Subsidy Sheet: Fighting to end corporate welfare in 2025
In 2024, New York State and local governments gave corporations roughly $11 billion in subsidies and got very little back. Note that in 2024, the Governor, Attorney General, and State Comptroller were Democrats, and the party had a supermajority in the State Senate and Assembly. The Mayor and Comptroller of New York City were also Democrats and had a supermajority in the NYC City Council.
Despite renewed pleas from the public and more evidence that subsidies don’t work, state and city leaders refused to end subsidies as small and scurvy as tax breaks for luxury yachts and private jets – the “CJs” featured in Succession.
While government failed, the public did not sit still. More New Yorkers joined the campaign to protect school funding from Industrial Development Agency tax breaks. We worked with the national watchdog group Good Jobs First and published groundbreaking new reports to expose the corporate welfare ouroboros that is IDAs.
Thanks to all the advocates out there for championing an end to New York’s socially destructive, utterly wasteful, and totally cynical corporate subsidies. We look forward to working with you in 2025.
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NY corporate giveaway news from this week:
- ICYMI: The Department of Labor’s Public Subsidy Board still refuses to detail its rulings to the Investigative Post.
- At Boondoggle, Pat Garofalo has a great post about Big Tech trying to coerce more subsidies from the federal government by threatening to relocate data centers to the Middle East.
- Peter Boumgarden and University of Texas professor Nate Jensen offer four ways to stop stadiums from being a drain on taxpayer dollars (The Conversation).
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