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The New York representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is attacking a billboard in Times Square, accusing it of ending an agreement between New York City and Amazon that would have parked his second headquarters, HQ2, in Queens.
Amazon has withdrawn from the agreement to develop HQ2 last Thursday. The bottom line of the plan was that Amazon would get $ 3 billion in tax credits, which it would receive over 10 years, and create 25,000 jobs in a new headquarters.
The Ocasio-Cortez response came after Fox News host Laura Ingraham tweeted a photo of the billboard paid for by the Job Creators Network (JCN), a conservative trade group advocating taxes. lower and fewer business regulations, according to Axios.
Its website is also called the protector of the "85 million people who depend on the success of small businesses".
The Times Square billboard reads: "25,000 jobs lost in New York, $ 4 billion in lost wages, $ 12 billion in lost economic activity for New York." Thank you for nothing , AOC ", referring to the member's initials.
Read more: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says tax credits of $ 3 billion should be awarded to the public, not to Amazon – and a new poll shows that nearly half of Americans are in agreement
It also contains the hashtag "#SocialismTakesCapitalismCreates" at the bottom of the page.
The billboard was seen Wednesday by 42nd Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan and will be posted for a week, the JCN said in a statement.
Ocasio-Cortez responded to this statement with a series of tweets early Thursday morning alleging that the advertisement had been sponsored by "billionaire-funded groups", defending "black and anti-worker money policies" against which she was fighting.
She said: "Few things effectively communicate the power we have built in the fight against black money and anti-worker policies, such as groups funded by billionaires who spend tons of money on wack display panels (this one is funded by the Mercers). "
"(The fact that he's in Times Square tells you it's not for NYers.)" She added jokingly.
Read more: Bernie Sanders congratulates New York for its "solidarity" with Amazon after the cancellation of the plan for the new headquarters in Queens
The Mercers are a family of billionaires, led by funder Robert Mercer. He donated to President Donald Trump and other conservative organizations like Breitbart in the past.
His daughters, Jennifer and Rebekah, have been associated with Cambridge Analytica, the British firm that discovered two years ago that it has accumulated data from 50 million profiles on Facebook for political purposes.
Ocasio-Cortez added a screen shot of JCN's Wikipedia page, which indicates that the group was founded by billionaire Trump donor, Bernard Marcus, and funded by conservative groups, including the Mercer family.
While the Ocasio-Cortez screen capture indicates that Marcus founded the JCN, the group's funding is more obscure.
In an article published by Forbes in 2017, titled "Who finances this new group of small businesses? Index: these are not usually small businesses," writer Robb Mandelbaum discovered in the 2015 financial data that about $ 4.6 million raised, $ 1 million came from the Marcus Foundation.
The Mercer Family Foundation, led by Rebekah Mercer, donated $ 100,000 to JCN in 2013 and 2014 when the group called Job Jobors Alliance, Forbes said.
Breitbart, which the Mercer family has been funding for at least 2011, has also regularly promoted the work of JCN in its online articles and advertisements in recent years, Media Matters announced in 2017.
It is not clear if the Mercer family still finances the JCN.
Amazon has cited resistance from local politicians and residents for its cancellation.
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