Posted on 06/12/2018 9:23:05 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
Just weeks after passing a new tax on big businesses, Seattle political leaders signaled late Monday they would reverse course and repeal it.
Mayor Jenny Durkan and city council President Bruce Harrell said in statements that they would end the tax, initially meant to combat rising homelessness in a city where housing prices have soared.
We heard you, Durkan and seven of the nine city council members said in a statement. This week, the City Council is moving forward with the consideration of legislation to repeal the current tax on large businesses to address the homelessness crisis.
Business groups, led by the citys largest employers like Amazon and Starbucks, had raised $200,000 in just a few weeks to gather signatures for a referendum challenging the new tax. They had planned to submit those signatures on Tuesday in an effort to place the referendum on the November ballot.
The announcement from Mayor Durkan and the City Council is the breath of fresh air Seattle needs, said Marilyn Strickland, who heads the Seattle Metro Chamber of Commerce. Repealing the tax on jobs gives our region the chance to address homelessness in a productive, focused and unified way.
The tax would have fallen on businesses that generated more than $20 million in revenue. The 585 businesses in the city that qualified would have faced a $275-per-employee tax, money that would have gone to pay for affordable housing and programs aimed at curbing homelessness.
ETC...
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Is Amazon Smile selling nose-rings for politicians?
If anyone thinks that dime one of that tax money would have gone to the “homeless” rather than crazy liberal projects and fatcat liberal donors and politicians, I have a bridge over Puget Sound to sell you.
Runs and owns them.
Good, but bezos still voted for the leftists who wanted this law, and will vote for them in the future.
Special deal on Amazon. /sarc
bookmark
Yes, fix the problem by helping those that can work with jobs; institutionalize the others, else give them tickets to go somewhere else (e.g., to live by family). End result should be NO ONE living on the streets, camping out on public property. We need to reverse this trend to welcome them living on sidewalks and in parks, etc.
Notice they didn’t collect $$$ to remove the politicians who did this.
The best part is that the city council members that voted to repeal the tax, will probably be voted out of office for folding, for not being progressive enough.
Remember that libs are nothing if not spiteful.
Bezos asks for taxes on you. Not him.
Seattle has always been for sale.
Holy shite, Batman! This is BFD! ... Indeed it is, Robin. Indeed it is ...
“Bezos asks for taxes on you. Not him.”
and you don’t think amazon passes the cost of those taxes onto its customers? which means EVERY ONE of amazon’s customers get to pay those homeless people taxes, not JUST the customers who live in Seattle ...
For those who don't know, the Seattle city council has mismanaged 10's of millions of dollars already and things have only gotten worse.
More vagrants, more crime, more open drug use and public urination and defecation.
Even liberal Seattle citizens were getting sick of major funds going wasted.
7/9 counsel members are up for reelection next year and I doubt any of them will get reelected.
It's a beautiful thing.
I am deeply troubled and disappointed by the political tactics utilized by a powerful faction of corporations that seem to prioritize corporations over people, Gonzalez said in a statement. It was my sound belief that a compromise on this policy had been reached with business, and as an elected official representing all of Seattle, I am deeply disappointed that certain members of the business community did not engage in good faith with the City of Seattle.
I see that Kshama Sawant (Commie-Seattle) will not reverse her vote. I haven't found the other that will vote to keep the tax.
Interesting that Gonzalez, quoted above, may be a diaper red socialist, but she is voting to overturn the tax, in spite of her rhetoric.
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