Ocasio-Cortez Claims New Yorkers Are ‘Outraged’ Over Opening of New Amazon Headquarters

Speaking as someone born and raised in Queens, whose father owned a
Business for four decades located in Long Island City, all I can say is if you feel better about separating the political reality from the equally valid geographical reality and identifying more with the non-NYC LI counties that’s your prerogative. People I meet in other states say, you have such a heavy NY accent, where are you from? Even after all the years of sitcoms situated in Queens I say Queens and many still don’t know where it is on a map and ask where It is located. Saying it’s a part of NYC located on Long Island answers the question it’s both like a Candy mint that’s also a breath mint.

My dad’s immigrant family migrated from New London CT to Suffolk to Nassau to Queens. His formative years were chiefly @ E. Meadow and Mineola he ended up marrying a Jersey girl he met while running a wartime factory shop in Newark but returning with her to live and work for decades back in Queens.

looking back on my quasi suburban sheltered life in NE Queens it was actually very multifaceted-going to school then working and enjoying everything life could offer in Manhattan, as we were raised to be independent and ventured back and forth in the 70s-90s on the subway just the same as we did in a much safer time ...and other times enjoying more prosaic local Queens and Nassau / Suffolk fare. We had relatives all over Queens and LI so I guess when it suited us we were NYers and other times LIers. Of course I wanted to be cool and hang out in “the city” but to the hipper Manhattan based crowd I’d probably always be uncool, a “bridge and tunnel” LIer.

As the demographics changed and the quality of life in my neighborhood declined, I first aspired to live In a place like Massapequa but then I became obsessed with living and working in Manhattan; once I got that out of my system, life took me to another suburb that has a lot of the same LI benefits but more accessibility to other places North and West -a very quick and easy ride into Manhattan > the undependable LIRR when I need to go in, for business purposes.

Anyway, Occasional-Kotex is a Grade A Fancy nitwit who doesn’t understand the economic benefits of Amazon employing 100s if not 1000s of people, many semi-skilled , “tax giveaways” or not. Amazon has a reputation of driving its staff hard and i can’t say if that is aligned with
the work ethic of the local labor pool it hopes to draw from - certainly a
lib company in an electric blue locale may think there’s an affinity

That’s a long post. Why would I not separate my political reality from physical. Like everyone, I pay taxes based on where i live. My children attended public school based on where i live. My elected officials are based on where i live. My children did not attend nyc schools. I dont pay NYC taxes
Deblasio is not my Mayor.

I am not sure what your queens accent has to do with anything
I know northeast queens well. My husband is from there. It is nice. But his parents refused to send their children to NYC public schools esp the high school and in snow storms the roads were never plowed. He did have access to a good bus system Which those of us in on Long Island did not have

"Why giving tax breaks to successful companies?"

If the whole world could be relied on to take the same principled stand, then there'd be no need to offer the breaks. But the reality is that employers are fleeing NY & NJ because of high-taxes, high-salary expense, onerous regulations, and more - all symptoms of the liberal "Utopia". These cities need an influx of companies and jobs to survive.

So the politicos either reduce taxes and regulations for all, or they do it for a select few that are willing to still come to their s***hole cities (to paraphrase POTUS). If they DON'T offer incentives, companies don't come and their cities die. The remaining residents - retirees and those too poor to flee - are left to even higher taxes to make up for the shortfall. Plus, the liberal policies would be shown to be the failures that they are.

As to the companies themselves - whether "rich" companies like Amazon, or others - they would be negligent in not seeking incentives, as they've become pretty much standard fare when establishing a presence in a new city. They actually have an fiduciary obligation to their shareholders to seek the best deal they can get.

'twould be nice if it weren't so, but the reality for NYC was: (1) no Amazon, or (2) Amazon with incentives.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.