Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was one of the progressive leaders in New York City credited with blocking $3 billion in public subsidies for Amazon to open an additional headquarters.

Amazon is moving into the region anyway, but at a substantially smaller scale (under 10% of the original headquarters). And the office location will no longer be in AOC’s district.

Ocasio-Cortez’s main beef with the Amazon deal is that they were being “subsidized” by the government to the tune of $3 billion. It doesn’t seem fair that middle-class taxpayers should pay to give money to one of the largest companies in the world. But, the majority of the “subsidies” were tax cuts in the form of employee tax credits:

• $897 million from the city’s Relocation and Employment Assistance Program (REAP) (tax credits)
• $386 million from the Industrial & Commercial Abatement Program (ICAP) (property tax abatement)
• $505 million in a capital grant
• $1.2 billion in “Excelsior” credits if its job creation goals are met (tax credits)

The government is saying in essence, “we know New York is a terrible place to do business because of the high taxes, so we’re going to make it a little better for you by not taxing you as much if you move your big company here.”

These incentives are not the best policy from a free-market standpoint. I know individuals who have moved to NYC to do business and they didn’t get these credits. And savvy businesses would take advantage of the credits, then leave after they’re expired, taking advantage of the system. Why not just cut taxes for everyone forever to stimulate the economy?

But even though it’s not great from a capitalist standpoint, it’s even worse from a socialist standpoint. To socialists, potential tax money belongs to the government. And when the government doesn’t get it through extortion, it feels like it was taken from the government (and the people!).

So, AOC and other socialists hated the Amazon deal. And, somehow, they feel vindicated that Amazon is moving a smaller workforce to a nearby area without but paying all the taxes. It’s a net loss, but not by convoluted socialist math.