Amazon HQ2 finalists should refuse tax breaks, say nearly 100 economists

Re:Amazon HQ2 finalists should refuse tax breaks, say nearly... by paulmd on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @11:09AM (#16274881)

> But a HUGE part of such a pact is that the cities need to find a way to punish any city that doesn't join the agreement, such as with economic sanctions. I'm not totally sure whether it would be possible to craft sanctions that might deter defecting from the pact, especially with so much potential upside on the line, but that's sort of what has to happen for the pact to work.

It's not - the Constitution was specifically designed to forbid this kind of inter-state warfare (eg things like taxing out-of-state goods differently) and SCOTUS has consistently upheld this (eg Granholm v. Heald).

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Re:Amazon HQ2 finalists should refuse tax breaks, say nearly... by bradleyjg on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @01:04PM (#16275929)

Yep, came here to post the same thing. Any kind of intra-national sanctions regime is a complete non-starter. Though states could have a compact that agrees not to do this sort of thing. That compact might have to be ratified by Congress though.

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Re:Amazon HQ2 finalists should refuse tax breaks, say nearly... by crdoconnor on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @11:38AM (#16275149)

Except this kind of interstate warfare is exactly what is happening now, with Amazon pitting city against city in an attempt to extract tax breaks.

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Re:Amazon HQ2 finalists should refuse tax breaks, say nearly... by paulmd on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @02:03PM (#16276523)

Yup, the Constitution does not have a good mechanism for dealing with states racing-to-the-bottom, either in taxes or regulatory climate. This isn't really the kind of thing that you can regulate Federally, either, under the Constitution.

The Constitution gets some things right, but it also gets a lot of things wrong. That's why the whole "living document" part is so important.

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Re:Amazon HQ2 finalists should refuse tax breaks, say nearly... by 18pfsmt on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:55PM (#16278310)

The whole idea that the Constitution is a living document is a myth. There is a process by which we can alter the Constitution, but it isn't by reinterpretation. The federal government is meant to be constrained in its powers in order to assure the liberties of the citizens.

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Re:Amazon HQ2 finalists should refuse tax breaks, say nearly... by dragonwriter on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @06:02PM (#16278359)

> The whole idea that the Constitution is a living document is a myth

No, it's not; it's a fundamental inescapable truth of all documents, because meaning is dialogue between the author and the audience, change the audience and the meaning changes.

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Re:Amazon HQ2 finalists should refuse tax breaks, say nearly... by dragonwriter on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @06:00PM (#16278348)

> Yup, the Constitution does not have a good mechanism for dealing with states racing-to-the-bottom, either in taxes or regulatory climate. This isn't really the kind of thing that you can regulate Federally, either, under the Constitution.

Sure you can; race-to-the-bottom among states only occurs because of the substantial nexus with real interstate and foreign commerce (not a distant potential impact), so even narrow views of the interstate commerce power would give Congress the authority to regulate to control it.

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