"I think it's a bluff, first and foremost."
Those were the words of New York City Council deputy leader Jimmy Van Bramer to Fox News' Neil Cavuto on Feb. 11. Cavuto had asked Van Bramer about the possibility of Amazon walking away from its historic deal to locate one of its second headquarters in Queens because of anti-deal efforts stirred up by Van Bramer and others, most notably Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and state Sen. Michael Gianaris.
Despite the deputy leader's confidence, three days later, Amazon pulled out of the deal.
Note to Van Bramer: Don't take up poker.
What happened in New York has to be one of the most bone-headed political moves in recent history, showcasing for the country what happens when progressive socialist economic theory is put into practice. Everybody loses, particularly the Democratic Party, whose unforced political error delivered a gift to Republicans. Who needs Venezuela when you've got New York to make your point about the benefits of capitalism over socialism?
The entire episode boggles the mind. Why would political leaders work to undermine a deal over which other states and cities had competed relentlessly? A deal that would have brought New York City 25,000 new jobs, paying on average $150,000 a year. A deal that would have also produced nearly $1 billion a year in state and city tax revenues, not to mention the positive impact on local economic growth. According to state officials, over the next 25 years, New York would have netted $27.5 billion in new revenues even with $3 billion in tax incentives.
But like the good progressives they are, Ocasio-Cortez, Van Bramer and their merry band of economic pranksters celebrated their "victory," with AOC tweeting, "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."
Except for the pesky fact that the majority of everyday New Yorkers supported the Amazon deal--56 percent to 36 percent. Minority voters were even more enthusiastic about Amazon, with 70 percent of black voters and 81 percent of Latinos backing the deal.
But AOC saw it differently through her decidedly curious economic lens.
"If we were willing to give away $3 billion for this deal, we could invest those $3 billion in our district ourselves if we wanted to. We could hire out more teachers, we can fix our subways. We can put a lot of people to work for that money if we wanted to," she told a reporter after the Amazon decision became public.
Obviously, the Boston University economics grad missed the class on how tax incentives work.
The basic question for the anti-deal progressive political leaders really wasn't complicated. Do you want to work with business for the public good, offer $3 billion in tax incentives and get $27.5 billion of the $30 billion-plus in revenues the deal was expected to generate? Money that could have funded subways and education, along with Amazon's $600 million to improve local infrastructure. And the 25,000 well-paying jobs.
Or do you want to reflexively oppose big business to serve special interests, reject the incentives and hope to get the full $30 billion and risk ending up with zero? They chose zero.
If ever there was a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face, the Amazon debacle was it.
In doing so, they showed the American people the real-world consequences of progressive socialism and gave Republicans the perfect example to illustrate the choice in 2020--radical economic policies that cost jobs or pragmatic, commonsense economic policies that drive growth and create jobs.
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David Winston is the president of The Winston Group and a longtime adviser to congressional Republicans.
Editorial on 02/25/2019