In mid-2018 the world held its breath for months, only to be fed small amounts of info from time to time regarding which cities were still in the running for Amazon’s second headquarters location. In November 2018, when announcement day finally arrived the world learned that both Long Island City in New York and Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia would be the new home for Amazon’s HQ2 location. It was a bit of a shock for most to hear that Amazon would be splitting up its HQ2 location, though a welcomed decision nonetheless.
Fast forward a few months to Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2019 when all the excitement and joy quickly faded and was replaced by confusion and outrage as news broke that Amazon will be scraping its plans to build its second headquarters in one of the proposed locations, Long Island City in Queens, New York.
What had gone wrong in what seemed to be a fairy tale ending to the never-ending saga of the massive expansion of Amazon’s corporate hubs?  25,000 well-paying jobs in addition to the huge boost that was expected to the infrastructure of an ailing NYC borough, in terms of economic health and growth, all just vanished in the blink of an eye.  Politics had definitely played a role in Amazon’s New York decision, from the choosing of the location to the eventual failure of those plans, though to the what extent was the government’s influence in this outcome?
The $3 billion in tax breaks for Amazon, the $10 billion in tax revenue over a 20-year span, and a slew of other benefits the city and state would reap all sounded great, but its never that simple when politics are involved, and these days it seems like those pesky politics have made their way into every facet of american life.
“Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.”, Fox News reports, “was not the main player who led Amazon to cancel plans to build a second headquarters in New York City”, rather it was political wrongdoing by the entirety of the Democratic leaders in the state senate.  It would be difficult to blame just one person for what occurred, even if the individual went on to praise the outcome while displaying complete lack of knowledge of basic economics, but in a world where social media rules and popularity contests win you seats in the senate, it can’t be too far of a stretch to hold individual senators accountable for major mistakes that happen.
It isn’t all bad news, however, as residents of New York can still get their toothpaste and pet food, delivered by Amazon, to their doorsteps in a matter of hours, they only simply lost out on massive job growth and a major boost to the infrastructure and local economy, thanks to their governing officials.
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