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Embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam Signs Bill Authorizing $750 Million in Cash Subsidies to Amazon reason.com/blog/2019/02/0…
No one is calling for the governor's resignation over the huge transfer of taxpayer dollars to a private company.
Embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has signed a huge incentive package aimed at online retailer Amazon that could see the company get millions in taxpayer-funded grants.
On Tuesday Northam signed Senate Bill 1255, which creates a new "Major Headquarters Workforce Grant Fund" that will make available $550M in grants to any "qualified e-commerce company" that invests at least $2B in an Arlington County, VA headquarters...
...and adds a minimum of 25,000 jobs paying an average of $150,000 a year.
Should this "qualified e-commerce company" add up to 37,580 jobs at its new headquarters, it could receive an additional $200M in subsidies, bringing the grand total of taxpayer assistance to $750M.
Should this "qualified e-commerce company" add up to 37,580 jobs at its new headquarters, it could receive an additional $200M in subsidies, bringing the grand total of taxpayer assistance to $750M.
The intended recipient of the bill is obviously Amazon, which announced plans to add 25,000 jobs at a new Arlington headquarters complex in November of last year.
That same month, Northam publicly released a "Memorandum of Understanding" between the Virginia state government and the e-commerce giant, promising the company an identical deal to what the governor signed today.
That memorandum also included a promise of $295 million in state infrastructure investments in and around Amazon's new headquarters.
Offering massive subsidies to companies as a way of luring jobs and investment is hardly a practice unique to Virginia, although this specific proposal to award Amazon nearly a $1 billion in cash payments—as opposed to tax credits or abatements—is somewhat unusual.
The $3 billion in government incentives offered to Amazon to set up another 25,000-person headquarters in New York City, for instance, were mostly city and state tax breaks.
Certainly, one would think that a company capable of hiring 25,000 people at an average salary of $150,000 would be the last entity to need taxpayer support.
The money Virginia taxpayers will be spending on Amazon either means fewer dollars for genuine public services, or higher taxes for the state's residents.
