Posted on 03/16/2019 9:51:39 PM PDT by blueplum
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Protesters repeatedly shouted "shame" as a northern Virginia county board Saturday unanimously approved a $23 million incentives package for Amazon to build a new headquarters there.
The Arlington County Board's 5-0 vote came after hours of heated public testimony, news outlets reported.
Supporters said Amazon's plan to build a massive facility in Crystal City will lead to tens of thousands of good jobs and bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue. Opponents, however, said the tech giant neither needs nor deserves public subsidies. They also said lower-income residents would be driven out by rising rents.
"This vote today is about racial justice," Danny Cendejas, a member of the La ColectiVA advocacy group, said, according to WRC-TV . "We have been talking to folks in communities of color, immigrant communities. We have been hearing consistently the concerns about gentrification."
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
but what I don't get is, gentrification is racial injustice? Higher wages, more services as new businesses move in, all of that is racial injustice? What a crazy argument. Isn't "gentrification" uplifting the community, putting all their citizens on a better economic footing?
Arlington is one of the most liberal counties in the country. Even they understand how beneficial it is to get Amazon. NYC is batsh*t crazy.
ONE PERSON changes their gun laws.
NoVA needs more tax revenue to support their liberal utopia. My property taxes in Fairfax County go up every year. Crystal City has the Metro. Congestion won’t increase that much.
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!!!!!!!!!
Hypocrites to the end.
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!!!!!!!!!
Hypocrites to the end.
it’s all about how they define self-interest in light of the fact that Amazon is not going to hire locally, it’s going to import the best talent it can find around the world to displace current residents. most people in arlington own homes who can then sell them to amazon workers.
In NYC a bunch of people in the bronx saw a development that was going to price them out of their apartments without bringing them any benefit.
I’d bet one of the easiest ways to change demographics is for a large company to move in and start hiring closet conservatives willing to relocate. Who vote conservative outside the workplace. It worked in reverse in Calif.
Amazon doesn’t need $23 million incentive to locate in a highly desireable location like Crystal City. This crony capitalism needs to stop. Good for the protestors.
Smart for the Board to laugh off Danny Pendejas and his fellow woke Marxists, and go and get some serious cash and jobs for their state.
Amazon is going to bring jobs. A lot of good paying jobs. But considering the cost of living in that area, I think a lot of them will find themselves in the middle, maybe a bit higher. Because there are lots of folks that make 6-figures in the Arlington area.
Amazon is going to build a nice office campus or rent out a bunch of existing office space. Awesome.
With regards to NYC and NY State giving them the breaks/incentives/etc, I’d be willing to bet that Amazon’s decision to bail on NY had more to do with unknown entities showing up with their hands out, expecting “donations” and jobs for their sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters, Godson/Goddaughter, etc etc etc, and Bezos didn’t want to pay it.
But, my questions are...Why should they get anything from the taxpayer, in any form? If putting their office in that location is based on a business decision that says “this is where we need to be”, why should the taxpayers pick up the tab in whatever form that tab is? When he announced his intention to build somewhere else, it was almost like it was some sort of competition to see what city would sell themselves out the most. Outside Atlanta, one recently incorporated city said they would change the name of the city to, Amazon, Ga. Of course, if Amazon had moved out there, a whole bunch of people would have been forced out of their homes, but the city leaders/land owners/land lords/developers would have made bank, while displacing thousands. All based on inside information.
I’m no SJW. About as far from it as anyone can be. But, why can’t Amazon, more than anyone, pay their own freight? Why do they need “incentives” to show up anywhere?
Actually, the location in NYC was in Long Island City. Already a very pricey neighborhood. It was, at one time, a very industrial/warehouse type area. Not anymore. No place to build in Manhattan. Brooklyn is mostly residential and very expensive. LI City was prime real estate.
Amazon will have some local hiring just to set up the offices. The point is that Amazon will add to the local tax base in terms of property values and local purchases.
Arlington county is among the ten richest counties in America in terms of household income. There will increases in rents. I own a rental property in McLean. There is an expectation that landlords in NoVA will benefit from Amazon.
"This vote today is about racial justice," Danny Cendejas, a member of the La ColectiVA advocacy group, said, according to WRC-TV . "We have been talking to folks in communities of color, immigrant communities. We have been hearing consistently the concerns about gentrification."
IOW, Cendejas and the group he's in are irreparably RACIST. Thanks blueplum.
It is called competition or the marketplace. Countries, states, counties, and cities spend lots of time and money trying to attract businesses and investment. Amazon has the leverage to force them to make various concessions to get the company to locate in that locale.
Why did BMW locate a plant in SC? States with lower taxes, right to work laws, and other sweeteners have a competitive advantage. I have no problem with counties offering tax breaks or incentives to businesses. The taxpayer ultimately benefits if a good deal is struck.
NY Taxpayers would not “pay” a dime. These were tax incentives.
With regards to BMW and South Carolina...Laws already on the books made that an attractive place for them. Especially the Right To Work laws. The UAW has been trying to flip the folks in the VW plant for years and the workers are the ones fighting against that. Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia have the same laws, so it makes sense for MercedesBenz, Hyundai and Kia to go there. I can only speak for the Kia plant, which I’ve been to. Management is all Korean. Workers are all from the local area. Blue collar guys men and women that vote for guys like Donald J Trump. Not liberal hipsters that don’t like guns or pickup trucks.
Has it infused money into the area? Yes it has. But I can assure you that it isn’t the Economic Magic Wand that everyone thinks it is or was told that it was going to be. I’ve been down there. I’ve seen it firsthand.
Some city, town or county wants to give away the kitchen sink, or anything, to lure a business or industry, that’s fine. It is competition that you speak of, but the folks that oppose it, shouldn’t be ridiculed or ignored because some think they’re economic knuckledraggers that don’t know anything. The one thing they do know is they soon won’t be able to afford their homes.
But, I guess it’s my one soft spot that I see so many railing and insulting these people that oppose the breaks/incentives/goodies. Those people have a right to bitch and not be run out of their homes because of some hipster’s getting a job w/ Bezos.
And, on a side note, all that competition for big business is rapidly and forever changing the political and voting demographics of this country. It’s safe to say that 99% of the people that read and/or comment on FR are CONSERVATIVE. Well, the Governors of Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida ran around the country for years luring businesses with their tax breaks/incentives/goodies. Promising all the high paying jobs that their constituents will get. Only, quite a few employees followed their companies and the opportunities to move from the high tax, over regulated hell holes they created. Only to bring the same BS that they ran away from, to their new homes.
Texas is damn near Purple. Nashville is getting the other Amazon location and with the number of liberal hipsters that are moving into Chattanooga and muslims moving everyplace else, Tennessee is going Purple, as well. And Florida and Georgia almost elected Socialist’s to the Governors office and once safe Republican seats are now held by Democrats in those states, because of all the outsiders that followed the jobs.
Just my 2 cents
Mass immigration is turning states purple and then blue. I watched it happen firsthand in VA. We have brought in 35 million legal permanent immigrants since 1990 and that doesn’t include the 300,000 anchor babies born annually to illegal aliens. They are citizens at birth.
Immigrants vote more than two to one Dem. Immigrants and their US born children drive 80% of our population growth. And 87% of the 1.1 million immigrants we take in annually are minorities as classified by the USG. We have just had three of the four highest decades of legal immigration in our history. Half of the children 18 and under are minorities and each cohort that turns 18 each year is more minority than the previous one. Demography is destiny.
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