- Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz: “Meanwhile, far-left activists succeeded in forcing Amazon to abandon plans to create a second headquarters in the New York City area, which would have brought 25,000 jobs and injected billions of dollars into the local economy. Where has common sense gone?“
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared victory when Amazon announced that it would not build a second headquarters (known as HQ2) in Queens, New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo called it a lost economic opportunity and blamed “a small group [of] politicians [who] put their own narrow political interests above their community.”
- NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio slammed Amazon.com Inc.’s decision to pull out of a second headquarters in the city as an example of an abuse of corporate power that hurts working people.”Amazon just took their ball and went home. What they did was confirm people’s worst fears about corporate America.“
- New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said “I think the point is that the subsidies that were given to Amazon were outrageous, not that she didn’t want the jobs in New York.” The fact that taxpayers were going to be left holding the bag for one of the most profitable companies in the country just shows how outrageous the deal was from the beginning.
- Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has introduced the “Stop BEZOS Act” to tax companies, congratulated New Yorkers “for standing up to the power of Amazon.” Their blunt condemnation of Amazon underscores the extent to which this has become an animating issue for the far left. And their reaction is one act in a broader set of 2020 issues for progressive Democrats that includes the Green New Deal.
