Common Dreams: Critics Slam Amazon’s Billion-Dollar ‘Corporate Welfare’ for Oregon Data Centers
“Opponents of a contentious $1 billion subsidy for online retail behemoth Amazon’s data centers in Oregon on Friday decried what one critic called “corporate welfare” for a company that raked in more than a half a trillion dollars in revenue last year.
Amazon already has four data centers in Morrow County, Oregon and plans on building six more Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-computing facilities there. Earlier this month, Port of Morrow commissioners approved tax breaks for Amazon with an estimated value of $1 billion.
‘With this new award, we now know of $6.1 billion in subsidies given to Amazon in the United States alone,’ said Kasia Tarczynska, a senior analyst at the public interest watchdog Good Jobs First. ‘No other retailer in U.S. history has come anywhere close to such enrichment at public expense.’ ”
Not only has Amazon extracted a fortune from local communities via economic development subsidies, it dodged $5.2 billion in federal corporate taxes in 2021, Common Dreams previously reported.
Read the full story at Common Dreams.