PRIME SUSPECT
Meet the man who killed the Amazon deal Had an ax to grind with Gov. Cuomo Wouldn’t even meet with company
Queens state Sen. Michael Gianaris’ nomination to a key committee set in motion the undoing of Amazon’s Long Island City deal, which collapsed yesterday. He was miffed at Gov. Cuomo and scared the e-tail giant away, sources said.
ON Valentine’s Day, Amazon broke hearts all over New York City, dumping us like a boyfriend with cold feet. The loss is incalculable.
Gone, apparently for good, is the promise of not only more than 25,000 new highly skilled and well-paying jobs, at least a chunk of them for women and minorities, but all the goodies that go along with them.
With the withdrawal from its proposed campus in Long Island City, Queens, the company has snatched away potentially tens of billions in tax revenue, soaring interest in local real estate, plus new stores, restaurants and guaranteed employment for everyone from babysitters to dog-walkers. Nice going. It’s official. New York is not only freakishly hostile to business, but suspicious to a suicidal degree of billionaires who own things, the very people who bring employment to our midst. With their “Take these jobs and shove it” attitude, New York’s sanctimonious, progressive politicians and assorted naysayers should be proud of themselves. But what about the rest of us? Democratic City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer took part in an unseemly “victory press conference’’ Thursday, one with little support from ordinary Joes and Janes who badly wanted to work for the company, only to see their hopes demolished.
Newbie Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-described democratic socialist, reacted to the exit news not with somber reflection or the announcement of new jobs-creating initiatives — but with an insulting Twitter celebration.
“Anything is possible: Today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world,” she tweeted.
She failed to explain how she intends to pay for her signature initiatives, a basket of gifts, including free health care, free college and the total elimination of carbon emissions, as contained in her Green New Deal — a draft proposal of which bemoaned the likely inability to rid the nation quickly of airplanes and “farting cows.”
Long Island City’s Democratic state senator, Mike Gianaris, the deputy majority leader — and a former Amazon enthusiast — has taken to endlessly deriding the company with the Twitter hashtag “#Scamazon.’’
He joined anti-Amazon activists at a ridiculous rally in Queens Saturday, where he said, “We’ve learned over the last year that Amazon is not a responsible company. They want to take $3 billion from us. We’re trying to stop it.” Well, he did. Thanks a lot. Every politician who expended oxygen or computer keystrokes to run out what would have been a gigantic boon to the city is guilty of “political malpractice,” as Gov. Cuomo said about Gianaris.
Every one of these bozos should pay for this incredible loss with their jobs come Election Day. Or sooner.
As recent polls demonstrate, a majority of New Yorkers were all in for Amazon. We know better than these out-of-touch politicos what’s good for us. No professional activist will feed our families.
While Amazon’s kiss-off of the city may well serve us right, I am not alone in bemoaning this development. Not only have we been stripped of a great opportunity for real employment growth and related monetary benefits, the fleeing of Amazon will reverberate for years to come.
The officers of other corporations considering setting up shop in the city will realize they’d rather stick pins in their eyes than tangle with New York’s loathsome political class.
Most any municipality in the nation would eagerly grab the $27.5 billion tax windfall to be paid over 25 years, for the cost of just shy of $3 billion in taxes and subsidies over the same period. These are the numbers touted by Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, who fought for this deal, and they’ve not been debunked.
As the company fades away, shame should fall squarely on the shoulders of all the people responsible, most of whom have never even met their constituents. The entire city will live to regret their boneheaded moves.