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Facing Opposition, Amazon Reconsiders NY Headquarters Site: Report (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by msmash on from the breaking-news dept.

Amazon.com is reconsidering its plan to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in New York City following a wave of opposition from local politicians, The Washington Post reported Friday [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], citing two people familiar with the company's thinking. From the report: The company has not leased or purchased office space for the project, making it easy to withdraw its commitment. Unlike in Virginia -- where elected leaders quickly passed an incentive package for a separate headquarters facility -- final approval from New York state is not expected until 2020. Tennessee officials have also embraced Amazon's plans to bring 5,000 jobs to Nashville, which this week approved $15.2 million in road, sewer and other improvements related to that project. Amazon executives have had internal discussions recently to reassess the situation in New York and explore alternatives, said the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about the company's perspective.

6 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Objecting to the give-away by XXongo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What they're objecting to, of course, is not the jobs being brought in, but the massive taxpayer funded give-away that New York politicians promised (without any oversight) to give Amazon to tempt them to come, along with the tax breaks they promised as well, to make sure that they don't pay for it.

    A billion here, a billion there-- it adds up

    1. Re:Objecting to the give-away by XXongo · · Score: 4, Informative

      ...and not to mention that Amazon required a nondisclosure agreement from the cities bidding, so that the taxpayers actually couldn't know what their politicians were giving away.

      Which was: 3 billion dollars.

    2. Re: Objecting to the give-away by nomadic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Amazon needs a large, highly-educated workforce, and I'm not sure the people they need would be willing to move en masse to Amarillo, Texas.

    3. Re:Objecting to the give-away by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A tax break is not giving them money.
      It's simply refraining from taking it from them.

      Be that as it may, it's still asking other businesses which are being taxed so subsidize Amazon who is getting preferential treatment. I think that high taxes are idiotic and usually counter-productive, but if some city or state wants to enact them, then they should be applied fairly and evenly to all who live and do business there. If those cities or states find that it drives out businesses, then they can vote to reduce the tax rates.

    4. Re:Objecting to the give-away by b0s0z0ku · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Taxes are great when they're used to pay for useful services like education, public transit, infrastructure, and public health care. Taxes suck when they're squandered on security theater, wars on moral panics like drugs, or wars abroad. Yeah, yeah, the latter is Federal, but NY sends much more money to DC than it gets back, so it adds up. Time to REALLY put America first and stop squandering tax money on nonsense.

    5. Re:Objecting to the give-away by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The people that Amazon employs are likely to earn more than the people they displace, which means the state will collect additional income tax simply due to the higher wages, but also because Amazon workers will fall into a higher tax bracket. Those workers also have more disposable income which means more money being spent into the local economy. If people are being pushed out at a 1:1 ratio with every person Amazon brings in, there's no net change in road utilization (unless Amazon workers are more likely to drive) or other utilization. If it displaces other types of labor, it just means that value of what remains increases due to more limited supply, so it would raise wages for those jobs. There's also plenty of housing available, but some of it needs to be reclaimed but idiotic development laws typically mean that no one wants to spend the time or money dealing with it.

      It may still be that the net effect doesn't result in much additional revenue for the state or city, but I'm not sure if I agree with the reasoning that you've used to arrive at that conclusion.