Exactly. I'm not that old, but I've seen this dog and pony show so many times already that it's no longer surprising. The latest example being the Foxconn plant in Wisconsin. The increased tax revenue from that plant may never[1] recoup the investment Wisconsin made to bring it to the state.

[1] https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/technology/430953... (The estimated recoup time is 25 years, which means the plant will be obsolete before the state sees a dime of net revenue.)

The solution to that is to make the incentives performance based. And that's exactly what was proposed: if Amazon hadn't delivered the promised results the tax breaks wouldn't have taken effect.

That's not really a solution all by itself. Making the incentives performance based merely opens the possibility of being able to sue, nothing more. And when you're talking about companies with the size, power, and lack of scruples as Amazon, suing can be a losing proposition regardless of how correct your position is.