Comments

2

Thanks Nathalie, that was delicious!

4

The conversation was excellent. We heard from union workers from builders, to plumbers, and teachers and learned how many jobs would be created through this legislation: 34,000 permanent jobs over ten years per city hall research staff. It's a shame the other council members didn't have the courage to face constituents. This legislation is a direct and appropriate response to the emergencies we are facing.

5

@4 What constituents? Seattle has a population of 745k and 100 people were in attendance. That works out to less than 1/10th of one percent of the population. Sounds like the rest of the council are responding to their constituents who see this as the farce that it is.

6

Sergeant Major marching up and down the square!

https://youtu.be/nLJ8ILIE780

7

Ha!

9

My husband and I played "The Movement" drinking game. We were slam-fucking drunk within the first 5 minutes.

14

Sawant is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets her hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: The tax is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing

17

@13 ah, yes. Any good fascist wants to silence all dissent.

18

up yours

20

At least we know that @13 doesn't come here with any expectation of balanced reporting. And I suspect he's a satisfied reader.

22

It's a good thing that the tyrant mentality just doesn't work in the US. She held this meeting in defiance of the council's legal advisors. The law is pretty damn clear, and this was nothing more than a publicity stunt. Her colleagues, including Mosqueda, likely stayed away to avoid exposing themselves to legal liability. The cherry on top is that she is trying to push her agenda through with an "emergency status" so that it can't be recalled by the voters. If Amazon hadn't been dumb enough to put the hard-court press on her during the election, she'd be back to running the mimeograph machine at party headquarters. District 3--get your shit together!

23

Actually, I watched the whole thing on Seattle Channel live, so lots of people saw it.

And the 43rd Democrats are in favor of this action, too.

Maybe you should realize it's time to stop making excuses for why the ultra-rich pay LESS IN TAXES than everyone else. And go back to normal US levels of 90% income tax and 50% capital gains tax for all amounts over $1 million. You know, the tax levels that made America STRONG.

24

@23 The weather is supposed to be warm next week so you may want to remove your cloak of righteousness. Once you do maybe you can explain how this makes the rich pay more in taxes? It's a payroll tax and has nothing to do with revenue or profitability. This may sound like I'm being sarcastic but I honestly want to know why you think this will impact the wealth of Jeff Bezos or any other "rich" person in Seattle? Assuming Amazon's share of this is around $50M isn't it more likely they would make up for this loss in Seattle by adjusting benefits to low skilled employees, outsourcing work to a cheaper provider or some other type of cost adjustment strategy? Ultimately the way this tax is structured you would end up hurting the very people you are purporting to help.

28

@22 - please don't let silly things like the law get in the way of "ordinary people and grassroots movements." Obviously she's preparing for her time as Dictator, when she can make all the decisions without those pesky laws, rules, and other politicians.

30

how does sawant keep getting elected?

31

I admire Ms. Sawant's conviction and fortitude. At least she is putting herself out there, fearless and passionate. Good for her. It makes a change from the usual tepid Seattle politics.

32

Sawant got elected due to Amazon. They mounted a massive spending campaign against her, for a Seattle City Council race, and she got that protest vote. Had they just left the election alone, she'd have died on the vine, in the ballot box. Bad decisions made on all parties, if you ask me.
Time for us to take a page from her playbook and re-imagine what we want our nation, State, County and City to be like. IF we can realize the deficit is probably not too bad considering the whole planet is in that same boat... we can still re-align our priorities with our responsibilities and try to make for a more equitable sharing of both.
Revisiting our State's tax havens for big businesses (for ALL businesses, really), developers, manufacturers, and lenders might be in the cards but it will take over a year or three for the issues to even be aired, much less understood and have the public come to a consensus.
Beating the drum of 'affordable rent' as Sawant often does, belittles the prospects of home ownership, which seems the path to financial independence given our current tax haven on mortgage interest.
Time is ripe for a revolution, but Sawant keeps fighting the fight of a generation or three ago.
Time to look ahead, and create the future we want.

34

@30- the intellectually stunted adult children in her district keep electing her.

35

@6 FTW. Thank you.

37

@4 @23 Thanks for the on-topic relevant sharing. Glad to know I can see it somewhere else.

@30 Because voting doesn't work the same way as troll farms. LIke the half of all COVID-19 posts on twitter now shown via a recent study to be "not-real voters."

EDITORS: Sorry to see how many Seattle Times' Bezos hires have migrated here and ruined what used to be intelligent discussion. But your article title was kind of an invitation, wasn't it.


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