NYC Open Letter to Jeff Bezos
Thank you, Fred.<p>The amount of misinformation around this issue has been remarkable.<p>1) No you can&#x27;t just say &quot;let&#x27;s spend that $3B on fixing the subway&quot;. This money comes from tax rebates. It means that you only get this $3B to give away when you get more tax revenue.<p>2) This wasn&#x27;t some &quot;backroom deal&quot;. The NDAs were a stipulation in Amazon&#x27;s competition meant to prevent bidding wars. If cities could react to other cities, it would have created an escalating race to the bottom. Ironically, Amazon probably did this to avoid bad press. Go figure.<p>3) This wouldn&#x27;t have put more strain on the subway. During rush hour, trains to Manhattan are packed, but trains to the outer boroughs are empty. This would have allowed NYC to step away from the high-maintenance hub and spoke model which strains the MTA.<p>Source: the New York State Budget Director&#x27;s statement
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.governor.ny.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;open-letter-new-york-state-budget-director-robert-mujica-regarding-amazon" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.governor.ny.gov&#x2F;news&#x2F;open-letter-new-york-state-...</a><p>---<p>Let&#x27;s do some back of the envelope math. What&#x27;s 25k (minimum number of jobs) * 150k (the average salary) * 11% (income tax for NY state + NYC)? 412M. That means that $3B would be paid off from new income taxes alone over ~7 years.<p>That&#x27;s not even considering:<p>- State &#x2F; city corporate tax<p>- The new taxable income that would go to local businesses<p>- The effect it would have on increasing taxable income for other tech workers in the city<p>So yes - this was still a <i>really</i> good deal.