Looks like playing the children card isn't the gravy train for tax hikes that it used to be.

So, despite your misleading headline, you’re reporting that the City Council voted to provide $20 million for children’s mental health. (I only had to pick through your word-salad three times to make sure that’s what happened.)

or at the ST noted the council could have stopped wasting money on performative programs and used that money to fund these priorities instead

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/seattles-27-million-experiment-in-participatory-budgeting-is-not-worth-repeating/

It's awesome that Hannah lives in a world where $60M is pocket change but to many of the businesses impacted by this tax it forces them to cut back on wages, hiring or investing in their business. TS continually likes to use Sawant's talking point that this is an Amazon tax but its actually impacts several hundred employers in the city. Besides this is supposed to be used for a very defined set of purposes per the council (affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives, local business assistance and equitable development). When the mayor proposed repurposing some funds TS and the Mosqueda got all butt hurt about it. "For me, a bottom line is protecting JumpStart, and protecting the spend plan as codified,” Mosqueda said". Now we are ok increasing the glorious purpose because it aligns with something progressives want? Seems hypocritical.

@2 is correct.

Hasn't Sawant left already?

Sigh. Some 101 level stuff you missed specializing in those lit and poetry classes.

You are NOT taxing "Besos". You are taxing his customers. Amazon will simply raise prices to cover the tex.
Taxing companies for employing your residents is stupid. It just has them pretend or really shuffle staff to other office locations.

Again, if you want to tax the rich, stop pretending you are by taxing "evil corporations' and ACTUALLY TAX THE RICH. Like a cap gains tax, which was found to be legal. But this childish crap is just dumb and a waste of everyone's time.

@3, @4, @5: The addition of the non-starter amendment was yet another performative stunt by CM Sawant, so she could call her fellow CMs tools of big business at the very moment they were voting to tax businesses. The Stranger, which has yet to see a meaningless performative stunt from her they didn’t just luuuuuuuuuuv, dutifully wrote a misleading headline to frame the story her way.

Sawant and the Stranger talk really big games about social justice, equity, education, etc., but petty, mean-spirited, and blatantly dishonest stunts like this belie those oft-stated goals.

All Sawant has done is fight to raise taxes and never was concerned as how the money was spent. Absolutely no accountability. The voters have spoken and they want a City Counsel that understands that it’s taxpaying Citizens aren’t a piggy bank for their wasteful projects and causes. They have spent over $1 Billion in the last 10 years on the homeless problem and it’s only gotten worse. Drug addiction on our streets and crime are rampant. The police have lost all ability to effectively managed either.. Time for a change.

@8 it should also be noted this is exactly the reason why voters have such little faith in the SCC or the legislature for that matter to enact an income tax or any other type of tax. There is such little stewardship of our tax dollars. It's an endless piggy bank for them. Pass it for one purpose but then as is the case with the housing levy it gets tripled or with this they start inventing new purposes to pass additional taxes. There is never enough.

I like the characterization of $20 million in additional funding as "an incredibly small increase." That's peak Stranger.

10: True, and reverse of that would be TS reaction if the Council threw $20 million for more cops or increased enforcement of drug laws.

Many Stranger journalists choose "doom gloom" storytelling over tales of hope and change.

I don’t know why it took this many years for The Stranger to see that Lewis is a business/development friendly wolf in hipster sheep’s clothing.

Many Slog reporters are two bit sore loser demagogues (typed this before I saw the post @ 12, FWIW).

@13: It wasn’t the time, it was the election. Specifically, that he lost the election. Before the election, they could barely tolerate him against his more-mainstream opponent. Now he’s fully expendable, so they can and do brand him as No True Progressive.

@11 Exactly. For instance, the Stranger has devoted a surprising amount of coverage to the possible adoption of ShotSpotter, which would cost just $1 million.

The idea that Hannah cares at all about the mental well-being of kids is complete bullshit. Back in March she said parents who were concerned about the safety of their kids when walking to and from school as a result of rampant criminality at a nearby homeless encampment of “no longer giving a fuck about getting the camp residents into housing.” She embedded a tweet that accused parents concerned for their children’s safety because of nearby shootings and other criminal behavior in their neighborhood of being “wealthy people who DGAF about the survival needs of people in their community.”

www.thestranger.com/news/2023/03/21/78913110/the-parents-dont-want-shelter-they-want-sweeps

When parents pleaded for a safe space for their children Hannah ripped the shit out of them. She made clear that when faced with a choice in what to prioritize, the city should choose homeless criminals over the safety of children. So spare us all the sanctimony now about the mental health of kids when you’ve already shown you don’t actually care.

@11, @16: The Stranger may have achieved an even higher ratio of words-to-money by incessantly questioning a public program which, in any other employment context, would of course be considered a good idea:

“So far, Seattle has spent $154,000 dollars on the hiring bonuses, with an additional $191,000 to be paid out as new [SPD] officers complete probationary periods.”

Imagine the rapturously thunderous praise from the Stranger if a similar incentive had worked equally well for staffing a police alternative!

@17: You absolutely nailed it. Bravo, and please continue writing great comments here.

"Council Member Kshama Sawant, the sponsor of the three amendments, said that the dissenting members made it abundantly clear to working people that they serve the profits of big businesses rather than the basic needs of children in public schools. In her closing remarks, she warned that the council will only get cozier with corporations. With big business successfully buying the election last month, the only tried-and-true progressive left on council, Council Member Tammy Morales, will have an even harder time filling the looming $500 million budget deficit, as the incoming council will likely use its majority to block tax increases, allowing corporations to continue hoarding wealth built on the backs of working people."

Am I reading The Stranger...or the Daily Worker?

Unhinged.

A zero tolerance weapons policy would have prevented kid from being at Ingraham that day as he was allegedly caught months prior with weapons.
Just saved you $20mil.

How much did we spend on Black Brilliance Project? Who drove that? What did it accomplish? Check it out..

Raising tax rates does not necessarily mean increasing tax revenues. Taxpayers are actually allowed to leave or reduce activity. And if you walk around downtown Seattle, it’s apparent that reduced activity is Seattle’s primary problem at the moment. (Well, some activities, like drug use and violence, have increased unfortunately, but they don’t generate taxes).

@22: “Taxpayers are actually allowed to leave or reduce activity.”

That’s why they keep wanting to raise the JumpStart tax. To the very best of the current council majority’s knowledge, it is doubleplus unpossible for any company with large numbers of high earners simply to move their business address across the lake, Sound, or the lines visible only on maps. Higher-paying jobs, by their very nature, tend not to lend themselves to high mobility. (The Stranger agrees.)

I hated this article so much, that I commented and double checked the responses like 20 times. All my engagement will teach Hannah Kreig and the Stranger to be better Republicans.

@23: "Higher-paying jobs, by their very nature, tend not to lend themselves to high mobility."

Keep telling yourself that. Particularly after Covid, the move to work from home and that huge wave of software engineers pulling up stakes from the bay area and moving to places like Lake Tahoe. And tell it to the guy who lives up the hill from me and commutes to his Seattle job in his helicopter.