Bezos's retail giant Amazon announced Tuesday it would split its second headquarters between Northern Virginia and Long Island City.
New York state and Virginia have offered a combined $2 billion in subsidies for Amazon to locate within their boundaries.
The sad irony is that the very thing that drew Amazon to the D.C. area is the very thing that makes it too expensive for regular people to live here: The bloated, overbearing, overgenerous, overregulating federal leviathan.
Big companies like Amazon feel the need to invest in former congressmen, Pentagon lifers, and ex-bureaucrats to lobby, finagle, massage, and navigate the sprawling and complex web of taxes, regulations, handouts, and mandates.
When its nationwide network of warehouses and other properties resulted in a court ruling forcing Amazon to collect the sales tax, Amazon started lobbying for a federal law to require its smaller competitors to do the same.
Amazon knows how to use big government to protect itself from competition and to reel in handouts, such as the $2 billion in subsidies it is getting from Virginia and New York.
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrives here in January, if she wants to make rents cheaper in D.C., here's an idea: Shrink the federal government, and reduce the incentive for guys like Bezos and Amazon to move here.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/amazon-follows-the-money-to-the-swamp
New York state and Virginia have offered a combined $2 billion in subsidies for Amazon to locate within their boundaries.
The sad irony is that the very thing that drew Amazon to the D.C. area is the very thing that makes it too expensive for regular people to live here: The bloated, overbearing, overgenerous, overregulating federal leviathan.
Big companies like Amazon feel the need to invest in former congressmen, Pentagon lifers, and ex-bureaucrats to lobby, finagle, massage, and navigate the sprawling and complex web of taxes, regulations, handouts, and mandates.
When its nationwide network of warehouses and other properties resulted in a court ruling forcing Amazon to collect the sales tax, Amazon started lobbying for a federal law to require its smaller competitors to do the same.
Amazon knows how to use big government to protect itself from competition and to reel in handouts, such as the $2 billion in subsidies it is getting from Virginia and New York.
When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrives here in January, if she wants to make rents cheaper in D.C., here's an idea: Shrink the federal government, and reduce the incentive for guys like Bezos and Amazon to move here.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/amazon-follows-the-money-to-the-swamp
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