原载自2019年2月20日《纽约客》，由财经杂志秦欣玥编译
In November, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio held a press conference in New York to announce a deal to bring a new Amazon headquarters to Queens. The event felt familiar: two ambitious politicians, side by side, explaining that a large company had promised to create thousands of jobs in the area in exchange for enormous tax breaks and other incentives, totalling almost three billion dollars, from the city and state. It was the kind of scene that has played out in dozens of American cities and towns.
去年11月份，纽约州州长安德鲁·科莫和纽约市长白思豪在纽约召开新闻发布会并宣布达成协议，亚马逊新总部的选址定在皇后区。这件事的发展令人毫不陌生：两位雄心勃勃的政治家一同声明，一家大型公司承诺在该地区创造数千个就业机会，以换取来自市和州共计近30亿美元的巨额减税和其他激励措施。这样的情形在美国几十个城镇中都曾出现过。
“For years, big corporations have been getting tax forgiveness and tax abatements, as well as, in many cases, money to train workers, and, in some cases, outright cash grants or subsidized loans,” David Cay Johnston, the author of “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill),” which explores corporate subsidies, told me recently. “The reality, unfortunately, is that this is going on all over the country.”
“多年来，大公司一直在获得税收饶让和税收减免，以及在许多情况下，用于培训工人的资金，有些时候还获得直接的现金补助或贷款补贴。”探讨公司补贴一书《免费午餐：最富有的美国人如何从政府开支中自肥（并且让你掏腰包）》的作者约翰斯顿最近告诉我，“事实上不幸的是，全国各地都在发生这种情况。”
Opposition to the Amazon deal was instantaneous and fierce. Retail workers and union representatives organized protests; local and national politicians complained that one of the largest and richest companies in the world didn’t deserve billions in tax breaks and criticized its opposition to allowing its workers to unionize; people took to calling Amazon “Scamazon” on Twitter.
对亚马逊交易激烈的反对一触即发。零售工人和公会代表组织了抗议活动；国家和当地官员抱怨说，亚马逊作为世界上最大最富有的公司之一，不应得到数十亿美元的减税，并批评其反对员工加入工会；人们在推特上称亚马逊为“骗马逊”。
“Our subways are crumbling, our children lack school seats, and too many of our neighbors lack adequate health care,” two of the most vocal critics, Michael Gianaris, a state senator, and Jimmy Van Bramer, a city councilman, said in a statement. “It is unfathomable that we would sign a $3 billion check to Amazon in the face of these challenges.” Increasingly, it began to look like the company would not be able to gain the legislative approvals that it needed for the deal to go through without making concessions, in spite of the support that it had from the mayor and the governor.
“我们的地铁已经在崩溃边缘，我们的孩子难以进入学校读书，还有太多的居民缺乏足够的医疗保障，”两位直言不讳的评论家，州参议员迈克尔·吉安里斯和市议员吉米·范布拉默，在一份声明中表示。“面对这些挑战，我们还要和亚马逊签署价值30亿美元的支票，这太难以置信了。”逐渐地，看起来亚马逊如果不作出让步，尽管得到了市长和州长的支持，也是无法获得交易所需的立法批准的。
On February 14th, Amazon abruptly announced that it was abandoning its plan to build the headquarters in Queens. “State and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City,” the company wrote in a statement.
2月14日，亚马逊突然宣布放弃在皇后区建立总部的计划。“国家和地方官员明确表示反对我们的存在，并且不会像我们和许多其他人在长岛市设想的那样，与我们合作建立前进所需的关系类型。”亚马逊在一份声明中写道。
Shortly after the decision became public, General Electric—which, three years ago, had been offered millions of dollars in tax breaks to move its headquarters from Connecticut to Boston—cancelled plans to build a new office tower and drastically reduced the number of employees it planned to hire, citing financial concerns.
在这项决定公布之后不久，通用电气公司由于财务问题取消了建造新办公大楼的计划，并大幅减少了计划雇用的员工人数，该公司曾在三年前获得了数百万美元的税收优惠，将其总部从康涅狄格州迁至波士顿。
Foxconn, the Taiwanese technology manufacturer, has also suggested that it might not go through with a plan to construct a ten-billion-dollar manufacturing plant in Racine, Wisconsin, which it had promised to build with the help of more than four billion dollars from the state; the company said that it no longer made sense to manufacture liquid-crystal displays in Wisconsin due to the cost. (Two days later, after criticism, Foxconn said that it was still planning to move forward with the plant.)
