Using Tax Incentives and Giveaways To Lure Amazon's HQ2 Is Like Going To a Strip Club - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Using Tax Incentives and Giveaways To Lure Amazon's HQ2 Is Like Going To a Strip Club - Hit &Run : Reason.com:
"Give Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, a lot of credit. 
They really know how to play local and state governments against one another. 
When the online behemoth announced it was taking bids for its second headquarters (HQ2), it laid out some ground rules for an operation it claims will come with $5 billion in investment and 50,000 new jobs.

It wants a metro area with more than a million people, with the actual site located within 30 miles of the population center and within 45 minutes of an international airport. It wants enough space to eventually build up to 8 million square feet of office space.

All told, the online retailer received 238 applications from desperate state and local governments ready to throw tax dollars at Amazon like a half-soused salesman making it rain dollar bills on a pole dancer at a strip club. Amazon recently narrowed down to 20 finalists. 
How frenzied are the bids? 

• The city of Newark and the state government of New Jersey have said they'd put together a combined $7 billion in incentives to lure the company to one of the country's most famously failed cities. 
• Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who supposedly trades in fiscal responsibility, has put his taxpayers on the hook for $5 billion to woo Amazon to Montgomery County, which is adjacent to Washington, D.C. 
• Chicago's Rahm Emanuel has talked about gifting Amazon employees' income taxes back to the company and 
• Dallas has pledged to build a high-speed-rail station at the retailer's location (exactly where a train will go to and fro is not clear)..."

Read on!

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