Revolt: Watch Overtaxed Seattle Workers Turn Councilwoman's Rally Upside-Down
They’re not all senseless in Seattle.
A proposal to raise a walloping $75 million in new taxes from the city’s largest job creators has antagonized major employers and is pitting even traditionally liberal groups against each other in a fight over the city’s future.
And fed-up construction workers had no problem letting one leftist City Council member know just how angry they are.
At issue is a plan to require Seattle companies that gross at least $20 million a year to pay a tax of 26 cents per employee hour, according to the Seattle Times.
Supporters estimate it would raise about $75 million a year. Retailing giant Amazon, whose headquarters are in the city, would be saddled with a $20 million to $30 million extra tax bill because of it.
It’s called a “head tax” and, according to the Seattle Times, its purportedly meant to benefit Seattle’s growing numbers of homeless — that perennial Democrat voting bloc that supposedly can’t afford housing in the city.
The liberal argument might normally hold sway in a Left Coast, high-tax bastion like Seattle, but opponents are calling it a “job tax,” and business groups like the metropolitan Chamber of Commerce are getting some unexpected help.
Even a liberal outfit like Amazon doesn’t like the idea of paying $30 million extra in taxes every year. The company put a huge expansion plan in the city on hold pending a final decision by Seattle’s City Council, according to CBS News.
And that meant unionized construction workers were losing out on a major construction job. That meant a tough time for City Council member Kshama Sawant, a member of the Socialist Alternative party. (With a name like that, you can imagine what her party’s policies are like.)
Check out how Iron Workers Local 86 took over a Sawant town hall on Thursday.
Considering Seattle is much better known as a city where leftists riot for leftist causes, it was refreshing to see a public demonstration against a liberal idea like the “head tax.”
And this idea is wrong all the way through.
On a philosophical level, Democrats never think many people are homeless because they’ve made a whole bunch of lousy choices in their lives, usually involving drugs and alcohol. That’s not to damn an entire demographic, but there are a great many things that tax dollars can’t heal — and human nature is at the top of the list.
More practically, from an overtaxed Seattle resident’s point of view, the idea is a new spin on the Democrat plan to take money from wage earners and job creators and spend it on all-mighty government plans to benefit the poor. According to the Seattle Times, the city is projecting to spend only 5 percent of the net take from the “head tax” on administrative costs.
Does anyone seriously think those unionized municipal employees aren’t eyeing that pot of money too?
The reality is, it’s money for a plan that’s going to be wasted in the future and is costing construction workers jobs now.
And Iron Workers Local 86 wasn’t having it.
Even liberal organized labor comes around once in a while.
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