Episode 53 - "Welfare Titans"

Amazon created competition between cities to land its HQ2 location, along with hefty tax subsidy packages. While this process garnered significant media attention, businesses and municipalities regularly engage in these types of deal making in which the promise of jobs and economic development all ostensibly justify enormous costs at the taxpayer's expense. Amazon alone has received over $1.6bn in economic development packages for it's various warehouses, so it's high time that we ask what's really going on behind the scenes. Does the public actually benefit from corporate welfare deals or is this just another method of transferring wealth out of local communities? In addition, we explore miscellaneous tools used for similar means, like Tax Increment Financing, and Tax-Exempt Municipal Bonds for stadium construction.

Chapters

• 02:31 Economic Development Incentives


• 14:01 Company Queens of Tax Grift


• 37:40 Tools of Diverting Public Funds: Tax Increment Financing


• 43:40 World of Sports

A full transcript is available as well as detailed links and sources (plus credits and more) on our website ashesashes.org.

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