Alessandra Biaggi, Democratic state senator-elect for the 34th district, said she likes the jobs coming from Amazon’s decision to put half of its second headquarters in Queens, but the state needs to invest more in education and housing to insure opportunities like the Amazon project come along.

“We need to be clear on what’s good and what’s not in the proposed Amazon deal,” Biaggi said in a statement. “Twenty-five thousand well-paying high tech jobs can and should be a good thing, helping to build New York’s leading role in the future economy. But Amazon is coming here because we have a core of skilled workers. Government’s job should not be trying to bribe individual companies with subsidies, but making the investments only government can make to ensure New York is the place where companies and skilled workers want and need to be. ”

Her statement said state government should concern itself with improved education, affordable housing and investing in the failing yet essential transit system before trying to bribe individual companies with subsidies. “Those investments will pay off in lots of companies coming to and growing in New York.”

After a well-publicized, 14-month search, with hundreds of localities bidding for the Amazon’s second headquarters, the company decided to split the facility between Long Island City and a site in Arlington, Virginia.

“Amazon was also offered more than $2 billion in tax incentives from New York and Virginia,” according to the New York Times. “Up to $1.2 billion of that will come from New York state’s Excelsior program, a discretionary tax credit.” Both states also promised Amazon infrastructure upgrades and job training schemes, the Times said.