care less about the poor or the people that work for him. Super weird.
They are also assuming that this area will never be developed and other businesses won't go in there to produce jobs and tax revenues... It's NYC. Every square foot is valuable.
Man. I browse through a ton of these comments and no one has said this. It’s like everyone thinks LIC is just a whole in the ground. LIC is impossible to afford today and yes businesses are pouring tons of money in there as we speak. Amazon wasn’t saving LIC.
It used to be a hole in the ground full of crackheads, now it's nothing but multimillion dollar condos and expensive cars in expensive parking garages. People swear they know what goes on over here smh
Oh man ain’t that the truth. I remember there was a time in the early 90’s you couldn’t stop at a red light after 10pm in LIC. Today , go ahead and try finding parking at ANY time. Good luck.
a tax break doesnt mean the city has that money. it means they wont charge that to the company's taxes. there is no way for NY to spend that $2.5 billion now because they never had it in the first place
You didn't even read the entire tweet. She said why don't don't we invest the capital + give the people these tax breaks. $500 million was direct capital to Amazon, $2.5 billion was tax breaks. There was actual money involved
the theory about why is that we give a tax break to a corporation because we expect increased tax revenue due to new jobs, investment, etc. if you give it to citizens it is a net loss(tax wise) because most of it will be spent outside of the city due to online shopping.
It's an incorrect theory though. According to Amazon's SEC fillings, their MEDIAN wage is $38k. They said that the AVERAGE worker would have gotten ~$150k, but when you pay most workers $38k and the CEO billions, yeah it averages out to $150k/ person. Most wouldn't have seen it
So you're subsidizing Amazon's workforce to the tune of $3bil at the startup, then paying them just above poverty wages, causing taxpayers more money in social net programs (SNAP funds, Medicaid, etc). It would have been a net loss to the average taxpayer
Let's do math and be generous to say it's $100k jobs. 100k x 25k x .11 (highest tax bracket state + local taxes even tho 100k is a lower bracket but let's use higher) = $275m minus deductions. How is this a good deal? $3B is a lot more than app. $200M.
How is anyone still advocating this deal when some napkin math shows how bad it is?
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