Misguided government spending on corporate welfare to win jobs away from other cities and states has tripled since 1990. It directly undercuts the state's proper missions.

I would not, however, say that the competition was a "charade" -- a no-op. I suspect it won Amazon a bigger subsidy, compared with what it could have got from the same places without the competition.

The total annual expenditures sometimes reach 90 billion dollars.