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Seattle Repeals Tax That Upset Amazon (apnews.com)
Last month, the Seattle City Council introduced a new tax that would charge firms $275 per worker a year to fund homelessness outreach services and affordable housing. This greatly upset Amazon, Seattle's biggest private sector employer, which threatened to move jobs out of the city. Today, The Associated Press reports that Seattle leaders have repealed the tax on large companies such as Amazon and Starbucks after they fought the measure. From the report: The City Council voted 7-2 Tuesday to reverse a tax that it unanimously approved just a month ago to help provide services in the city. The Seattle region has one of the highest homelessness numbers in the U.S. Amazon, Starbucks and other businesses sharply criticized the tax as misguided. The online retailer, the city's largest employer, even temporarily halted construction planning on a new high-rise building near its Seattle headquarters in protest. Mayor Jenny Durkan and a majority of the council have said they scrapped the tax to avoid a costly political fight as a coalition of businesses moved to get a referendum overturning the tax on the November ballot.
it wasn't just corporations protesting this. Unions didn't like it either.
The tax was poorly written. It was a tax on gross receipts over 21 million. This hit low margin businesses hard. Yeah sure, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Getty and the rest could have paid it. We have many regional businesses that would be hit very hard, likely leaving the city. We need to revisit it.
What could possibly go wrong?
You know, you can care about cops overstepping their authority while also caring about gang violence in cities. And yes, many, many American cops do overstep their authority.
It just goes to show you... in my many years of watching thing like this (and also from the accurately described observations of Milton Friedman), when you raise taxes, people (etc.) leave. Ultimately it spirals downward where there is less tax revenue, so taxes need to be raised more (or something needs to happen).
Look at the inversion which happened over time, as corporations (evil or not) moved their headquarters to other countries where the tax rate was competitive and much lower than here. Then look at what happened when the corporate tax rate was lowered.
This same thing is happening in other cities with higher tax rates, or ways that the municipality gets your money (via regulations, ridiculous fines, and so on). People will look to move to a place that doesn't nickel and dime them to death. This (obviously) isn't true for everyone, but it tends to lower the tax base if it goes on long enough and taxes, et. al., continue to increase.
Although what I am saying may not be popular, it tends to be true. Please don't blame the messenger.
MS-13 "taking over schools" is Fox agitprop. Stop repeating "faux news" for the stupid.
We had to move out of a neighborhood that was being overrun by MS-13. The police would no longer even enter our street without multiple vehicles. Moms from Central America started taking out second mortgages to get their kids out of the MS-13 recruiting ground and local franchise HQ that was the area's high school, and put them in private schools. Your witless, low-information attempt to blame that reality on Fox would be hilarious to me, if we hadn't had MS-13's local troops relive us of property, threaten our lives, and run our best neighbors out of their homes. You know all of this, but are trying to wish it away because it doesn't suit your personal political narrative. Stop it.
Homeless people -- what do you propose as a solution?
There are more jobs available than there are people to fill them. There's a reason that people congregate in places like Seattle and San Francisco to camp out and set up tent cities. Because those cities encourage it, practically and culturally and financially. You also know this, but are equally annoyed on that front, because it would mean confronting the reality of which sort of monolithic partisan political establishment totally controls places where that happens.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Government needs to A) GET OUT OF THE WAY, and B) Actually support industry.
MS-13 "taking over schools" is Fox agitprop.
Actually it appears to be wapo agitprop.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Except the homeless aren't counted as part of the unemployed -- many haven't been looking for years. They need a leg up and training, and money for this doesn't come from thin air.
MS-13? Name the school and neighborhood -- you're likely exaggerating.
Why don't you have a look at the budget and answer your own question?
Amazon paid $250 million to state and local governments in Washington State alone, and it's the largest property tax payer in Seattle. You call that "not lifting a finger"?
Economics and history suggests that the most motivated people are the the people most willing to abandon their old lives and risk everything to establish themselves somewhere else that offers better opportunity for them to succeed.
As such, the most motivated people will relocate to be whether the greatest opportunity is.
