How long will it take to cover the almost 3 billion dollars they were offering Amazon? That is money that could go into improving mass transit right now AND provide jobs for building and operating it, while benefiting hundreds of thousands of citizens through it's usage.
New York isn't literally giving Amazon $3 billion, it's a tax break. Big difference. It's not like New York is foregoing $3 billion in income from other businesses in order to accommodate this subsidy package.
And like other commenters pointed out, the state still makes money through payroll taxes, sales tax, property tax, etc.
I agree that the politicians should have made it more clear that the additional tax revenue would be used to fix urgent problems like the failing subway, poverty, etc.
