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Comment by AnHonestComment | Hacker News Reader

It’s worth pointing out why it needs to be “revived”: because the first iteration of the tax would have destroyed grocery stores and was protested by construction unions due to its disastrous policy.

This iteration is targeting the 800 largest employers in Seattle, many of whom aren’t currently profitable.

“Tax Amazon” is classic dishonesty — neither bill has been focused on Amazon, both would be a disaster for Seattle, and proponents try to focus on Amazon to keep people from noticing how damaging their out of control spending is.

In 2010, the Seattle budget was 3.8B; in 2020, it’s 6.5B. An increase of 2.7B and growth of 71% in a decade. (Per capita, the Seattle budget is 37% more now than in 2010.)

https://www.geekwire.com/2018/seattle-socialists-constructio...

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-c...

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Just ballparking it:

Seattle population has grown by around 23% [1] and inflation means $1 in 2010 has the spending power of $1.18 today [2], you'd expect a 45% increase (1.18*1.23) just accounting for population change. According to seattle's open government website, their budget was $6.24Bn in 2020, and $4.13Bn in 2010, a 51% increase. So just ball park spending has grown probably less than 0.5% per annum over inflation in the last decade.

[1]: Acutally 2010-2018 - https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=seattle+p...

[2]: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/2010?amount=1

[3]: https://openbudget.seattle.gov/#!/year/2020/operating/0/serv...

As someone not from Seattle, the drama around that tax was quite ridiculous. The idea of a "head tax" is utterly nonsensical in that it's an incentive to NOT hire people, which is the entire point that companies are pulled into cities. Jobs. Jobs are one of the things cities care most about more than anything. A head tax actively disincentives hiring of new workers. A head tax can maybe make sense if you have permanently low unemployment and companies can't hire enough people, but that's not Seattle's problem.

Given how many people are moving to Seattle every year, far faster than new housing can be built, I'd say that an effectively negative unemployment rate has, in fact, been one of Seattle's problems, and that slowing hiring down would, in fact, help things.

> The idea of a "head tax" is utterly nonsensical in that it's an incentive to NOT hire people

If your goal is to reduce rents by reducing the number of people living nearby, then it can meet the goal.

> Jobs are one of the things cities care most about more than anything.

And look where that got cities.

One school of thought is "just keep importing jobs AND add a ton of new housing" but there's a sort of capitalistic dystopian feeling to that, like that's the path to Blade Runner. Just need to start shipping out the people without high-enough paying jobs (again, actually - Europeans moving to the Americas doesn't seem that dissimilar) and we're there!

Another source for anyone not in Seattle who wants to learn more about it: https://sccinsight.com/2017/10/30/close-look-proposed-head-t...

That's from 2017 when it was introduced but it's a good non-partisan explanation, including the many problems with the proposal. https://sccinsight.com/tag/head-tax/ has newer posts.

> because the first iteration of the tax would have destroyed grocery stores

> This iteration is targeting the 800 largest employers in Seattle, many of whom aren’t currently profitable.

Citations needed. Citing a few articles quoting a few politicians does not count.

Creating an alt account to make this one comment not really trust-inspiring either.

> to keep people from noticing how damaging their out of control spending is.

That's a bold assertion without any citation.

The numbers were listed in the next sentence.

They edited their post. Also, numbers don't mean anything without context. Why is that out of control spending?

IMO increased spending that requires a state that has no income tax to add one.

Your comment has nothing to do with spending. So what makes the Seattle budget out of control? That was the original assertion that I took issue with.

The rate of budget increase increased dramatically without an increase in revenue.

They increased about .5% inflation adjust per year from 2010-2020. That again does not mean that spending is out of control especially when you consider that 2010 was still in the depths of the great recession.

Thats a good point thanks

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