Maryland offers 'blank check' on transportation to land Amazon's HQ2

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan's administration is betting on transportation to win Amazon.com Inc.'s second North American headquarters.

The governor's office has already offered a $5 billion incentives package. Now Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete Rahn is offering "whatever is necessary to Amazon when they need it," he told a state senate panel Tuesday.

Hogan committed a package of incentives worth roughly $5 billion to lure Amazon to Maryland's Montgomery County — $3 billion in tax credits and $2 billion in road and transit improvements. Rahn was not married to that number.

"It's simply going to be: We will have to address it in some way," Rahn said. "This big number ... if they choose us, we will deliver."

"For all practical purposes, it's a blank check," he said. "We have a number here of $2 billion. It could be more, it could be less."

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2018/02/07/amazon-hq2-montgomery-county-md-transportation.html?ana=e_ae_set1&s=article_du&ed=2018-02-07&u=ColXVN5SPzQtLHFP87ho2w07857290&t=1518051104&j=79884071

I'm not anti-Amazon per se, I have a brother-in-law who works for them, but that's a ridiculous amount to put up for any single company. I don't see the taxpayers of Maryland getting much if any kind of return on that sort of investment.

[Blue_true]

1. I despise how corporations play governments off each other.

They get tax breaks, new highways and other public infrastructure. And when they have no more use for a site, they leave. Governments would be better off finding local entrepreneurs and business development people to give seed money for starting or expanding businesses that will stay local.

[Ferrets are Cool]

2. Like NFL owners do to tax payers.

[madinmaryland]

3. Traffic is already horrendous in MoCo now, but this will make it even far worse...

So does this mean even more toll roads? You can be sure as shit there will be no more investments in public transportation as long as hogan is governor.

[kwassa]

5. The old White Flint mall site is where they are talking about ....

Highly congested Rockville Pike.

[dalton99a]

4. Simply deposit $5 billion into Bezos' bank account, and it's a done deal

Guaranteed

[OhioBlue]

6. yes - every State should have a law that outlines the return on investment

and a timeline. If the tax breaks are for 10 years but the ROI is 30 years.... no deal... the company could just look for another site in another State in 10 with new tax breaks. In Ohio there are or used to be clawback provisions if the company didn't live up to the agreement, but it was generally for the term of the agreement and not until the point that a ROI had been reached.

Of course to land a deal and use it in their re-election campaign, many Governors would probably look they other way if numbers were fudged and leave it to future administrations to hold the company accountable. Once the future admin tried to hold said company accountable it would be branded as anti-business..... shit... I don't know

I do know that these incentive packages are driven by politicians looking for notches in their belt and a win to campaign on and not an intelligent, well researched process as to what is best for residents.