Comments

1

Speaking of recent past campaigns, Working Washington’s last attempt to criminalize dissent did not go so well, either, with WA State AG Bob Ferguson telling them Amazon was not threatening public officials by opposing the head tax.

We’ll see how well Working Washington succeeds in stopping us citizens of Seattle from exercising our right of Referendum. Let’s hope it ends as well for them as it did last time, with another humiliating public defeat.

(BTW, shouldn’t a group calling itself “Working Washington” oppose a tax on jobs?)

2

Those evil Seattle businesses, providing jobs, goods, and services. To heck with them!

3

I'll be signing it. The head tax is the height of idiocy. Also, the city council deserves to be thrown out on its collective behinds. Never voting yes for another levy again.

4

From recent threads, I'd say a majority of Sloggers oppose the head tax.

5

I don't think there will be a problem getting enough signatures. I'll be willing to sign it.

If the head tax came with some common sense policies to address the homeless population; banning pan handling outright I'd be in favor of it.

But this just looks like another creepy way to fill the bank account with no accountability; how many times have we paid for a tax levy to repair the roads and nothing came out of it?

Right.

Taxation without representation

This will not end good

No I'm not planning anything. Unseating someone in City Council however sounds very good right now.

6

Get a load Seattle's Trumpers, ladies and gentlemen.

Hey! Here's your slogan: "Seattle first!" Huh? Am right? Great slogan, right? You can have that. It's yours. Here's another one: "Make Seattle Great Again!" Nice? I knew you'd love it. Keep it, gratis. Your welcome.

I'll do my part. I'm planning on signing this thing at least 25 times. I haven't signed Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn in cursive very often but I'm practicing. YOUR welcome!

7

@6 That's "YOU'RE welcome!"

You're welcome.

Thanks for telling us you intend to violate both the spirit and letter of our elections laws; not only does it give us advance warning of your false (and culturally appropriated?) signatures, it tells us of the truly hateful contempt you have for the sovereign power of Seattle's citizens to make our own laws.

We exist to finance your failed social experiments; if we disagree, we have committed thoughtcrime and you will make us pay! (Or, at least, you will witlessly insult us.)

BTW, not that you care, but the administration of Mayor Murray and now Mayor Durkan have recognized the failure of our past policies, and are implementing the recovery actions, recommend in the Boppe report that Murray commissioned. As a result, the number of persons getting permanently housed is on the rise. Of this, our City Council knows little and cares less, instead imposing another tax upon our jobs (they've tried that before, to no avail) and dedicating the revenues to policies which have likewise already failed.

Unlike you, the rest of us know all of this, and will be dedicating our efforts to overturning our Council's reinforcement of known failure. I strongly urge you not to risk getting your own voting rights revoked by trying to deprive us of ours.

8

@5: That's weird--I see roads getting fixed all the time.

Are all the roads always in good repair? Of course not--we drastically underfund infrastructure by prioritizing cheap gasoline and individual automobile ownership.

9

Everything's getting so fucking weird......

10

Tensor - I have absolutely no respect for this bullshit campaign against the head tax and here’s some of the reasons why although this won’t matter to you and your wealthy cohorts.

You don't care when taxes are spent on CIA black sites throughout the world -number unknown maybe two hundred- where people are tortured and disappeared. The endless wars perpetrated by the U.S. government such as Yemen. Iraq, Afghanistan and support of attacks on Palestinians. The racist, classist, prison industrial complex where a huge majority of prisoners are brown and black with more people in prison that any other nation on the planet even Saudi Arabia. Not to mention the despicable ICE raids financed by the public’s taxes. Go ahead and keep screeching about how bad you all have it.

11

Tensor, do you think #6 culturally appropriated giant space cockroaches, fish human hybrids, druidic cannibals, or just the elder gods?

12

@10: Yes, you’ve made your loathing, fear, and contempt for our democracy very, very clear throughout many threads here. There’s no need to re-state the obvious.

As for your laundry list of matters irrelevant to our attempted repeal of the expensive and useless head tax you self-appointed homeless advocates have gotten us, thanks for telling us you have no idea of my long history of human-rights activism. But then again, your deep and intractable ignorance of the very topics on which you loudly pronounce yourself expert isn’t exactly news here, either.

Once small additional benefit of repealing the head tax would be your resultant display of seething impotence. Please don’t disappoint.

13

I'll gladly sign it, and I'll vote to kill the tax when the referendum goes to the voters. I'm all for helping the homeless, but this is a regional problem. Seattle shouldn't go it alone.

More importantly, I don't think the city has a plan, and I don't think they are capable of using the money wisely. This is a stupid idea thought up by an increasingly out-of-touch city council. We should never have gone to districts (and yes, I supported that. But I now see the error of my ways)

Here's what I want to see for a regional plan for handling homelessness:

Every town on the I-5/I-405 corridor between Bellingham and Centralia pledging to create a certain number of affordable units, based on population.