台湾技术制造商富士康也表示，可能不会斥资100亿美元继续在威斯康星州拉辛建造工厂的承诺，这项计划得到了当地政府超过40亿美元的补贴; 该公司表示，由于成本原因，在威斯康星州生产液晶显示器已不再合算。（遭到批评两天后，富士康表示仍在计划建造该工厂。）
Neither company cited public protest as the reason for its decision to modify its plans, but each decision took place against a backdrop of rising popular anger about income inequality and the advantages that are often bestowed on large corporations. (Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are two prominent critics of these kinds of tax incentives for companies.) Taken together, these developments raise the question of whether this could be the beginning of the end of the era of corporate subsidies.
两家公司都没有把公众抗议作为其决定修改计划的理由，但其实每项决定都是在群众对收入不平等和对大公司总是享有优势的愤怒下进行的。（参议院伊丽莎白·沃伦和众议院亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯是两位对公司税收激励措施的主要批评者。）总的来说，这些变化引出了一个问题，这是否预示着公司补贴时代即将结束？
According to Johnston, state and municipal governments have extended publicly financed benefits to corporations for decades, but the practice didn’t really take off until the nineteen-nineties, when major chain stores and developers of sports stadiums began to demand large tax breaks and construction financing in exchange for promises to create jobs and revitalize neighborhoods. In recent years, dozens of companies, including General Motors, Boeing, and Intel, have taken advantage of such deals. (The New York Times calculated, in 2012, that states, counties, and cities are giving away more than eighty billion dollars a year in subsidies to large companies.) In many instances, though, the promised jobs and other benefits to the community never materialize or end up being more modest than was initially suggested in flashy press announcements.
根据约翰斯顿的说法，州和市政府几十年来一直向公司提供公共融资福利，但这种做法直到1990年代才真正兴起，当时主要的连锁店和体育场馆的开发商开始要求巨大的税收优惠和融资建设，作为交换，他们承诺创造就业机会并且振兴社区。近年来，包括通用汽车，波音和英特尔在内的数十家公司都已从这样的协议中获利。 （《纽约时报》计算出在2012年各州，郡和城市每年向大公司提供的补贴超过80亿美元。）但在许多情况下，公司所承诺的工作机会和对社区的其他好处从未实现，或者最终比当初光鲜亮丽的发布要逊色许多。
Johnston explained how the process typically works: “You come in as Walmart or Home Depot or Lowes and say, ‘I want to build a store on that land, and the guy who owns it doesn’t want to sell it.’ ” In its eagerness to entice the company to build there, the local government might seize the land through eminent domain and then sell municipal bonds—essentially borrowing money—against the lease on the store. The chain then builds its store and parking lot and employs local people to work there. The bonds that the government issued, meanwhile, are repaid not by the company but through residents’ sales taxes.
约翰斯顿解释了这个过程通常是如何运作的：“假如你是沃尔玛或家得宝或洛斯公司并说，‘我想在那片地上建一家商店，但是拥有地产的人不愿意出售它。’”由于渴望吸引公司来本地建立，当地政府可能会使用征用权占据土地，然后出售政府债券—本质上是借钱—来支付土地的出让金。连锁商店随后建立了商店和停车场，并雇佣当地人来工作。与此同时，政府发行的债券并非由公司偿还，而是通过居民的销售税来偿还。
“When you check out of a Walmart that has this deal, and you pay eight dollars and change in sales tax, that money does not go to cops, library, schools, or parks,” Johnston told me. “That money goes to pay the bonds.” Approximately ninety per cent of Walmart distribution centers were built this way, according to Johnston. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that states, and even different municipalities within states, can compete with one another to offer the most generous subsidies and the lightest regulation, leading to an arms race of giveaways.
“当你从有这样交易的沃尔玛结账，支付8美元并为销售税付现时，这笔钱不会交给警察，图书馆，学校或公园，”约翰斯顿告诉我，“这笔钱用于支付债券了。”大约百分之九十的沃尔玛配送中心是按照这种方式建造的，约翰斯顿表示。这种情况正在恶化，州与州之间，甚至同州内不同的城市之间，都在为吸引大公司投资竞相提供慷慨补贴和宽松监管，犹似军备竞赛。
“Often these things turn out to be complete frauds,” Johnston said. Multiple studies have shown that some short-term economic benefits may accrue to the community that has extended the tax breaks, but, over the long term, there is little positive benefit (and often none) because the practice saps money from public education and infrastructure, which is extremely harmful to a local economy.
