Comments

1

"Last year's head tax was one way to raise part of that revenue, but big business revolted and the tax failed. "

Actually, the tax failed because the city council, in a 7-2 vote, decided to get rid of it.

2

In the linked article at The Seattle Times, the map shows Seattle’s homeless population having the largest decline, in both absolute and relative terms, in all of King County. And all of this after the EHT repeal!

Maybe new taxes are not the answer after all...

5

The problem lies with the state. As long as cities aren't allowed to tax income (or capital gains, which is basically just another form of income) they are left with tough choices. Many of the suggestions would be unconstitutional along with being convoluted. Given our current fucked up system, raising property taxes is probably are best bet, but we would probably want to also compensate those that are "house rich", but low income.

6

There's always the option to cut wasteful spending in other areas.

7

@5 If the only viable source of funding is a regressive tax, there's no "touch choices." There's only one choice, which is easy to make. See, e.g., every single school levy, fire levy, EMS levy, and so on passed anywhere in the state.

8

Is water wet?

10

Do y'all even know what this "Progressive Revenue Task Force" is? You can read all about them here. It's literally just a dozen activists, plus Uncle Ike, Herbold + Gonzalez. I'm sure Jennifer Adams, who is homeless and lives in her van, is exactly the kind of fiscal expert we need evaluating the long-term impact of new taxes.

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/12/19/25640336/here-are-the-people-tasked-with-figuring-out-a-new-progressive-tax-for-seattle

You see, they have the easiest job in the world, because you can just slap the term "progressive" onto any sort of tax and every D3 candidate will be forced to at least pay it lip service. These are the same geniuses who came up with the head tax last year. They haven't posted minutes on their website since that debacle.


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