
The 238 Attempted Bribes of Amazon Should Be Illegal - hodgesmr
https://newrepublic.com/article/145493/238-attempted-bribes-amazon-illegal
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erentz
> 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.

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esmi
"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.

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maxharris
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.

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erentz
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.

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matt_the_bass
I feel the same way.

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SomeHacker44
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.

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Top19
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.

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mwrouse
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.

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hpcjoe
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.

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booker1010
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.

