Did you know, the median home price in Seattle is $777,000? I read that last week when I read an article about Seattle wanting to impose a "head tax" on big companies. Seattle has a lot of problems. More than they're saying, that's for sure. Anyway, yesterday I saw this followup article and I was just flabbergasted! I'm not 100% pro Amazon and I don't even drink Starbucks, but this seems wrong. It says that the city spent $68 million on homeless services last year. Now they're going to get an additional $48 million. But nobody is asking what the plan is. They say there are 10,000 homeless people in Seattle. I see the biggest problem...greed. The city could have put a cap on rent years ago. But they didn't I bet, because they didn't want tell someone how to run their business or how much they could make. Greed. Greed. Greed. They'll just tax them instead!
Seattle OKs tax on companies like
Amazon to help homeless
PHUONG
LE
PUBLISHED: MAY
15TH, 2018 - 8:51AM (EDT)
SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle's largest businesses such as Amazon
and Starbucks will have to pay a new tax to help fund homeless services and
affordable housing under a measure approved by city leaders.
The City Council unanimously passed a compromise plan
Monday that taxes businesses making at least $20 million in gross revenues
about $275 per full-time worker each year — lower than the $500 per worker
initially proposed. The so-called "head tax" would raise roughly $48
million a year to build new affordable housing units and provide emergency
homeless services.
The debate over who should pay to solve a housing crisis
exacerbated by Seattle's rapid economic growth comes after weeks of tense
exchanges, raucous meetings and a threat by Amazon, the city's largest
employer, to stop construction planning on a 17-story building near its
hometown headquarters.
Amazon, Starbucks and business groups sharply criticized
the council's decision after Monday's vote. They called it a tax on jobs and
questioned whether city officials were spending current resources effectively.
One state Republican leader said he would seek legislation next year to make
clear that a city tax on employees, wages or hours is illegal.
Seattle-based Starbucks had harsh words for its hometown leaders.
It accused the city of spending without accountability while ignoring that
hundreds of children sleep outside.
"If they cannot provide a warm meal and safe bed to a
5-year-old child, no one believes they will be able to make housing affordable
or address opiate addiction," Starbucks' John Kelly said in a statement.
But worker and church groups and others cheered the tax as
a step toward building badly needed affordable housing in an affluent city
where the income gap continues to widen and lower-income workers are being
priced out.
"People are dying on the doorsteps of prosperity.
This is the richest city in the state and in a state that has the most
regressive tax system in the country," said councilmember Teresa Mosqueda,
who wanted a larger tax but called the compromise plan "a down
payment" to build housing the city needs.
For Seattle's liberal City Council, the discussion Monday
centered not so much on whether there should be a head tax but how big it
should be. Four bill sponsors initially pitched a tax of $500 per full-time
employee a year but a compromise proposal emerged over weekend after they
couldn't muster the six votes needed to override a potential veto by Mayor
Jenny Durkan.
Councilmember Lisa Herbold, a bill sponsor, said the
revenue isn't enough to fully address the problem given the city's dire needs
and human suffering but it was "the strongest proposal" they could
put forward given the veto threat.
Proponents of the tax say too many people are suffering on
the streets, and while city-funded programs found homes for 3,400 people last
year, the problem deepens. The Seattle region had the third-highest number of
homeless people in the U.S. and saw 169 homeless deaths last year. The city
spent $68 million on homelessness last year and plans to spend even more this
year. The tax will provide additional revenue.
"This legislation will help us address our
homelessness crisis without jeopardizing critical jobs," Durkan said in a
statement.
Other cities have implemented similar taxes, but critics
say Seattle's tax could threaten the booming local economy and drive away jobs.
Nearly 600 large employers — roughly 3 percent — would pay
the tax starting in 2019. Amazon, the city's largest employer with 45,000
workers, would take the biggest hit.
Amazon Vice President Drew Herdener said in a statement
Monday that the company was disappointed.
While Amazon has resumed construction planning on the
downtown building, he said "we remain apprehensive about the future
created by the council's hostile approach and rhetoric toward larger
businesses, which forces us to question our growth here."
He noted that city revenues have grown dramatically and
that the city "does not have a revenue problem — it has a spending
efficiency problem."
Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez shot back that she was
"equally disappointed" in Amazon's reaction to the council's vote and
said she thinks "their tone in this message that is clearly hostile toward
the city council is not what I expect from a business who continues to tell us
that they want to be a partner on these issues."
Before the vote, she said the city "has an obligation
to take care of the people who are surviving and suffering on our city
streets."
Shannon Brown, 55, who has been living a tiny home at a
south Seattle homeless encampment, said there's simply not enough housing for
the city's poorest people.
"I live in a little shed, but it's better than living
in a tent or in a sleeping bag on the street," she said. "There's no
away I can afford to live in Seattle. I don't understand why businesses think
it's wrong to help."
John Boufford with the International Union of Painters and
Allied Trades said he didn't understand the rhetoric against Amazon, which he
noted provides good jobs for thousands of people.
"They're driving this economic engine," he said.
"I'm confused about why the city of Seattle is fostering an adversarial
relationship with businesses in this city."
