A former aide to Gov. Cuomo who was just elected to the state Senate opposes the $2.8 billion incentive package given to Amazon to locate a new headquarters in Queens, likening it to bribery.
“Government’s job should not be trying to bribe individual companies with subsidies, but making the investments only government can make to ensure New York is the place where companies and skilled workers want and need to be,” said Bronx Sen.-elect Alessandra Biaggi, who previously worked as a lawyer in the governor’s legal office.
She said adequate government funding in education, housing and mass transit will result in “lots of companies coming to and growing in New York.”
Meanwhile, Cuomo defended the Amazon deal to open shop in Long Island City and dismissed as “nonsensical” complaints from “politicians who pander.”
“This the largest economic infusion the state has ever seen,” Cuomo said on WCNY’s The Capitol Pressroom. “I would do that [deal] all day long.”
Cuomo claimed for every $1 billion in revenues New York gets from Amazon, the government is only giving the firm back $100 million in tax incentives.
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