Property taxes are going up by the taxes The Stranger has championed! YIPPEE!!!

It is so seductive to think you can get "The Rich" and Corporations to pay for stuff you want but the bedrock of a successful society is the middle class.
A society in which the middle class won't pony up to fund the services an enlightened society should provide (including and especially education...) will not be successful over the long run.
A positive successful attitude would be for the middle class to recognize a need and say 'let's roll up our sleeves and fix this problem'.
That is how America worked back when America worked, and was exceptional.
The Left, by contrast, constantly mews about how 'helpless and disadvantaged everyone is and we need to find someone (else) to pay for the stuff we want'.
Everyone wants healthcare, but no one, it seems, can afford to pay for their own health insurance.
Education is important, but we need to make Jeff Bezos pay to educate our kids.
whaaa whaaa whaaa.
A better course would be to nut up and pay for your own damn kids education and quit bitching about how unfair everything is.
You're welcome.

Middle-class homeowner and Seattle public school parent here, and you know what? We are fucking paying for it with our property taxes and our PTSA donations and our volunteer time to make up for the budgetary and staffing shortfalls we get from Olympia. You know who isn't paying jackshit? The rich people and corporations who've made a killing here in Washington state and don't want to invest in the very society that helped build their wealth and their shareholder value. Fuck that noise. Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and Microsoft and Weyerhauser and Amazon can afford to pony up a teeny-tiny chunk of their income to finance Washington's public schools.

@4 Would you support a state income tax?

Sure.
It's way overdue.

You're going to have to show your work, Jim.

Also, those "thousands of communities" have corporate and income taxes to spread the burden. We don't, and we should.

Wait, what am I doing? I might as well get in a land war in Asia. It's a much less annoying blunder.

8
We should.
We feel your pain, Rakdaddy.
Raising kids is tough in this society.
We think whining about The Rich is unproductive but we should't have said you are pathetic, you are not and we apologize.

Although we prefer 'James'.

...shouldn't....

Let's tax the rich at a percentage of income the rest of us are having to pay for a start. Right now they're a bunch of moochers enjoying services the rest of us are paying for.

@19 They don't pay shit (as a percentage of their income). Get read.

https://itep.org/whopays/washington/

Hi, I'm a member of the 5% or so, and I support creating a less regressive tax system. I'll be fine.

I don’t see an income tax ever passing without abolishing the B&O tax. The authors didn’t address that.

@23 - Yes, your propaganda is lovely today. Who did you borrow it from?

The rightwing first destroys the middle class as reflected by greater inequality today than over the last 100 years, but now right wing jackass @2 wants the middle class to roll up its sleeves and get to work.

It's a farce, folks.

@6 Your answer doesn't pass the smell test. You entire discourse consists of bashing "people who whine about the rich", so you can't possibly be for everyone having to pay their fair share. You are certainly NOT for a progressive state income tax.

@14

If you tax the rich, they won't leave: US data contradicts millionaires' threats

Now you know. Next time, we'll know you are lying.

@23 a modern productive sustainable society needs much more taxes out the super rich than they are currently paying. None of what they have would even be remotely possible without a social contract, so their wanting to rip up this contract at this most inconvenient time is just not acceptable and it won't fly for the very simple reason that if they succeed our economies will collapse like they did every time before.

@33 I can see how many would say that considering how it is regularly regurgitated by corporate media.

There is no rational justification against a progressive income tax that isn't self-serving. Most regressive taxes should be concurrently repealed including a good part of B&O tax on small business.

High taxes is really because of democrats- in Seattle anyway and years before Trump came to office. Just think a good majority of those people being displaced or put on the verge of homelessness will most likely be voting Republican next time. And we’ll be waiting with open arms regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or religion.