In the meantime, Amazon’s opponents can claim that they “saved” some $3 billion in corporate welfare — but at the cost of about $25 billion in revenue for New York City in the coming decades. To put it in context, this is more money than the millionaires’ tax, a major progressive priority, would generate over the same period of time. Instead that money has just been flushed down the toilet — or technically given to the state of Virginia (though Virginia’s taxes are considerably lower, so locating there means that less of the company’s considerable wealth would be taxed and redistributed through public investments than would have had they stayed in NYC). Victory?