Comments

1
How about a Capitol Hill tax since the Stranger staff loves proposing the taxation of all Seattle to pay for things that only people on Capitol Hill want.....
2
I agree that an income tax should be part of our funding, but I hate the idea of allowing the suburbanites to skate. Did you read that the GOP has a lead in the polls, still? Damn. What the hell is wrong with this country? http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/us/pol…
3
How about a tax on companies to pay their share? Oh, that's right, Inslee just bent over.
4
hell yes we should tax the living shit out of the median wage earners at once! Show those pigfuckers who runs this city.
5
Totally down with income tax, even vat taxes on luxury items. If we do that we should cut business taxes. More money staying in businesses (not taken as profit) makes more payroll and stimulates spending of the type and at the level that distributes $ broadly. Most lefty economists agree.

So yes high wages, progressive income tax, VA tax, and no business or corporate tax. This is a pipe dream though - government can't resist dipping their (big ass) beak everywhere they see liquidity (except unfortunately when it comes to the oligarchs).
6
Lobby Olympia to let us have an income tax? Do you have a mouse in your pocket? Nobody here wants an income tax. I pay enough taxes without being additionally burdened by an income tax! Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!
7
The top 20%? So it’s no longer the 1% you’re after? Like we didn’t know.

As a member of the 20%, thanks for the laugh. Good luck getting your income tax you'll need it.
8
@5

Please explain how cutting "business or corporate tax" would incentivize businesses to invest in their workforce.
9
Goldy - On this one I agree with you. The City definitely needs more funding for infrastructure and services and a local income tax probably makes the most sense. It would be nice if it could be countywide though, but maybe easier to actually make happen in the city.
10
#8 here's a walk through from a right of center economist - note that this pov is not alien to those on the left. A number of European countries with low gini indexes left progressives generally admire tax income heavily and businesses lightly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/busine…

Small business taxes should be cut too, as long as a progressive income tax and a higher taxes on cashed out capital gains are in place to fill in the gap.

11
How is the city-only thing going to work? If I worked at say, Microsoft (I don't), and the "west side or east side" decision was also an "income tax or no income tax" decision, I'd live closer to work and just miss Cafe Flora a whole lot.
12
Yeah. As long as someone else is paying the income tax, I'm all for it!!
13
huh? why do we need permission from the leg?

is there an RCW banning cities from enacting this? got cite? link?

if your concern is past court decisions you don't need permission from the leg to pass a law testing a precedential court decision. and yeah, if we do need the leg to act it's not even worth posting a post about, duh.
14
Portland does not have a city income tax. Multnomah county instituted a temporary income tax of 1.25% from 2003 to 2006.

Personally having to pay several thousand dollars a year for the privilege of living in Seattle could be hard to shallow. As much as I dislike the suburbs saving a good chunk of money while possibly getting better schools to boot would tempt a lot of people.
16
Taxes need to be raised...but on passive income...not on the wages of working professionals who need their paychecks or on poor people besieged by an already sky high 10% sales tax.

Passive income:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_inc…

17
^ This
18
#15

Texas does have a sales tax and it is half of ours, but they do not have an income tax.

They do have a 2% property tax.
19
I meant @15. Damn these slow fingers.
20
@2 that is one poll. And why not a king county income tax?
21

#2

If the GOP would stop woman hatin' and gay bashin' we'd get elected with an 80% majority.

22
Worlds collide, I agree with #16.

Passive income.
23
@21: You are pants-on-head insane if you believe that.
24
This has worked well in NYC

And if the state shuts it down we'll just for the state of Seattle with Sealth County inside it
25
"And why not a king county income tax"

What, like I-1098, which lost in every county in Washington State including King County, by 10% points?

Oh, there's also a little problem called the Washington State constitution.

But keep chasing your windmills moochers.
26
@24 I suspect that is because the privilege of living in NYC far exceeds that of living on a particular side of the 520 bridge. I say that as a former New Yorker. Additionally the flow of people to jobs is mainly into NYC, whereas Seattle has a fair number of people commuting to Bellevue and Redmond.
27
@10,

I didn't see anything about European countries in that op-ed. Also:

N. Gregory Mankiw is a professor of economics at Harvard. He was an adviser to President Bush and advised Mitt Romney in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.


He advised the president who oversaw the trashing of our economy? Well I'm convinced.

Given that American corporations don't pay anywhere near 35 percent of their incomes in taxes, where is the investment in the workforce?
28
So, you increase labor by 60%, then increase taxes. All on top of the fact that Seattle has more regulations than the East Side and that many employers are on the East Side (Microsoft) and that there are better schools on the East Side, and you DON'T THINK people will move to the East Side?

I feel like the guy standing in Greece during the Olympics, telling people that things are going to get bad. Just as the Greeks a few years ago laughed at the notion that anything they were doing would have a bad effect on their economy, Seattlites also laugh, thinking nothing bad could ever happen to their economy.

I know if this happens, I won't leave the state. First I'll try to work and live in Bellevue. After the Sawant/Murray/Stranger axis turns it into a little Greece I'll be chilling in Kirkland, Bellevue or Redmond, aka New Seattle. After all, Bellevue has a Republican mayor and it will just get more fiscally conservative as more people with sense leave Seattle for the East Side.

I think the Jefferson's theme song had the right idea...
29
@23: why do you think the Slog meme is "John Bailo is the dumbest motherfucker on the planet"?
30
@27 if it makes you feel any better to have some bonafides, highfalutin liberal economists Robert Frank and Dean Baker support cutting business taxes too. I'm not saying tax less overall, just do it smarter.

Please wait...

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