AOC Was Right for All the Wrong Reasons – Arizona Daily Independent

When Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and her followers managed to drive Amazon out of New York, she cost her trillions of dollars. It was a colossal mistake. New York City was right to offer the Amazon tax breaks they did. And, no, the politicians who scuttled this deal – despite what Cortez thinks – will not give up the three billion dollars in giveaways they offered Amazon. And yet, she was right – for all the wrong reasons.

Major corporate headquarters represent a tax windfall to whatever jurisdiction they reside in. They pay taxes, their Executives pay taxes. The people who make money and pay more. As a result, cities, counties, and states are in desperate race to the best deals. Unlike what Cortez apparently believes, these deals do not take money away from cities. We take in far, even more in taxes, and even more.

So why is she right? The the the………………………………. Because. Because. Because, Because, Because, Because, Because Because Because Because Because Because Keeping taxes as low as possible across the board is a better approach. In other words, spread the benefit. Instead of competing with special deals, jurisdictions should be competing on the basis of our overall living and business environments. This approach has the advantage of being able to operate efficiently and effectively.

In the current environment, however, this approach is limited by the – understandable – willingness of jurisdictions to offer the best business. But what about a company that wants to start competing with Amazon (or more realistically) wants to compete for a segment of Amazon's business? Under the current system, they are trying to compete against; we're forcing the guy to pay for the big guy. Instead, every company should pay for themselves.

Plenty of deals like Amazon's, though much smaller, in every year. High profile examples include the World View fiasco in Pima County, the city of Phoenix, which is subsidized by property tax abatement schemes, ASU 's sprawling new commercial developments, and the recent Suns stadium deal. Each one of the agreements that is made to the local politicians on the same basis as the Amazon deal was sold to New York. And, with the exception of the World View mess (congrats, Chuck Huckleberry, one of the most ridiculous, back-room dealing local government operations outside of Chicago), each will be liable for taxpayers. But, as noted above, while taxpayers can not get enough of the stick – directly, at least – every single other commercial enterprise does, which is what ultimately makes these insider-driven deals a bad deal.

What is needed now is a national campaign focused on the state of these types of giveaways. The federal government does not have the authority to do so by itself, but we should not need the feds to step in. Voters on both sides of the aisle are fed by this type of corporate welfare. Democrats object to feeding the fat cats. Republicans and libertarian types of government choosing winners and losers in the market. It is absolutely one of the most popular, widely accepted, and progressive, bipartisan progress.

Already, we've seen members of the United States legislature have begun to look at the efforts of ASU, Pima, Phoenix and others to use these deals. They need to step up those efforts. But we also need to reach out to other states to do the same. If Arizona stops offering these types of corporate giveaways while no one else does, it will only end up hurting us. Done in conjunction with a growing, bipartisan movement across the country, instead of being hurt, we all benefit.

If Ocasio-Cortez and her followers want to jump onboard that train, I'll happily climb up with them.