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> We’ve proven that this public/private partnership is basically the most effective growth engine we’ve got.

No one has proven this. There is plenty of evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion.

> It’s completely irrational anti-capitalistic knee jerking to whine that cities shouldn’t be working hard to support HQ2 in their backyard.

On the contrary, it is 100% rational for cities to want to get HQ2 and give away absolutely nothing, and possibly even get some concessions from Amazon itself.

They have to have another headquarters, and there are less than twenty cities that make any degree of sense for them to move to. I would bet that there are only two or three serious contenders, and the only way they're not going to go with whatever first choice they have currently would be a truly enormous handout. The whole bidding war going on here is, in my opinion, to try to get a sweeter deal from whoever they've already picked.