Since you seem so opposed to tax breaks for big corporations, have you also lobbied for repealing the Excelsior and REAP programs? Or do you get upset only when these programs are applied to Amazon?
Thus, the only reason it is "in your best interest" is a prisoner's dilemma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma
Any city has two options: A) hurt yourself by making big concessions, B) don't do that. (Obviously also various degrees of A, but that does not matter in the following).
Ideally for your city and all cities, every city goes with B) and you get the deal by virtue of what should matter (existing infrastructure, location,...). However, if another city "caves" and offers A) they improve their chances, so what happens is that all cities offer A). That decision is "in your own best interest", but everybody is worse off than if nobody did that (same for bribery and paying "protection money" to the mafia).
Thus, yes I am opposed to Amazon receiving the benefits of these programs. However, instead of repealing them outright, they should include a ceiling.
If that sounds absurd, I certainly think it is. Local governments shouldn't be trying to "profit" by taxing its residents and companies. The whole purpose of local taxes is to best serve local residents and companies. If a city/state can better serve its people by lowering its taxes or by offering tax credits for specific programs, it should certainly do so, even if there's no competition involved. There is no prisoner's dilemma here.
I wouldn't have thought that I need to pay companies to exploit my local labor pool. I'm not buying something from them. They're buying something (work) from me.
Because Amazon can easily go elsewhere, and most places have lower taxes than NYC. Giving them a ~10% off coupon on an extremely high tax rate is not the same as handing them money.
You can object to the deal on principle, sure, but you're ignoring the fundamental reality of the situation; if NY refuses to give them any incentives, they can just as easily go to some other location that will give them incentives. And if all the states banded together and agreed that nobody would give them incentives, NY still loses, because then they'll just pick a place with lower tax rates.
I can understand the appeal of trying to stand up to big corporations, but in the end, NY isn't screwing Amazon by refusing to negotiate with them on this, they're just screwing themselves. If you want to have high tax rates and not lose business to other states, it's a winning strategy to be open to compromise sometimes.
Amazon did this to themselves with their tone deaf "national search" and if anything they proved to everyone that Amazon needs NY more than NY needs Amazon. Otherwise, they would have picked any of the other numerous smaller cities that were on the radar of the search, but were not chosen.
Clearly they can, if they this quickly pulled out of NY after the reception they received.
Instead they did the dog and pony show of shopping their Decision around, commited to NY and had to backtrack. You can't spin this as a plus for Bezos.
Yes it is. How the hell is it not?
and Amazon wants NYC for the size of it's talent pool and ease of recruiting. NYC has no reason to give them anything.
> If you want to have high tax rates and not lose business to other states, it's a winning strategy to be open to compromise sometimes
NYC is having so much trouble getting businesses to come.
If I give you $27 and you give me $3 back, then yes, technically you've handed me $3. Taking that out of context ignores the end result, which is that I've given you a net $24. You wouldn't be $3 richer if the transaction had never taken place, so acting all indignant that you paid me $3 when you came out way ahead seems pretty disingenuous to me.
If McDonalds gives me $1, I don't need to buy a big mac and can go spend it at some other store.
Put another way--why should Amazon go to NYC? Do New Yorkers have a god-given right to the benefits of large tech companies?
Amazon always wanted NYC. They overplayed their hand trying to get a break and it blew up in their face.
They probably could have gotten away with most of it if they did this with less fanfare.
There will always be some megacorp looking to open up in NYC. Why diminish the return for the city?
So Amazon is at lower risk of bankruptcy and a higher credibility of eventual return of those investments?