AOC Slammed for Gloating Tweet About Amazon Jobs in NYC
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to gloat Friday after Amazon announced that it was bringing 1,500 jobs to Manhattan.
Instead, the lawmaker was reminded that the deal Amazon signed was a fraction of the one she helped scuttle.
Ocasio-Cortez was among the most vocal critics of a state deal for Amazon to open a second headquarters in the Long Island City neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York, near Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional district.
The project would have brought 25,000 jobs to town, in exchange for $3 billion in state and local subsidies.
Amazon eventually decided the heat was not worth it, and dropped its plans in February.
But on Friday, after Amazon announced it was leasing space in Manhattan, Ocasio-Cortez proclaimed victory on Twitter, Fox News reported.
“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. Maybe the Trump admin should focus more on cutting public assistance to billionaires instead of poor families,” she tweeted.
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.
Maybe the Trump admin should focus more on cutting public assistance to billionaires instead of poor families. https://t.co/BbqhXbB9MM
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 6, 2019
She also posted a smug picture of herself sitting on a couch.
“Me waiting on the haters to apologize after we were proven right on Amazon and saved the public billions,” she wrote.
Me waiting on the haters to apologize after we were proven right on Amazon and saved the public billions https://t.co/AC64pG0nZI pic.twitter.com/xzCepkX4AV
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 6, 2019
What followed was hardly an apology as several posters noted that 1,500 jobs miles from her district were not quite the same as 25,000 jobs nearby.
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. https://t.co/Ix35LwKJ9w
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) December 7, 2019
I bet a lot of shopkeepers and store owners in LIC would have loved those customers in the neighborhood instead of in manhattan. Plus, what they are taking in Manhattan is much smaller in scope than HQ2
— Jason Haber (@jasonhaber) December 6, 2019
This is a tiny fraction of the jobs, with no help for public housing residents or locals, in a place that was going to be developed and have jobs anyway. https://t.co/3aZBSJiqX4
— Eric Phillips (@EricFPhillips) December 7, 2019
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had sparred with Ocasio-Cortez over the failed Amazon deal, said the new jobs in Manhattan do not make up for what Ocasio-Cortez helped chase away, according to The Associated Press.
“This is crumbs from the table compared to a feast,” Cuomo said, the AP reported.
“We don’t have a problem bringing businesses to Manhattan but we have been trying for decades to get that Queens waterfront developed.”
The AP reported that Amazon did not receive any incentives for its new offices, which will be located in the Hudson Yards area of Manhattan’s west side.
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