I’m no fan of AOC, but this idea that she helped kill the Amazon deal in NYC is a myth. She had just been elected and wasn’t even in office when that fiasco went down. She just jumped on an anti-Amazon bandwagon that had already killed the deal.
Even an Amazon spokesman pinned it on her. I wouldn't say it was entirely her fault, but her big mouth is the primary reason Amazon decided to build elsewhere.
Even Snopes, as left-tarded as they tend to be, labels this as mixed, simply pointing out that she wasn't the only politician involved with Amazon building elsewhere.
You are wrong about this.
She may have been just elected, but she was an early starter of that bandwagon, and the "fiasco went down" three months after she spoke out, and one month after she took office.
According to the liberal Business Insider sourced timeline story:
-PJ
- Amazon's headquarters are in Seattle, employing more than 45,000 workers.
- However, in 2017, Amazon announced it was on the hunt for a second headquarters, dubbed HQ2. Amazon said the new headquarters would bring 50,000 new jobs and a $5 billion investment.
- Amazon received 238 proposals as cities across North America tried to win over the e-commerce giant. (10/23/2017)
- In January 2018, Amazon revealed its shortlist of 20 regions. (1/18/2018)
- After months of deliberation and rumors, Amazon announced in November 2018 that it would actually split the second headquarters between New York and Virginia. One office would be in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, New York, and the other would be in National Landing, a newly formed area in Northern Virginia. Amazon said each headquarters would receive roughly 25,000 new jobs. (11/6/2018)
- New York's HQ2 bid was strongly supported by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio. "I'll change my name to Amazon Cuomo if that's what it takes," Cuomo told reporters...(11/5/18)
- New York politicians began speaking out against Amazon's HQ2 plans almost immediately after plans to develop the headquarters in Queens were announced. "Amazon is a billion-dollar company," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in November. "The idea that it will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less, is extremely concerning to residents here." (11/13/2018)
- In late November, protesters stormed an Amazon Books store in Manhattan. (11/26/2018)
- However, while Virginians and local politicians reacted mostly positively to the news, New Yorkers were less optimistic about HQ2. Amazon's plans raised concerns that the second headquarters could increase homelessness rates, send rents skyrocketing, paralyze public transportation, and create other problems for residents. (11/26/2018)
- A proposed $3 billion in tax incentives infuriated politicians and New Yorkers. A December poll found that 46% of New Yorkers said they supported the incentives, while 44% said they opposed it citywide. (12/5/2018)
- Amazon was slammed in the first of a series of planned hearings about Amazon's HQ2 deal in December. (12/12/2018)
- In January, New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told Business Insider that HQ2 was not "a done deal." "This is the beginning of a process where the public and the City Council and other elected officials are going to continue to seek answers and understand whether or not this is a good deal for New York City, or if we got played." (1/6/2019)
- Amazon began mailing New Yorkers ads touting the benefits of HQ2. (1/8/2019)
- In late January, Amazon unveiled new plans to win over New Yorkers. In another New York City Council meeting, Amazon pledged to reach out to small businesses, offer customer-service jobs to residents of local public-housing developments, and work on secondary- and higher-education initiatives. (1/30/2019)
- In early February, news broke that a noted Amazon critic had been nominated for a position in which he could veto HQ2. The New York Senate leader nominated Michael Gianaris, a vocal opponent of HQ2, for a seat on the New York State Public Authorities Control Board. (2/4/2019)
- On February 8, The Washington Post reported that Amazon was reconsidering its plan to open a campus in New York. "The question is whether it's worth it if the politicians in New York don't want the project, especially with how people in Virginia and Nashville have been so welcoming," a person familiar with Amazon's plans told The Washington Post. (2/8/2019)
- Amazon said it made the decision because "a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project." (2/14/2019)
* * * *
Agree, Alberta. In fact, Amazon is a company with a reputation of bleeding the taxpayer dry with guarantees -- the so-called "corporate welfare".
You'll recall of the New York City controversy that Amazon had a national campaign "second Amazon headquarters" campaign that pitted one city government after another to see who would come up with the most "incentives" so Amazon could choose among the bidders.
But the truth is: these bidding wars often disguise the fact that a large business like Amazon already knows which one or two sites are the most attractive. So the highly publicized bidding war is an attempt to suck as much corporate welfare as possible from an already pre-selected city/state.
This kind of things has been going on for decades and a great analysis of how it works is in a very well-written book by Greg LeRoy, The Great American Jobs Scam (written actually before Amazon came into prominence).
The entire book is available FREE on-line here. A good place to get a quick overview of the subject is the Foreword.
I'll also know that Georgia, my former state of residence, has the Jobs Scam formula down pat. The unKEMPt governor and his RINO cronies in the State House have been skimming the cream off these corporate welfare schemes for a long time.