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Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

governor.ny.gov

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Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#41

Post by imh »

>The seventy percent of New Yorkers who supported Amazon and now vent their anger also bear responsibility and must learn that the silent majority should not be silent because they can lose to the vocal minority and self-interested politicians.

This like makes me frustrated. It shouldn't be everyone's responsibility to go on twitter or wherever and be loud. Maybe politicians should put in real effort to learn about who they represent. They could engage in the same kind of polling they do during election season, rather than just paying attention to whoever is loudest.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#42

Post by otterley »

mobilefriendly wrote: post #39
sokoloff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overwhelming majority of the tax deals were/are available to other employers in the state as well. IIRC, only the land/building deal was specific and a version of that is likely to be available to whomever decides to build on the site.

Empire State Development was to award Amazon a cash grant of $325 million from taxpayers. This is corporate welfare and a kind of corruption. Congress should ban all government subsidies that are one-off and negotiated in secret with individual companies. There's an equal protection under the law issue.

As an attorney, I’m curious as to how you think a constitutional equal protection issue is at stake here. I’m unaware of any case law that would suggest so.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#44

Post by starpilot »

San Francisco-ization it seems. Liberals going against their own interests. Reminds me of an apartment complex under construction in SF that was forced to include a larger amount of low-income units. The builders found it would no longer be profitable, and ceased building. So lose-lose, prisoner's dilemma, vocal social media forces "won," lacking the cooperative biases that humans normally have. They all end up with nothing.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#45

Post by jshaqaw »

imh wrote: post #41

>The seventy percent of New Yorkers who supported Amazon and now vent their anger also bear responsibility and must learn that the silent majority should not be silent because they can lose to the vocal minority and self-interested politicians. This like makes me frustrated. It shouldn't be everyone's responsibility to go on twitter or wherever and be loud. Maybe politicians should put in real effort to learn about w…

In a perfect world yes. In reality what matters is not how many people support a position but how many will vote based on that issue. If you support something but it is not in your top ten of voting factors (assuming you even vote) then in reality your view doesn’t matter to the powers that be.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#46

Post by TAForObvReasons »

sokoloff wrote: post #13
deogeo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no question this would have been a huge win for NY. But a loss for the US as a whole, assuming the HQ still gets built, but without special tax exemptions.

The overwhelming majority of the tax deals were/are available to other employers in the state as well. IIRC, only the land/building deal was specific and a version of that is likely to be available to whomever decides to build on the site.

This entire deal was incredibly poorly timed. While the national Amazon roadshow was raging on, the truth behind another high-tech government deal was being exposed. Foxconn received massive benefits from Wisconsin on the promise of manufacturing jobs, and they were equivocating right around the time of the announcement that NY might be on the shortlist.

Even if other companies were eligible for most of the deal, the fact that even a small part of it might have been specific to Amazon meant that the Foxconn story and fallout became a relevant part of the discussion

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#47

Post by hprotagonist »

Svoka wrote: post #34
spamizbad wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad they dropped it. There are some grounded concerns: * Amazon is one of the most successful enterprises in human history and should not require support from taxpayers beyond their voluntary patronage of Amazon itself. * Most of these "deals" were put together secretly without input from the public. Millions (or in NY's case, billion+) of dollars were packaged and presented without community input or oversight…

What's wrong with giving Amazon billion dollar for building an office? Just to put it in perspective, lets say they would create 30000 jobs with average pay of $80000/year. That is $2.4 billion in just salaries over single year. According to random tax calculator I found online it is about 0.7 billions in taxes every year. This is crazy ROI. If I could put money which would have 70% safe yearly return that would be i…

foxconn made very similar promises in wisconsin. that worked out really poorly indeed.

GE made similar promises in boston. that’s worked out really poorly indeed.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#48

Post by spamizbad »

yawboakye wrote: post #33
spamizbad wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad they dropped it. There are some grounded concerns: * Amazon is one of the most successful enterprises in human history and should not require support from taxpayers beyond their voluntary patronage of Amazon itself. * Most of these "deals" were put together secretly without input from the public. Millions (or in NY's case, billion+) of dollars were packaged and presented without community input or oversight…

Amazon isn't taking money from the government. They're getting a relief of $3 billion IF they fulfill their promise. I'd take 25k-40k jobs for my people over $3 billion in taxes any day. As the director quoted the governor, the best social program is still a job.

Many companies in New York create jobs for the state. Some even more than Amazon, and generate even greater amounts tax revenue.

Are they too entitled to tax relief?

Amazon is a tremendously successful company. You start handing it tax breaks and you begin walking down the path of making it a government-sanctioned monopoly.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#49

Post by throw2016 »

This reads too much like a one sided political letter by a state functionary. It's curious no such 'open letter' was forthcoming from any public functionary accounting for the losses due to the long list of bank frauds and bailouts?

Many here swear by free markets, fair competition and a level playing field and yet do not see the contradiction of letting large companies play regions against each other to extract concessions.

Too many times we just see pro business narratives that rehash arguments by lobbyists, bought economists and the business press to support specific business interests and these one sided narratives are now being challenged.

Re: Open Letter from New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica Regarding Amazon

#50

Post by [deleted] »

orangecat wrote: post #17
ddebernardy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in other words, you're suggesting that the handout was baked in from the get go because the HQ was in Queens, and Amazon being Amazon had nothing to do with it? If that's the case, the media have done a terrible job reporting this.

you're suggesting that the handout was baked in from the get go because the HQ was in Queens, and Amazon being Amazon had nothing to do with it? Mostly, yes. About $2.5 billion of the tax benefits were "as of right", meaning they're available to any company that fulfills certain requirements. There was also a separate Amazon-specific $500 million grant to assist with construction. More details at http://www.gothamgaz…

[deleted]
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