[adventured]

That's only true if somebody else wasn't going to give them a big deal. Your premise requires a scenario where all cities work together to specifically avoid Amazon getting a deal, rather than any of them competing. All it takes is one city to breach that and start offering incentives, then it all folds.

Short of implementing a federal law against it, there is no scenario where cities were not going to compete to lure Amazon. Fortunately no such federal law exists, which enables cities great leeway to compete for both citizens and businesses, through tax and regulatory structure, incentives, zoning laws, et al.

If I'm Detroit and I want to rebuild my collaped city, one great way to do that is to forgo some purely theoretical new near-term taxes - which you're not actually getting anyway because businesses don't want to move there - and offer up incentives such as tax breaks for businesses to go there instead of somewhere else. For a place like Detroit, that also means jobs, luring population to rebuild the tax base, rebuilding the housing stock, rebuilding the small business base that services that population, and so on.

[chii]

> Short of implementing a federal law against it, there is no scenario where cities were not going to compete to lure Amazon. Fortunately no such federal law exists

i would say that's unfortunate rather than fortunate.

Cities competing for businesses is a net loss to the tax payer. If a business is to build a new HQ or invest, they should do it on the merits of their business needs and general condition applicable to all businesses.

If a particular company gets an unfairly good treatment, then it's very anti-competitive for other businesses. Why should tax payer shoulder any burden for a private business specifically, rather than building general infrastructure that benefits all businesses?

> If I'm Detroit and I want to rebuild my collaped city ... offer up incentives such as tax breaks for businesses

that would be great - if it was a general tax break, rather than a tax break targeted at specific companies that others can't gain access to.

[cataphract]

Exactly. Thankfully in Europe, some of these deals can be deemed illegal state aid and the companies forced to give back the money they saved on taxes, if the state given advantage distorted the trade between Member States.

[armenarmen]

> Cities competing for businesses is a net loss to the tax payer.

Sure, if the taxpayer exists as an abstract concept. Not when the Taxpayer is a sandwich seller near the new company’s office. Or when the Taxpayer is given a new job at the company. Or when the Taxpayer is the family that can now rent out its mother in-law unit more easily

[chii]

> Not when the Taxpayer is a sandwich seller near the new company’s office. Or when the Taxpayer is given a new job at the company.

these are not tax payers - these a private individuals.

Why should the sandwich seller from the bronx not be able to benefit from the city's policies, where as the sandwich seller from jersey does under these policies?

[dtech]

It's bad for the cities as a whole because it's a zero sum game, if you attract a company with tax cuts that's a loss on some other city

The EU does this better. EU courts can deem a tax break state aid and require the company to pay back taxes. This disincentives states competing against each other on tax revenue.

[thaumasiotes]

To the extent that the taxes impose a deadweight loss, competing tax incentives are a positive sum game, not a zero sum game.