The 238 Attempted Bribes of Amazon Should Be Illegal

https://newrepublic.com/article/145493/238-attempted-bribes-amazon-illegal

by hodgesmr • 9 years ago

43 12 9 years ago

newrepublic.com

matt_the_bass• 9 years ago

I feel the same way.

SomeHacker44• 9 years ago

Me too.

I also cringe whenever I think of the ludicrous amount of my tax dollars that NYC gave away to the Yankees (one of the richest sports teams ever) and the Mets to rebuild their stadiums.

downrightmike• 9 years ago

It would have been better to just throw the cash out the window of a plane over NYC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs

Top19• 9 years ago

Side note, today I found out the Yankees don’t have names on their uniforms, only numbers. Apparently this used to be the tradition in all of sports until about the 60’s. Absolutely mind-blowing that I never noticed this, and it made me like the Yankees a little bit more and appreciate their (to some extent) humility.

maxharris• 9 years ago

Okay, that's fine as long as it also becomes illegal for local governments to shake down the well-off and their companies by voting to raise taxes on them.

erentz2• 9 years ago

What you say would make sense if you were suggesting some government was targeting specific well-off individuals. E.g. say Bellevue decided to institute the Bill Gates Tax which required Bill Gates to pay $1 million a year. But as you put it, you're basically arguing against any normal progressive tax scheme.

tdb7893• 9 years ago

It should be illegal for them to raise taxes on one specific business or person and no one here (that I've seen) is arguing otherwise. Otherwise if you are saying the government should never be able to raise taxes as a whole then I don't really get how that's connected to the story

erentz2• 9 years ago

It’s also not worth it because, as San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg wrote in his letter declining to submit an Amazon proposal, “it’s hard to imagine that a forward-thinking company like Amazon hasn’t already selected its preferred location.” Thus, the public bidding war is just a ploy to squeeze out additional subsidies, to play cities off one another. “Blindly giving away the farm isn’t our style,” Nirenberg wrote.

Pretty smart of that mayor to see through this.

Two things bother me with this. 1) It's not applied fairly. If Amazon gets a tax break to locate in CityX then I should also be able to get the same tax break to locate my business there. I'm okay with different cities and states competing in the form of different tax rates and services, but these special deals have to stop. 2) The United States really needs to start behaving as a single country in the best interest of the whole United States. These jobs would still be created somewhere without tax breaks, and we'd all be better off if that happened. Instead we are all collectively worse off in this model where we negotiate against ourselves.

esmi• 9 years ago

"2) The United States really needs to start behaving as a single country in the best interest of the whole United States." I'm sure there is some founding father quote which says basically exactly that. I wouldn't hold my breath... Edit: I should add, for the most part, I think the US does a pretty decent job at it too.

mwrouse• 9 years ago

The governor of Missouri just used a nonexistent hyperloop from Kansas City to St. Louis in his proposal. Might beat out that $7 billion one.

hpcjoe• 9 years ago

Put more succinctly, whomever wins this, loses. Small business will wind up paying for Amazon's share of the taxes.

We all lose when this happens.

booker1010• 9 years ago

There are clear benefits to both Amazon and the winning city were the transaction to occur, and no loss other than status quo were it not to. This is not bribery.

The 238 Attempted Bribes of Amazon Should Be Illegal

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