AMD coming to NY… but at a very high cost
From the WNY Progress Report:
I know some will question the rationale in New York giving $1.2 billion in tax breaks and other incentives to a private company, but I think such questions can be easily answered in 2 ways: $2 billion in private investment and at least 1,200 permanent good paying jobs with AMD and perhaps up to 3,600 jobs in total from spin-off employers. And these jobs are not minimum wage jobs with no benefits, but instead high paying jobs in the field of tomorrow: high speed computer chip design.
How can you NOT question the rationale of the state giving away $1.2 BILLION dollars in incentives? The state refuses to make meaningful reform to attract business, so they have to resort to giving away $1,000,000 per employee? That’s INSANE! AMD, which recently expanded their Germany plant to handle capacity for the forseeable future, simply went shopping around to see what idiots would give them a deal they couldn’t refuse. Guess where they found the best idiots!
I think it would be great for New York to have outstanding companies like AMD located here, but how much must we degrade ourselves to bring them in?
That IS insane. Just give us the cash.
For perspective… The JSF airplanes are up from a projected cost of $30 million each to over $80 million now. I guess NYS is trying to match the Federal government or something. People don’t argue with created jobs?
My cousin just bought a house in Binghamton for 37,000. It IS a fixerupper, but the downstairs apartment is livable without any work. Comparable house in DC would easily be 10 times as much.
Sometimes I miss NY and sometimes I don’t.
The taxpayers need to realize that they would be much better off if the money was never taken from their pockets to begin with. The economy would be much stronger with all that “extra” cash floating around to be used to spur private investment.