In the past 24 hours, Jeff Bezos added $405 million to his net worth. In the past year, Jeff Bezos added $41 billion to his net worth. And yet somehow, Amazon can't throw a $50 million peanut at the epidemic of homelessness ravaging their hometown.
This is an unfair framing. The tax did far more damage than impair Amazon's bottom line. Your complaint, moreover, could be leveled against every public service in the city. There are simply better ways to solve this problem. Seattle's government chose pot shots over progress.
This tax was predominantly opposed by small business owners. (I think it was $25,000 donated by Amazon and close to $300,000 by small businesses.)
The proposed tax was a flat payroll tax. That burdens lower-wage employees and employers much more than tech companies. There is perfect being the enemy of good, and then there is cutting off the nose to spite the face. This was the latter.
It really didn't though.
Plus government spending here like many other cities is not well managed. See bike lanes. See the fact that they fired Wells Fargo and then re-hired Wells Fargo because no one else would take their business.
Homelessness is a real problem, but there needs to be more dialogue and better planning before rushing in and taxing growth.
Probably a better idea to look at how the tax system is setup here to favor the wealthy versus low income.
Just salary, not even the full cost of having an employee on staff.
I just refuse to believe this is a massive burden on these businesses without numbers.
People said the same stuff about the minimum wage increase.
> Probably a better idea to look at how the tax system is setup here to favor the wealthy versus low income.
They did and that's why they decided on this tax instead of yet more horribly regressive sales taxes.
Washington has a god awful tax system. This is one of the options they had to get the money without squeezing the poor and middle class even more.
I don't want them tackling civic issues because Amazon is a company. It is a profit algorithm in a capitalist system. Humans inside can steer it to Do Nice Things here and there but ultimately its lives because Profit.
The government's ONLY job is to Do Nice Things (maintain nice status of life). Therefore, it is the government's failure to leverage its own powers to solve the homeless issue. Because it's a representative plutocratic democracy, the people are partially to blame as well, although class disparity is a major obstacle.
1. Amazon is not the government.
2. Amazon has no obligation to solve civic issues.
3. It is the government's job to solve civic issues.
(The government tries to solve civic issues; Amazon uses its undue influence in Seattle to undermine the process.)
4. Ergo, it's all the government's fault.
I say instead, attack the concept of capitalism (infeasible) or fight the fight in the battleground of the political sphere - vote and openly support candidates that want money out of government.
Yea, finding one is hard, I agree.
But rather than accepting Amazon's mundane corporate naughtiness, we should be vigilant and outspoken about it. The corporate norms we have now in North America are not etched in stone; we can inveigh against shitty behaviour while also doing what you suggest: electing better politicians and pursuing fairer tax policy.
If you're an affluent techie in Seattle it's easy to say "not my problem bro", work your great job, buy your expensive house, lobby your local councilman to curb new developments and head taxes, watch your property value rise and your chequing account blossom. But there are swathes of other people for whom affluent tech jobs aren't desirable or possible, and there's no need for those people to be priced out of Seattle. Building homes isn't hard.
Is the solution to be companies to throw their hands up in the air and say "municipal governments can't solve gentrification, so let's not become big"?
Do you think the swaths of tech workers moving to be close to work enjoy their rent prices skyrocketing? Do you think they enjoy rising homeless rates?
Nobody wants gentrification. If you can find me a tech worker kicking sand in a homeless person's face I'll lambast him with you. I want to solve gentrification as well but the solution isn't to choke an economy to prevent companies from moving in. That just pushes the problem to some other city. We need the government to step in and do its job, and that means we have to participate and steer the government.