‘They reported 57% of Seattle voters believe taxes are “too high for what they are getting” … 73% of voters do not trust the City to spend their tax dollars wisely.‘

Where in earth did they get that idea? Half a billion dollars — and counting — spent on homelessness response sure resolved the homelessness crisis nicely, didn’t it? I mean, just look at all of the stories the Stranger has run about campers moving out of the parks, into shelters and tiny house villages, and thence into stable housing!

“… hopeful that involving Smith in the infamous Seattle Process would avoid a repeat of the Chamber’s temper tantrum that ultimately killed the head tax in 2018.”

Long gone down the Memory Hole are the 47,000 signatures — collected in an astonishingly short time — to repeal the tax (less than 20,000 were needed). Progressives simply own popular action — just ask CM Sawant! — and ordinary citizens are NOT allowed to just sign any old petitions like they can decide their own taxes (or, worse yet, recall elected officials!). The Stranger and CM Sawant decide the limits of acceptable political actions citizens may take, and this growing impertinence on the part of mere voters is problematic, to say the least.

The whole point of the committee is dumb. The city has few levers to pull if they want to raise taxes, its either property tax, sales tax, B&O tax, head tax and now a capital gains tax. It seems a foregone conclusion that they will impose a capital gains tax since that is new and will be deemed "progressive" even though as @2 notes they won't reduce any other regressive taxes. The issue with this whole project is the underlying assumption the city needs more money. The city budget has grown faster than population and inflation over the last several years. The reason they are having issues now is because employees aren't coming to work as frequently and spending and B&O tax is down. Raising those won't fix that. San Fran is looking at providing tax relief to lure businesses back to downtown so I'm not sure why that is such a non starter here.

@5: “The whole point of the committee is dumb.”

I don’t know, I think they’re onto something here:

“… the workgroup is tasked with assessing new revenue options, not questioning if there’s a need for new revenue in the first place.”

This useful innovation in public discourse has many possible applications, e.g.:

“ … the workgroup is tasked with assessing the level of defund, not questioning if there’s a need for defunding SPD in the first place.”

“… the workgroup is tasked with assessing just how cruel encampment sweeps are, not questioning if there’s a need for encampments in the first place.”

“… the workgroup is tasked with assessing the exact height of the new statue, not questioning if there’s a need for a gigantic statue of Comrade Sawant Gloriously Striding To Total Victory in the first place.”

https://twitter.com/AlexforSeattle/status/1666676287765897217?s=20

(Take 2)

@1 AP's proposed water tax cut, as Alex Hudson pointed out in the tweet linked in @7, is "a subsidy to homeowners who statistically have the highest incomes in Seattle. That's not progressive taxation, and this will not solve actual problems or meet our most urgent needs."

SPU's Utility Discount Program (UDP) provides bill assistance for income-eligible customers. If your household income is at or below 70% of the state median income, the program helps you get current and stay current on utility payments by offering a discount of about 60% on your Seattle City Light bill and a 50% discount on your Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) bill. This discount is only available for residential City Light and SPU customers.

If we want to make the cost of water and other essentials more progressive, the answer is expand UDP and similar subsidy and exemption programs, not reduce water taxes on everyone including the rich and big business (anti-environment to boot).

I nominate Tensorna to write all the comments from here until the end of the Stranger's days.

Also, Rachel is 100% right about rethinking the workgroup and the mood of voters. A prerequisite to being a journalist or publication covering politics: demonstrate at least a minimal understanding of where the voters are. City Attorney Pete Holmes would have appreciated that. Oops.

The reason Katie Wilson of Transit Riders Union is on Teresa Mosqueda's tax committee is because Transit Riders Union is a front group funded by Government Labor Unions. That is the only reason Katie is on the panel. To back up whatever Teresa Mosqueda (she is a former representative of Local 17, city employees sitting in chairs) wants. The deck is stacked.