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May 12, 2010

Two-faced Times

Ignores own 'corporate welfare'

NY Post
by Steve Cuozzo

There they go again at The New York Times -- trashing "corporate welfare" in the form of tax breaks for companies that pledge to keep or create jobs in the city. It's an axe they're entitled to grind, even in stories that are supposed to report news rather than disseminate propaganda. But a Times piece yesterday, like so many before, neglected to mention how the bleeding "paper of record" has itself so lavishly and greedily benefitted from "corporate welfare."

Pfizer Inc. plans to move up to 1,400 employees out of town. As a result, the Times reported, it may have to reimburse the city for $12 million in tax breaks of which it availed itself since 2003, when it received a theoretical $47 million in city and state incentives in exchange for committing to expand its workforce here.
...

But what's outrageous is how the Times, in its predictable and repetitive campaign opposing "corporate welfare," invariably omits any reference to the public largesse the newspaper company enjoyed in the construction of its own Eighth Avenue headquarters.

Lest anyone forget, the Times Co. and its development partner, Bruce Ratner, received $26.1 million in city tax breaks -- more than twice the amount Pfizer actually accepted -- for the tower project.

But even that number doesn't begin to reflect what the Times really got from Albany and City Hall. The Times Co. and Ratner were only able to build an admittedly fine skyscraper thanks to the bulldozer of eminent domain -- the state's highly controversial, and rarely applied, condemnation power.

Condemnation not only forced out scores of viable stores and business between 40th and 41st streets, it rewarded the Times Co. and Ratner by charging them a sweetheart price for the blockfront -- a lowball $85.1 million, compared with comparable land values in the mid-'00s estimated at $200 million.

article

NoLandGrab: Two-faced Post!

Corporate welfare and eminent domain for Bruce Ratner and The New York Times = Bad.

Corporate welfare and eminent domain for Bruce Ratner minus The New York Times = Good.

Posted by eric at May 12, 2010 11:07 AM