4 ms·

Competing in the interest of their citizens should be illegal?

• tynpeddler 9y ago
  No, using public funds to subsidize a private entity should be illegal for local governments. Based on past history, the most likely way that governments will attempt to woo Amazon will include tax breaks, cheap bonds, and preferential spending of infrastructure dollars. These are all benefits that are almost certainly not going to be made available to other private companies resulting in a huge advantage being handed to one private entity at the expense of other private entities and the local government.
• mrkurt 9y ago
  That's so simplistic there's not really a good discussion to be had. But the answer is: there are a lot of things governments shouldn't be able to do. _Especially_ to benefit corporations. Corporate subsidies almost never pay off for individuals, but saddle cities with unmanageable expenses later on. They tend to actually hurt the poor, as well.
  • hueving 9y ago
    But by that restriction municipalities wouldn't be able to do any business with corporations because that would benefit the corporations. This isn't as obvious as you'd like to make it.
• cirgue 9y ago
  Empirically, single-company incentive/abatement efforts tend to be exceptionally bad deals for municipalities.