How Virginia sealed the deal on Amazon's HQ2

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, ARLnow:

Morning Notes
by ARLnow.com November 20, 2018 at 8:35 am
....

How Virginia Sealed the HQ2 Deal — Amazon’s decision to split HQ2 between two different places actually helped convince some skeptical Virginia state lawmakers to support the deal. [Richmond Times-Dispatch]

How Virginia sealed the deal on Amazon's HQ2, 'the biggest economic development project in U.S. history'
By MICHAEL MARTZ Richmond Times-Dispatch Nov 16, 2018

As autumn began, Virginia lawmakers were not completely sold on the deal they had been putting together for a year to land Amazon’s second headquarters in the Northern Virginia suburbs. ... The lure of a $5 billion investment and 50,000 high-paying jobs was powerful, but so was the fear of having to justify $1 billion in direct state incentives to a company valued at $1 trillion.

Members of the Major Employment and Investment Project Approval Commission also were concerned about the ability of any community in Northern Virginia’s already teeming and traffic-clogged suburbs to handle the massive influx of people. ... That’s when Amazon made a pivotal decision to divide the project in half, ultimately awarding 25,000 new jobs and up to $2.5 billion in investment each to Virginia and New York about six weeks later.

“That’s when I knew I could support it,” said House Appropriations Chairman Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, who acknowledged last week that until the decision, “I wasn’t there yet.” ... House Finance Chairman Lee Ware, R-Powhatan, resigned from the MEI commission in February “because of the size of the subsidy we were offering Amazon.”

“I couldn’t justify taxpayers subsidizing one of the wealthiest companies in the world,” said Ware, who intends to vote against the proposed incentives when the General Assembly considers them in January. “The company picked two prime development sites it might have picked without inducements.”
....

[e-mail]

[phone]

[Autumn]

1. "I couldn't justify taxpayers subsidizing one of the wealthiest companies in the world,"

I don't get it and it pisses me off. If a company wants to expand and grow isn't paying for your companies growth a cost of doing business?

[JudyM]

2. Right there with you. Corporate Welfare.

Of course it’s great to bring in jobs, but the gift to Amazon seems a bit large.