This brings :
- Motivated people
- Opportunistic people
These people will either work as transients, meaning that they will work 2-5 years in the area, earn money and move back with their winnings to settle down. This requires strong markets. For example, if I took a job offer I have in Redmond right now, I would relocate and buy a house immediately. I would stay at my job for long enough for that purchase to show me a solid return on investment which would depend on housing prices rising and therefore screwing all the locals. Then I would sell and leave. The person I sold to would do the same thing.
Or they will settle down.
The transients will come and go and they are a burden on any local economy, but what's important is that many of them will settle in the end. Or at least they'll strengthen the market making the company the area more attractive to draw more people.
Highly motivated people who settle down will raise their children and place importance on their motivations. They'll participate more in schools. They'll provide better tutors for their children. They'll invest more in the local area and improve the infrastructure... and the values of the properties.
And that will draw more people.
The problem is, this cycle of development is excellent for the city but not for the people in the city. Prices rise, inflation is horrendous. I was in Seattle last month for a trade show and I was horrified at how cheap so many things were.
The salaries of all my peers was $150,000+ but the food and prices at Target were suitable for areas with economies closer to $40,000. That means that the people shopping at the stores should be paying more and the stores should be paying their employees more. Instead, they were very definitely minimum wage workers.
That means that the pay gap is INSANE!!! Even with $15 an hour minimum wage, the property values are so ridiculously high that people have to spend an hour commuting or live in squalor to make ends meet. $30,000 a year is simply not enough to survive in Seattle given the relatively small size of the city and the relatively high demand for real estate.
That said, homelessness in Seattle was amazing. There was A LOT of it. I grew up in New York back in the days when trying to get into Grand Central in the morning required carefully climbing over homeless people while attempting to not step in puddles of urine.... The difference is, NYC hasn't been developing... it's a lot of old buildings now. Seattle is under mass construction and is really clean. It seems and feels wrong to have massive urban renewal going on with homeless people just all over the place.
What was worse is that they weren't begging. I've never seen anyplace where homeless people don't beg. Someone explained to me that there's a possibility that the city has invested so heavily in caring for the homeless that many homeless people are attracted to the city so they won't have to beg. So it's interesting because homelessness is/was almost a fashion in San Francisco, but now that the system is even better (it seems) in Seattle, the homeless are migrating to the better system.
... and they both have a good point. A tax on employment has got to be the dumbest tax, and falls heaviest on the lowest paying jobs.
If they really want more affordable housing, they could start by approving some building permits. It is idiotic to deny, deny, deny, and then declare a "crisis" because the lack of supply pushes up prices.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Having too many jobs in one place is a bigger problem right now in the US because that is what jacks up housing costs and increases commute times.
No, what jacks up housing costs is a lack of housing. This is usually due to regulation / zoning laws preventing higher density housing from being built. If you want cheaper housing you have to build more of it. Subsidizing it without fixing the supply just jacks up the price more.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
A lot of hate on what just happened here in Seattle, wonder how many left leaning people are not from here.
I have compassion, and I don't mind paying more to help, but some people just like it the way it is and aren't willing to go in to permanent housing
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/04/09/homeless-residents-brag-about-makeshift-mansion-near-seattles-famed-space-needle.html
They keep asking for money and there is no plan, no accountability
http://mynorthwest.com/569171/mayor-murray-homeless-seattle/?
Even the last mayor was winging it
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/clearing-homeless-from-the-jungle-may-take-more-time-mayor-says/
Seattle hired this consultant named Barbara Poppe
http://mynorthwest.com/786046/barbara-poppe-seattle-homeless-2017/?
And she had some solutions and they didn't include taxing more. From the article above there is this section
"But Seattle was slow to act, which echoes what Poppe warned about in 2016 when she told the city “you’re much more inclined toward discussion and planning and process that goes on and on and on.”"
Which feels like "paralysis by analysis" but I can't help but feel it is more sinister then that
You make Seattle a great place to come to if you are homeless
Safe Injection Site
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/seattle-king-county-move-to-create-2-injection-sites-for-drug-users/
Need more how about free heroin
http://mynorthwest.com/1014078/dori-bagshaw-government-buy-heroin/?