A standard, affordable design(s) for the housing that can be quickly and easily built across the region. No public art, no "community outreach". Minimize the design and construction costs, focus on getting people off the street.

Site selection based on accessibility to transit and utility connections. No building housing in Superfund sites or other garbage tactics like that.

And - most importantly - a well thought out, statewide plan for addiction and mental health treatment, including involuntary commitment if needed. Without that, nothing is going to work.

14

@12:

Snap!

15

@13, I was on the fence about moving to districts but thought it would be a good idea. I still think it could work but for that to happen we'd need to bring back more pragmatists like Jean Godden and maybe Tim Burgess types.

The stories I hear (admittedly all anecdotal) of current council members telling their own constituents off when they voice a different opinion is troubling. And yes, those are from the Seattle Time's Op pages so one should take it with a grain of salt. But still...if there is any basis of reality it should give one serious pause.

16

Seattle liberals never found a tax they liked, just like Republicans, which explains our having the most regressive tax scheme in the nation.

18

Ivy @10: "You don't care when taxes are spent on CIA black sites throughout the world -number unknown maybe two hundred- where people are tortured and disappeared." etc. etc.

I realize you want to cast all of us folks who are appalled by this head tax as a bunch of right-wing nutjobs. But keep in mind, this is Seattle, which went 87-8 for Hillary over Trump. No, that's not a typo:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/heres-how-seattle-voters-support-for-trump-stacks-up-to-other-u-s-cities/

If this measure gets repealed, as I expect it will (in a landslide), it won't be because Seattle suddenly became a Trump hotbed. It will be because we want better alternatives to Trump's America than Sawant's Seattle.

19

@7:

"'culturally appropriated?' signatures" - Oh, that gave me such a hearty laugh!

20

Tensor - you are really pushing the envelope here. You actually believe we have a democracy?
You think Hillary is the answer? Yes, we do want better alternatives. By the way, you don’t know a thing about the people who disagree with your status quo.
Got to go I have work. Don’t have anymore time for this.

21

@12 Double Snap!

22

so far the district elections are a fail.

23

Anyone think that construction workers, not to mention businesses like restaurants and grocery stores with many employees and very tight profit margins won't be hurt by this?
Anyone think we'll have less homeless 5 years from now when this supposedly sunsets? Anyone think the city council will do anything different from their failed policies of since they launched the "Ten year Plan To End Homelessness" thirteen years ago?
Anyone think they'll actually start enforcing the law on illegal encampments that are crime magnets and are trashing our city?

No Head Tax! No Head tax! No Head Tax!

24

Business of government has to be done. Taxes have to be paid. It's called republicanism. Look it.

25

@24 look it up

26

@23: Yes, I think giant businesses spending an extra 14 cents per hour over the 1500-to-6000 they're spending on labor (or twice that with benefits and other employment expensaes) will not hurt those businesses.

Also, note we have nowhere near the $400 million per year the study for Metro Chamber found is needed, so we should not be setting our expectations very high, even if the businesses are able to wriggle out of paying.

27

“You actually believe we have a democracy?“

I think that’s your very first written indication you may now have begun to understand we may indeed have a vote on the head tax, and if we do, your side may lose, and lose very, very badly. Or maybe you just hate Seattle’s democracy generally, and even more so when you lose. I leave that up to you to not clarify (again).

“...about the people who disagree with your status quo.”

Use words much? Thanks to our City Council, the head tax IS our status quo. I disagree with it.

“Got to go I have work.”

The sacred rule you keep invoking is called, “Take My Ball And Go Home”, not “...Work”, dear. Please make a note of it.

28

If you want the head tax repealed, you're against taking any serious steps to fight homelessness. Nothing more can be done with the existing funds. The rich can easily afford this.

If the head tax IS repealed, nothing Amazon opposes will ever pass in Seattle again. This will mean we will cease to be a democracy.

Repeal means no compassion and no independence from corporate domination. It means everything meaningfully progressive in Seattle(since nothing progressive can ever be done on a budget rich people would approve of). It would be nothing but non-transformative lifestyle liberalism, things that only help the already rich.

29

That line should be "it means everything meaningfully progressive in Seattle...would end",

This is an unchallengable truth. Nothing done by private charity has ever made a difference on that issue...nor has anything in which a CEO posed with the impoverished children he rented for the afternoon.

Nobody could possibly think that anything would ever be done to fight homelessness again if Bezos got his way. The only thing that would ever happen after that would be sweeps to close all encampments and imprison all those encamped....an approach that can only produce Third Reich solutions.

