New York Mayor Says Amazon Headquarters Debacle Was 'an Abuse of Corporate Power' (cnn.com)

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is still upset that Amazon isn't coming to New York. De Blasio attacked the company Sunday for canceling plans to build a second headquarters in Queens last week. From a report: "This is an example of an abuse of corporate power," de Blasio told NBC's Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press." "Amazon just took their ball and went home. And what they did was confirm people's worst fears about corporate America." He made similar comments in a New York Times op-ed Saturday. Amazon canceled the deal just months after announcing plans to split its new, second headquarters between New York and Virginia. The Seattle-based company, which is trying to grow its footprint at home and abroad, spent a year reviewing hundreds of "HQ2" proposals from all over North America before settling on the two regions.

[...] On Sunday, de Blasio, a Democrat, said New York offered Amazon a "fair deal," and blamed the company for making what he called an "arbitrary" decision to leave after some people objected. "They said they wanted a partnership, but the minute there were criticisms, they walked away," he added. "What does that say to working people that a company would leave them high and dry simply because some people raised criticisms?"

Comments

Tax is for the little people

[youngone]

Amazon don't want to pay tax. They want to profit from doing business in a developed country. They just don't feel the need to help pay to maintain one:
$11.2 billion in profits means you pay -0.1% federal tax. Nice.

Re: Tax is for the little people

[Darinbob]

The part where the profits are increased because government taxes went and paid for infrastructure that they depend upon. Ie, water and sewage for their workers, roads so that workers can arrive at the plants, railroads and bridges so that their goods can be shipped out, a court system so that they can make use of a legal system when they have disputes, police and military to protect their real estate and workers, etc.

Companies do not make money in a vacuum, governments are a vital part of doing business. When a large corporation pays 0% in taxes then they are essentially free-loading off of everyone who does pay tax. Even the most staunch capital-L Libertarian will agree that this is unfair.

And don't say "comrade" as if paying taxes were synonymous with communism, that just makes any argument you had look stupid.

Re: Tax is for the little people

[mlyle]

> Most of the rest goes for government giveaways.

Like the $1.2B in refundable tax credits that Amazon demanded to move to NY, and $500M in capital grants to build facilities with. It takes a long, long time of a couple percent of property tax to pay these things back, let alone pay for the services they're consuming in the meantime.

Re: Tax is for the little people

[kenh]

Amazon entered into a 10 year deal with the City and State of New York, and over those ten years they would have paid an estimated $30 BN in various taxes and fees. Instead, NY City and State agreed to 90 cents on the dollar, AKA $27 BN over the next ten years to lure Amazon to Queens. So AOC & Friends didn't "save" NY city and state $3 BN, she cost them $27 BN in new tax revenue.

25,000 new jobs for a 10% discount on taxes, seems like an OK deal to me, but then again, I'm not an economics major like AOC is.

Re:Tax is for the little people

[youngone]

Nobody is arguing Amazon are breaking the law.
The argument is that the law ought to be different.

Re: Tax is for the little people

[srichard25]

They might not be doing anything illegal, but I disagree what they are doing is ethical. Ethical is a higher bar than legal. One of the definitions of ethical is: avoiding activities or organizations that do harm to people or the environment. So they found a loophole that allows them to avoid all federal taxes. They could chose to not use that type of loophole and pay a reasonable amount of tax to the country that allows them to make billions in profit.

Re: Tax is for the little people

[ShanghaiBill]

Seriously, nobody's fool enough to let the government be the power company.

There are plenty of places in America with government run municipal power.

Municipal electric utilities in the United States

They generally work well. Electrical power is a natural monopoly, so free market competition isn't really an alternative anyway.

Re:Tax is for the little people

[dryeo]

Higher corporate taxes results in lower wages and distribution and thus lower individual spending.

Actually higher corporate taxes results in more spending on wages, infrastructure etc as the corporation would prefer to spend their money, expand their business and write it off then give it to the government. Unlike wage earners, who basically get taxed on income, corporations get taxed on profits, or the amount left over after paying the bills including wages.

Re: Tax is for the little people

[Ichijo]

How can ordinary citizens like you and I get the same negative tax deal as Amazon?

What is good for the goose

[markdavis]

>"New York Mayor...' 'This is an example of an abuse of corporate power,' de Blasio told NBC"

I suppose all these major "incentives", bonuses, express permitting, promises, tax cuts, state-funded infrastructure for private benedit, and other such things are not "an example of an abuse of government power"?

You get the idiot you voted for

[WCMI92]

That is the bottom line.

Blaming the wrong party

[MikeRT]

What does that say to working people that a company would leave them high and dry simply because some people raised criticisms

Why don't you go ask Ms. Occasional-Cortex why she and her peers lead a rage mob at them when Amazon was willing to move into a community that has an average income of $15k and create jobs there? None of the "criticisms" were sober and civilly expressed. It was typical Twitter culture rage mob with over-the-top rhetoric, vilification, etc.

And then you wonder why Amazon politely says "no, you can fuck right off and die" and leaves? Truth is, if AOC and co had been civil and demanded that the benefits package be cut in half, then had been otherwise welcoming, Amazon would very likely still be moving in. This is real life, not Twitter. You don't have Jack Dorsey and his biased admins padding your safe space every night while you sleep. There are consequences.

Re:DNC platform

[Darinbob]

The number of jobs that companies promise in exchange for tax breaks has always been a lie. The actual jobs are always a small fraction of what was originally claimed, and the promised increase in revenue to the cities never actually shows up.

If a municipality or state makes an agreement here to get new business relocated, then they should be putting in hard requirements into the deals. Ie, reduce the taxes only if the promises are kept, increasing them proportionate to how far apart the promises and reality actually are.

Politicians weasel out of this though. When the jobs don't show up the politicians never takes the blame, but just passes it along to the company ("how was I to know they didn't consider a handshake to be binding?") or to an opposing party ("they undermined me at every turn!").

Who ran the numbers first?

[King_TJ]

It seems to me like a LOT of people involved with or impacted by this Amazon HQ being in, vs. leaving New York are just running off emotions and assumptions?

To determine if this was a "good deal" for NY taxpayers, you have to look at many factors and crunch all the numbers. I'm confident the likes of Cortex didn't do so, but I question if DeBlasio did either?

I mean, you have to calculate impact of the extra traffic it generates .... the extra demand on public utilities like electric power, sewer and water. You obviously have to look at how much you gave Amazon in tax breaks and benefits, vs. how much they'll really benefit the public with new jobs. (How much will you collect in taxes from the people they hire?) And if the deal wasn't struck with a clause in it that required Amazon STAY there for a number of years -- you have to try to take an educated guess about the long-term future. Many times, companies take advantage of these deals to put a business in a state, only to pull back out as soon as the perks expire.

I don't know if the HQ was a good deal of Queens or it wasn't .... but the people making the decision should sure know, and I'm not confident any of them do?

Or in other words

[cascadingstylesheet]

You wanted them to come and be your live in whipping boy, and when you bragged to your usual audiences about how badly you were going to whip them, they reconsidered for some mysterious reason.