That will make the place grow with voters that are willing to vote left or socialist. Keeping these politicians in power.
Take that tax money and feed to homelessness machine
https://roominate.com/blog/2016/anatomy-of-a-swindle/
So you get all these out of town homeless people, and of course crime goes up
https://www.king5.com/article/news/crime/suspect-pleads-not-guilty-to-raping-woman-in-seattle-car-dealership-bathroom/281-552696410
Maybe you think I am just some AC posting random links found on the internet supporting a view, but from what I have seen over the past few years, I can tell you I hate going to downtown Seattle. My compassion has reached its limits. I still want to help people willing to help themselves, the rest... they can go to another area.
Deductions massively changed over that time, too... For example, compare 1957 (top tax rate of 90%) to today (top tax rate of 37%). In 1957 the Federal Government collected $36 billion from a population of 172 million - about $209 per person. In 2012, we see it was $1.13 trillion for 314 million people - $3600 per person. Correcting for inflation we see that the Federal Government now makes about twice as much, per capita, than it did in 1957 (which was also the last year the Federal Government ran an actual surplus and paid the debt down).
Think about it - in the bad, old, high statutory rate days, the Federal Government collected about HALF of what it does today. Sure, the nominal rates are lower - but the exemptions are dramatically reduced as well, so that the effective tax rate is quite a bit higher (about 2.1 times higher, in fact).
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I think you misunderstand supply and demand.
If supply is high enough then demand falls and prices follow. The GP pointed out that not enough permits were being issued. Your argument that because there are some, there must be enough is not convincing. The trend in the price is rising, this is a solid metric that can be used to determine that supply is low.
There may be other reasons, but you gave no data to support your position. In fact, your argument bolsters his position. Housing is in such high demand that investors are looking at multiyear projects (construction) and determining that the increase in demand will likely result in a high enough sale price that margin will be preserved even after all of the challenges of urban construction.
Hoist on your own petard, sir.
Just because you could probably survive giving me $1000, doesn't mean I'm entitled to force you to do that, does it?
And if your choice was to be around people who would say that it DID entitle me to force you to give me that $1000... call it, for the sake of argument, regional quality-of-life-benefits, suppose you were insightful enough to realize that there would almost immediately be another round for reduction of income disparity (which could be reduced better by fixing schools.) So I realized you STILL had another $1000, and could afford to give it, so I took that too.
Or you could move five miles, to an area with lower crime, better life quality, but a bit less central... and nobody regularly extorting $1000 payments from you because you "could afford it".
What would a rational person or business do? Just because they could afford it, doesn't mean it's something they may choose to afford or even should choose to afford.
Before you disagree, please remit that $1000. Because it's probably a rounding error on your 401K and I know you can afford it.
If you shrink that ring down even further to only where the homeless are at the figure jumps to 100%.
which is an extension of trickle down economics.
Yes, there is a point where people leave. But there's also a point where required services crumble and people leave. Settle is nowhere near the former. Neither is most of California. What's driving people out isn't taxes, it's the cost of housing.
What you're saying isn't popular because, well, it's made up poppycock that originates with right wing think tanks trying to get low taxes for the billionaires that fund them.
The biggest growth in American history was at a time when the top marginal rate was 90% for Pete's sake. If you want the economy to grow you've got to Invest in America (remember that slogan?). We need healthcare for all so our people can be productive and infrastructure they can use to get to and do work. We need schools for them to learn too (or we need to import more H1-Bs, that works too).
In short, if we want a functional civilization we have to pay for it. Civilization's like any other nice club. You have to pay your dues.
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if they are SUCCESSFUL, its entirely because of the infra that they received FOR FREE from america.
therefore, they should pay their fair share; their success is based on the ability to do business here and not worry about electricity, workers strikes, invading wars, crime like africa has, etc.
they are freeloaders and they NEED to pay their share.
else, it will continue to fall on the poor and middle class. and we're fucking tired of paying for EVERYTHING in this country; while watching the land owners laugh all the way to the bank.
amazon will not move. they know better. but our lawmakers, sigh, they only know how to accept suitcases of cash ;(
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