I Hate My State: Amazon Edition

So, South Carolina has had a lot of stupid stuff going on over the last few years. Most of you may remember our governor going AWOL and flying to Argentina and the giant brouhaha that came along with that.

Well, apparently it has been too long since someone last made an idiotic political decision, so our state legislature got together and really out did themselves.

See, Amazon had been working on a deal with our state to build a giant new distribution center here. It would bring 1200+ jobs and add an estimated $20 million to the state's economy. All Amazon wanted in exchange were a few concessions like ending our ridiculously out-dated restrictions on sunday sales, discounts for equipment, and a 5-year deal for South Carolinians to pay no sales taxes on items bought from them. That doesn't sound like much, does it?

Apparently a coalition of local businesses got together and convinced our government that such a tax break would kill small businesses by giving Amazon an unfair advantage. The best part about that is the fact that the group of "local" and "small" businesses was spearheaded by none other than WAL-MART. The very same Walmart that kills more locally owned small businesses than any other company. I saw ads on tv decrying the tax breaks and proclaiming how if Amazon gets this deal, then more than 3000 local jobs will be lost, etc. etc.

So, of course, they won.

And now the fallout begins.

So, SC State government, you have now successfully driven away 3 companies looking to set up facilities here. Also, many many more that may have considered us specifically because we had the Amazon facility in-state. Not to mention costing us all of the jobs created to support the new workers, the new home sales, the income tax, the lowering of the unemployment rate, the list literally just goes on.

The stupidest part of all of this is that since Amazon is now going to build the facility somewhere else, we here in South Carolina WILL STILL NOT PAY ANY SALES TAX ON ITEMS BOUGHT OFF OF AMAZON! Only now it's for far longer than 5 years and we don't get any benefits out of it.

I truly, truly hate my state government.

Holy crap. They are a whole new category of stupid and short sighted.

Twits.

Wooooooow. That's as bad as the new orleans/lousiana politicans. Little known fact: Disneyworld was originally going to be built just outside of New Orleans, but because of the crooked politicians they went to Orlando instead.

Walmart is now adding 4000 jobs. Gee, why did they want the amazon plant gone, again?

*sigh*