The question of whether, or to what extent, incentives are necessary isn’t just an issue in the case of Amazon, either, and research into the incentives that include or imply “but for” language— “but for the incentive, the project won’t happen” —are helpful here. For example, a study by the W.E. Upjohn Institute published last year reveals that the vast majority of businesses that receive tax incentives under a “but-for” rubric likely would have pursued their projects even without the incentive.

In other words, many of these projects are getting tax incentives not because the project wouldn’t happen without them, but because business interests have become accustomed to receiving them and know how to work the system to get them. The result? As local tax incentives proliferate, fewer and fewer taxpayers become responsible for greater and greater portions of local government funding.

This failure of stewardship from governments across the country costs state and local taxpayers billions of dollars annually. That affects not only government services, including roads and education, but also a government’s ability to reduce taxes for everyone, if it so desired. The city of Kansas City, Missouri, where I’m from, redirects $90 million annually from its budget through tax incentives, but that doesn’t include the additional $42.5 million those decisions redirect from the city’s public schools and other taxing districts, who rely on these tax streams but have relatively little say in their diversions.