30

I was going to note all of your logical fallacies, factual inaccuracies, and plain ignorant nonsense, but then you went and saved me the trouble:

“...an approach that can only produce Third Reich solutions.”

When you vote to repeal the head tax, you’re voting for HITLER!!1!

Thanks for the laughs.

31
  1. Didn't say that repealing the head tax was a vote for Hitler.

Said that sweeping the camps and closing them can only be done by brutal methods You can't point to any instances where sweeping a camp and driving people out of it has led to those people getting to a better situation. The issue is resources. There aren't enough. Private charities will never devote enough, because private charities don't actually want homelessness and poverty to end...if they do ,the people working in the charities would all be out of work.

It's not possible to end homelessness by arresting people, punishing them, lecturing them about "bad choices". Homelessness is not about people just screwing up or not trying hard enough.

32

"If you want the head tax repealed, you're against taking any serious steps to fight homelessness."

Yeah, that's the rhetorical cudgel with which you want to beat any opponent of the head tax. It's also a grade-A illogical fallacy.

33

@ 26 - what assumptions went into determining a $400 million funding gap? What exactly does that $400m pay for? Is it assuming we build brand new public housing for each and every homeless person? Turns out this "study" is just a very poorly researched PowerPoint. If you have facts and a link to the study, please provide them.

34

32 No it's not. It's simply fact. Nothing other than the head tax(until we can get the pointless ban on state and local income taxes repealed, as we should, since most of us would save money on taxation being switched from consumption to income) can provide the resources needed to take any serious steps to fight homelessness.

There's no "fiscally conservative" approach that can work.
Sweeping the camps simply makes things worse by treating human beings as walking garbage.
The Salvation Army doesn't give a damn.
It's nice that people volunteer at the soup kitchens and the shelters...but in and of itself that doesn't make that much difference.

35

Bill Gates Sr, has said that the wealthy could and should pay a far higher rate of tax than they now do. You should believe him on that.

37

"You can't point to any instances where sweeping a camp and driving people out of it has led to those people getting to a better situation."

Sure I can. With the unsanctioned encampments closed, the risk of an Hepatitis A outbreak is much diminished.

"Didn't say that repealing the head tax was a vote for Hitler."

You said it would be the end of our democracy, and accused anyone who disagreed with you as being in favor of "Third Reich solutions." That's outside the bounds of polite discourse and you know it.

"The only thing that would ever happen after that would be sweeps to close all encampments and imprison all those encamped....an approach that can only produce Third Reich solutions."

Funny you should mention government-run camps. The City of Seattle pays SHARE a lot of money to run permanent camps. How many persons have ever exited those camps into permanent housing? Does anyone know? Or care? Or or our tax dollars going toward the permanent warehousing of human beings, so those persons can be ordered to protest at City Hall whenever SHARE wants more money?

Why is it your condemnatory rhetoric describes our current, self-appointed "homeless advocates" better than it does the citizens you are attacking with it?

38

Ok, people not leaving the government camps is a thing...but closing those camps wouldn't get any of those people INTO housing. And if you don't like warehousing(I don't) than the alternative to it has to be humane...like, Oh I don't know, actually building enough homes TO house these people and recognizing that in a decent society housing should be a right. While there are major issues in the current homelessness response situation, none of those issues can be resolved by punishing the homeless for BEING homeless. It's bullshit to buy into the Paul Ryan delusion that everybody who's poor could have a good job working the grill at Burger Hades if they only showed some "gumption", or one of those other Herbert Hoover kinds of words. And yes, a regional solution is needed, and yes the state tax system needs to be overhauled. Part of the solution would be actually giving the homeless some sort of say in what is to be done...it's their personal hell, they might possibly have some valid ideas about what is needed to get out of it. People who blame the homeless FOR homelessness, though, don't. They just want to stick it to the homeless for daring not to die off.
But we can't just do nothing UNTIL those things happen. We can't just go hands-off about it until all of those conditions are met.

And Amazon, a company which paid NO federal income tax last year, could easily afford the freaking head tax until we came up with something else.

BTW, it goes without saying that Amazon and Starbucks would fight an initiative to overturn the state income tax ban.

39

@38: Try educating yourself on the issue. You're just flailing with nothing to show for it except endless insults against your fellow citizens for our daring to disagree with you. (And nobody in Seattle is seriously claiming we should do anything but house the homeless permanently. The entire argument is over how best to accomplish that.)

http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/pathwayshome/BPA.pdf
http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/pathwayshome/FS.pdf

As for needing to build more "affordable" housing now,

"... expanded affordable housing is not a precondition for reducing homelessness. The community has to commit to making an impact on the problem with the existing housing inventory or there may never be a significant reduction. Waiting for enough housing to be produced means continuing to tolerate the current situation in which thousands of people, including some families with children, are living on the streets and in tents."


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