What the article doesn’t share is: the state of Virginia is a large holder of Amazon stock (Source: https://www.streetinsider.com/holdings.php?q=AMZN). In essence, the legislature invests in Amazon, and it then passes laws to help it. I find this troubling because Virginia is passing rules that favor its investments. My question: is this self-dealing?
I think it’s important to assess if our local governments are colluding with the world’s most valuable company, Amazon. Is there a conflict of interest? Should states be allowed to pass laws that affect businesses in which the state has an investment? When one becomes a lawmaker, one has to sell off stock. Should there be similar boundaries with state pension funds?
And Virginia is not the only large holder of Amazon stock: the Florida pension fund also holds considerable Amazon stock. Florida not only helps millions of Americans cheat on taxes by not paying them (there’s no state income tax, and many residents spend 45% of their time in other states outside of Floria), but then it supports Amazon—which historically pays very little in corporate taxes.
I hope entities that rely on tax dollars (such as local governments, hospitals, schools, universities, police departments, etc.) team up to question Amazon. We had a chance recently but failed: Amazon asked cities to fight each other for its HQ, and instead of questioning this gladiator-like tournament, 250 cities bloodied each other with offers of tax cuts.