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Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

The stated reasons are ridiculous, it's tax incentives. They are getting a quarter of a billion dollars overall from TN. This is what happens in a race to the bottom. Hopefully TX officials were smart enough to add long term clawbacks to the incentive package they gave Oracle.

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I don't know the specifics, but I'd bet a quarter billion dollars that they didn't add clawback provisions. "The Great American Jobs Scam" goes into this is great detail - https://goodjobsfirst.org/gajs/

The linked article says, in reference to Oracle relocating its HQ to Austin:

> Oracle, which was founded in Santa Clara, Calif., in 1977, later had its headquarters in Redwood City. The software giant, at the time of its move to Texas, said that relocation was to allow a more flexible approach to its workforce

> The company had neither asked for nor received economic incentives from Austin to relocate, said city officials. Nashville pledged $175 million in incentives and the state of Tennessee $65 million to help build the Oracle campus in 2021

So it would be technically correct to say that Oracle has not returned any tax incentives to Austin.

Abbott claws back from the population all the time but will never touch businesses. I don't know they received monetary compensation to move here, but they did tear down affordable housing and a few apartment complexes to build their campus here so that sucks.

What does headquarters even mean these days? A building with a logo on it and an update of address on a website?

The Oracle campus in Austin is huge and beautiful and mostly empty. What's the point of actually making a building?

> This is what happens in a race to the bottom.

Are you saying the states should have no fiscal autonomy and everything should be decided in DC? Which, I don't doubt it, would magically happen to settle on the highest tax rates possible.

Is this the world we should strive more? Ever bigger, ever more centralized state (the US, the EU, China) pushing for ever more taxes?

What you call "race to the bottom" is competition and it allows to keep some of the states who'd be tempted to go all-in on socialism in check.

I don't want to see what happens when there's no tax competition anymore anywhere in the world. I know how it ends and it's not going to be nice.

>Hopefully TX officials were smart

You sure asking a lot from the Texan politicians down here....

Especially true for the ones that govern Austin.

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