Hours after socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insensitively used a southern drawl to pander to the predominantly black audience at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network’s annual convention, another conference participant slammed her for being “financially illiterate.”
“The people campaigning against the Amazon campus are financially illiterate,” Tracy Maitland, a multimillionaire investor who serves as the president and chief investment officer of Advent Capital Management, said during a panel discussion, according to the New York Post.
Advent is based out of the debt-laden, high-unemployment city of New York, which is where the tech giant Amazon had sought to expand its operations earlier this year. Those plans were cancelled after Ocasio-Cortez and her rather unpopular activist friends cried foul over a $3 billion tax break that the city had promised Amazon in return for the tech company building a facility in Queens.
AOC celebrated Amazon’s decision at the time because she’d thought that the tax break was a subsidy.
Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world. https://t.co/nyvm5vtH9k
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 14, 2019
While Maitland didn’t specifically mention AOC during the NAN panel discussion cited by the Post, he made it clear afterward that was who he’d been referencing.
“This was a disgrace,” he said to the Post, referring to Amazon’s withdrawal. “I partially blame AOC for the loss of Amazon. She doesn’t know what she doesn’t know. That’s scary. We have to make sure she’s better educated or vote her out of office.”
He reportedly also complained about the misimpression she created regarding Amazon’s $3 billion tax break: “The reality, he said, is that Amazon was only getting tax credits based on the number of jobs created. Amazon and New York officials estimated a new headquarters in Queens would generate up $30 billion in tax revenues as well as 25,000 jobs,” the Post reported.
All that went by the wayside thanks to the young congresswoman’s “financially illiterate” activism.
According to the Post, Maitland was not the only participant in NAN’s “The Black Economic Agenda: Driving Capital into the Hands of Black Asset managers and Housing Developers” panel discussion who complained about the lost jobs and revenue.
City University of New York chairman Bill Thompson expressed concern over all the jobs that were “snatched away” from his school’s predominantly black and Latino students.
“We were at the table talking to Amazon on how students could get jobs. … Those opportunities were snatched away,” he said. “Those students look like us. … We’re talking thousands of high-paying jobs. It was a disappointment from a CUNY perspective.”
Former Tennessee congressman Harold Ford Jr. appeared to concur.
“Creating 25,000 jobs is always a positive thing. There’s a multiplier effect,” he reportedly said.
Correct. Had Amazon set up shop in New York, other companies would have likely followed suit, thus increasing the number of jobs. And with the added influx of more companies and more jobs, even more service providers — think plumbers, dry cleaners, restaurants, etc. — would have been required. The result would have been an exponential explosion of jobs.
However, Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t seem to care about what she’s cost New York. If anything, she’s doubled and tripled down on her stunningly “financially illiterate” rhetoric.
Case in point:
Not sure how many pundits talking about Amazon even read the deal or where it was going.
$500+ million of the deal was *capital grants.*
$2.5 billion in tax breaks.
It’s fair to ask why we don’t invest the capital for public use, + why we don’t give working people a tax break. https://t.co/jUqaugUHYP
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 19, 2019
Frankly, the knee-jerk reaction assuming that I “don’t understand” how tax giveaways to corps work is disappointing.
No, it’s not possible that I could come to a different conclusion. The debate *must* be over my intelligence & understanding, instead of the merits of the deal.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 19, 2019
There’s NO WAY that this deal – one of the biggest giveaways in state history – could possibly have been bad, right?
Surely there can’t be anything wrong with suddenly announcing a massive restructuring & pricing out of a community without any advance notice or input from them.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 19, 2019
There’s no CHANCE that the speculative insider real-estate buys that were creating immediate spikes in rent in one of the most rent-burdened communities in NYC could have possibly been unpopular?https://t.co/wArbA7B1Q6
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 19, 2019
Or that a technology giant of big-brother-esque potential was selling (notoriously flawed & racially biased) facial recognition technology to ICE while trying to move into 1 of the most immigrant-dense areas of the world?
No, it must be because I’m dumb.https://t.co/IoBixav34r
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 19, 2019
Her stubbornness and arrogance has earned her a slew of enemies, even among her own. Even radically far-left New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has taken shots at her.
“This was a deal that was gonna bring $27 billion in revenue to the state and city for things like public education, mass transit, affordable housing and that $3 billion that would go back in tax incentives was only after we were getting the jobs and getting the revenue,” he pointed out to NBC’s Chuck Todd two months ago.
“As a progressive my entire life — and I ain’t changing — I’ll take on any progressive anywhere that thinks it’s a good idea to lose jobs and revenue because I think that’s out of touch with what working people want,” he added without naming names, though everyone knew who he meant.
Listen:
While it’s unclear what AOC thinks about the latest criticism to come her way, Sharpton reportedly informed the Post that he’s spoken to her about the need for her to speak with and understand the concerns of minority business owners. Given her track record of not listening to anyone else’s concerns, including even the concerns of her own constituents, it’s unlikely she will.
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