MyNorthwest: Zillow slams ‘head tax’ and may grow outside of Seattle
Sweet. First Amazon pushes back, then union construction workers, and now Zillow – the whole city should be in an uproar right now.
You’d think Seattle would know better after all of the Boeing business the state lost to other part of the US. Guess someone forgot the memo and the whole council doesn’t realize that business can simply step out to Bellevue, Tacoma, or pretty much anywhere else in country. Feels like a sizable bill for the homeless. Rather than forcibly taxing companies, why not offer a tax rebate or tax cut for companies that show a track record of helping the homeless through foundations, donations, or new work acts? Nope – the head tax is the city’s solution.
Overall, I feel I have to give Seattle some shit for voting for someone like Kshama Sawant into office – I hope you don’t reward her performance or behavior because as a councilperson, I find her to be delusional, misguided, and so naive that it’s frankly rather embarrassing. Consider the seemingly endless run of taxes and laws for the layman in the city over the years like bring-your-own-bag taxes or sugar-soda taxes or sort-your-garbage fines – where is that money going by the way? – or the you-have-to-rent-to-the-first-bell-ringer but then you’ve got a democratic socialist running around on the city, staging protests, and proclaiming statements for the entire city that this work is OK because in her mind, “Amazon can afford it.” As a shareholder of Amazon, I can honestly say: screw you, hippie. Instead of taking all of these people around the city to protest, why not help them find homes in other towns in the area? Why the fight to keep them in the city? It can’t be a tax play because if homeless, there’s not much taxable income there. As a socialist, maybe she’s not be aware that people can move out of Seattle if they choose to, that they are not required to stay in the city limits. There’s no state-based obligation for anyone to stay where they are and gods know there’s no city mandate that states that everyone is entitled to live in the Pike/Pine/12th/Broadway corridor.
Further, who are you to say what Amazon can and cannot afford? Do you think they have to stay in Seattle? Do you think they can’t find another city to call home? Go ask Connecticut what happened to their business that had been there for decades. You know, the ones that moved HQ’s to New York or Massachusetts which are historically high taxed states. I mean, you do know that they have no state, city, or moral obligation to stay in Seattle, right? Like Expedia, who moved from Bellevue to Seattle, Amazon can go where ever the hell they want.
That aside, I love that fact that you say Bezos is holding the construction of a new building as a hostage. That’s just a smart business move. If I decided to buy a piece of land and build on it only to find out that the taxes I’d be paying would quintuple before I finished construction, I too would have second thoughts. Maybe you should demand that Jeff donate the land to the city for a shelter or something you want to feel warm and fuzzy over. But you must acknowledge that they can build or not build wherever the hell they want. They can build in or move to a city where they are made to feel far more welcome than here.
If Bezos is a bully, take a look at yourself in the mirror Ms. Sawant: you’ll find not only a bully but an extortionist as well.
