AOC takes ‘victory lap’ after Amazon agrees to open NYC office WITHOUT sweetheart tax deal – but critics point out the expansion has just 6% of the jobs promised in scuttled ‘HQ2’
- Amazon on Friday announced it will open Manhattan office with 1,500 workers
- AOC responded by bragging on Twitter that she’d been proven right
- She strongly opposed tax subsidies for Amazon’s ‘HQ2’ with 25,000 jobs
- Amazon scrapped plans for the massive Queens office in February after outcry
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has bragged that she was ‘proven right’ after Amazon announced a new Manhattan office without tax incentives, despite the office being far smaller than the scrapped ‘HQ2’ the company planned to open in Queens.
Facing backlash from Ocasio-Cortez and other New York Democrats over $3 billion in tax incentives to open an office employing 25,000, Amazon abruptly cancelled the HQ2 plan in February.
On Friday, the company announced plans to open an office with 1,500 workers in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards development.
‘Won’t you look at that: Amazon is coming to NYC anyway – *without* requiring the public to finance shady deals, helipad handouts for Jeff Bezos, & corporate giveaways,’ Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a tweet.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is seen above. On Friday, the company announced plans to open an office with 1,500 workers in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards development
‘Maybe the Trump admin should focus more on cutting public assistance to billionaires instead of poor families,’ she continued.
In a subsequent tweet, the New York Democrat posted a photo of herself sitting on a couch with her feet propped up, grinning happily.
‘Me waiting on the haters to apologize after we were proven right on Amazon and saved the public billions,’ she captioned the photo.
However, the congresswoman’s critics were quick to point out that Amazon’s new plans differ significantly from the cancelled HQ2.
‘Another day, another viral misleading tweet from AOC. Amazon is leasing office space in Manhattan for 1,500 employees, which is 6% of the 25,000 jobs its HQ2 in Queens (her district) was supposed to add,’ tweeted Peter J. Hasson, a reporter for the Daily Caller.
‘Amazon is now going to create just 6% of the jobs they would’ve before AOC killed their deal with NYC (1,500 vs 25,000), but by all means take a victory lap for the 23,500 jobs that are never coming to NYC thanks to AOC,’ tweeted Josh Jordan, and marketing-research consultant in Chicago.
Hudson Yards is the largest private real estate development in the history of the United States and the largest development in New York City since Rockefeller Center
In fact, Amazon’s proposed HQ2 would have been in Long Island City, a Queens neighborhood that is not part of the congressional district that Ocasio-Cortez represents, but is adjacent to it.
The proposed HQ2 received backlash from residents who feared the project would lead to overcrowded subways and soaring rents, but homeowners and local businesses were generally in favor of the development.
Ocasio-Cortez was one of the most vocal opponents of the Long Island City HQ2, pitting her against fellow Democrats Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, the architects of the deal.
Amazon said on Friday that it had signed a lease for a 335,000 square-foot office space at 410 Tenth Avenue, at the corner of W. 34th Street near the west side’s Hudson Yards neighborhood
Some 1,500 Amazon employees will work at the building, which will officially open in 2021.