“通常这些事情完全都是欺诈，”约翰斯顿说。多项研究表明，扩大税收优惠来吸引投资的社区可能会获得一些短期经济收益，但从长远来看，几乎没有积极的作用，因为税补从公共教育和基础设施中汲取资金，这对当地经济极为有害。
Amazon’s proposed headquarters in Queens, however, was a more complicated case than most. Because of Amazon’s powerful brand recognition and the size of the subsidies involved, it attracted an unusual level of attention, most of which was negative. But, according to Johnston, both the number of jobs (twenty-five thousand) and the high salaries that the company promised made this plan somewhat more attractive than many such deals.
然而，亚马逊在皇后区建立总部的计划比大多数情况还要复杂。由于亚马逊强大的品牌认知度和所涉及的补贴规模，它吸引的关注不同寻常，其中大多数都是消极的。但是，根据约翰斯顿的说法，公司承诺的工作岗位数量（二万五千个）和丰厚的工资使得这个计划比许多此类交易更有吸引力。
Amazon’s presence in New York might also have helped diversify the city’s economy, which is heavily dependent on the insurance, finance, and real-estate industries for well-paying jobs, by creating opportunities for tech workers. “Once you get an employer that has a large need for certain employment skills, you get other businesses that will also locate nearby,” Johnston said. “That’s why Rochester had not just Kodak but Bausch & Lomb and Xerox. It’s why Fleet Street was called Fleet Street or Madison Avenue called Madison Avenue. That’s why this had potential for other development.”
纽约经济在很大程度上依赖于保险，金融和房地产行业等高薪工作，亚马逊在纽约的存在也有可能为科技工作者创造机会，从而帮助实现城市经济的多样化。“一旦你找到一个对某些职业技能有很大需求的雇主，你就可以在其附近找到其他生意。”约翰斯顿说，“这就是为什么罗切斯特不只有柯达，还有博士伦和施乐。这就是舰队街还有麦迪逊大道的由来。这就是为什么它有潜力进行其他发展。”
Polls of locals in Queens showed that the majority actually supported the deal. The fact that Amazon didn’t fight harder to make it work suggests that the company is sensitive to criticism and also that it knows it can get an equally good deal in another city. “That they were willing to walk so quickly suggests they were not worried about replacing the deal somewhere else,” Johnston said.
皇后区当地的民意调查表明，大多数人实际上支持这笔交易。事实上，亚马逊并没有更加努力地使达成这笔交易，这表明亚马逊公司对批评的声音很敏感，并且它知道可以在另一个城市获得同等待遇。约翰斯顿说：“他们走得这么急，表明他们并不担心找到其他地方来取代这笔交易。”
Johnston is a well-known critic of corporate tax breaks. “In general, I detest these kinds of subsidies,” he said. “If you’re going to have a market economy, have a market economy.” But, he added, in terms of the Amazon deal, “This is not a black-and-white situation.” He pointed out that there have been many far more dubious projects that were subsidized with very little protest; both the Goldman Sachs headquarters, in lower Manhattan, and Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx, were built with significant taxpayer assistance, to name two. “There are a lot of these deals where it’s just throwing money down a rat hole, but this is one where there’s significant potential that it would have jump-started real change,” he said. “Fifty years from now, New Yorkers may look back and say, ‘That was a mistake.’ ”
约翰斯顿是公司税收减免方面的著名评论家。“总的来说，我讨厌这些补贴，”他说，“如果你要搞市场经济，就得按市场经济的规矩办事。”但就亚马逊的交易而言他补充说，“这不是一个非黑即白的情况。”他指出，许多更可疑的项目得到了补贴却很少有反对的声音；曼哈顿下城的高盛总部和布朗克斯的扬基体育场都是以大量纳税人的帮助为基础建造的。“有很多这样的交易只是把钱扔到了一个老鼠洞里，但纽约有非凡潜力，有可能发生跳跃式的、真正的改变。”他说。“五十年后，纽约人回首往事，也许会说，‘我们犯了个错误。’”
