Senator Rick Scott announced he wants Amazon to build its second home in the Sunshine State after the packaging giant ditched plans to build its HQ2 in New York.
Days after Jeff Bezos, president and founder of Amazon, announced that his technological monster would no longer build its second headquarters in New York, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos GimÊnez sent him a letter and now the former Governor of Florida and Republican Senator Rick Scott did the same.
The latter has not spared words to criticize the Democratic Party and, above all, the ideological line of the socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Scott called New York a place “inhospitable to business and growth,” he asked Bezos not to limit his plans for expansion and cut to the chase: “Florida represents an easy alternative.”
But before explaining why, he indicated that “Representative Ocasio-Cortez has shown that she is not interested in keeping jobs in New York. She herself celebrated Amazon’s decision by saying that “New Yorkers and their neighbors have defeated Amazon’s corporate greed,” and also saying that Amazon had poor working conditions for its employees.
Scott argued that, on the contrary, “the political greed” of Ocasio-Cortez sank an agreement that would have created 25,000 jobs for workers in his community. ” And he launched the proposal: “Florida would be happy to welcome those jobs.”
Next, the former governor described the Sunshine State as the state with the best business climate in the country. “We do not have state taxes and in the last eight years we had a tax cut of 10 billion dollars. We eliminated thousands of regulations and reduced the state’s debt by nearly 10 billion dollars. “
Scott ended with a phrase that is already part of the Republican campaign in Florida against its counterpart, the Democrats: “we support economic opportunities in Florida, not socialism like many leaders elected by the popular vote in New York.”
The senator referred to the excellence of the universities of Florida, to the billions that have been invested in the ports and roads of the State. “Bring your second headquarters to a state that appreciates and respects the work you do,” Scott concluded in his letter.
“We are confident that the diversity, the dynamic entrepreneurial spirit and the openness to alliances that attracted Amazon to our community continue to be worthy of consideration,” said Mayor GimÊnez.
He invited Bezos and his team to return to Miami-Dade County to discuss this and Amazon saying We “can grow together.”
The conditions
As you remember, the Miami proposal was among the twenty finalists, out of a group of 238 applications.
It was a kind of tender involving cities and counties across the country.
Amazon, in its specifications, sought that the chosen area meet certain requirements, such as having a highly educated workforce, an advanced transport and road system, a diverse community, access to ports and airports, a favorable tax system to companies and, something key, that commissioners, mayors and other local authorities can work hand in hand with Amazon.
No doubt that was the case in New York, despite the fact that state governor Andrew Cuomo and the mayor of the city of New York, Bill de Blasio, supported the presence of Amazon, but the great contradictions were expressed by commissioners and representatives. federal.
Bezos has not responded to GimÊnez’s letter. And it is not known yet if it will do the same with the letter of Scott.
