Tax plan for city roads

As reported here, Mayor of Seattle Greg Nichols is proposing hefty new taxes, that he says will raise $1.8 billion dollars over the next twenty years to pay for transportation infrastructure repairs and improvements. Granted, these repairs and improvements are sorely needed here (as anyone who endures some of the bone jarring commutes here will tell you), but this is the completely wrong way to go about paying for it. Among the new taxes:

- a 10% tax on commercial parking lots and garages;
- a $25.00 per full time employee tax on businesses with gross receipts of over $50,000.00 annually;
- an increase of 45 cents per $1,000.00 of assessed value on property.

The first two only need approval by the city council, while the last would have to be placed before, and approved by a simple majority of, voters.

Here are the problems with this.

First of all, the state is getting Business and Occupation tax from the owners of commercial parking lots and garages, while the county is getting property tax from them, while the owners are having to pay parking attendants an hourly wage, plus pay to the state various other fees and taxes for each hour each employee works, and now the city wants to tax them 10% more? What's to prevent the owners from laying off all of their employees who probably make more than minimum wage, and turning around and hiring fewer people back at minimum wage? That reduces the amount of money going back into the economy through fewer employees getting paid lower wages.

Secondly, the per-employee tax will (not might, not maybe, not possibly - will!) result in businesses becoming unwilling to hire more people, as the per-employee tax will cut into whatever profit margin the company has (and if large enough, that would be a concern to shareholders), the result of which will be what I outlined above. Another possible related action taken by businesses is that they will consider - as Boeing actually did - relocating to a more business friendly locale, taking even more jobs away from Seattle.

Lastly, the increase on the property tax will see more people not being able to afford to live in Seattle, eventually causing an exodus to less expensive areas, and a collapse of the housing market here in Seattle, which would be a major blow to one of the strongest elements of our economy - residential construction - resulting in more loss of jobs, resulting in less money available to consumers, resulting in lower revenues for the city, county and the state.

Mayor Nichols, and his socialist, nanny-state, cohorts are completely ignoring what is going on with the national economy, and the reason for it. The national economy is booming, recording growth for the fifth straight year, with record revenues streaming into the Treasury. And the reason for this? The Bush tax cuts. While the Dems consistently seek new ways to separate you from your money by creating new taxes thinking this will increase revenues, President Bush has pushed through tax cuts, which have left more money in consumers pockets for them to spend as they see fit, which has increased revenues at a record pace. The same thing happened when President Reagan cut taxes, and when President Kennedy did it!

Note to Mayor Nichols: If even President John F. Kennedy - a Democrat - knew that to grow the economy and increase revenues, you cut taxes, why don't you know that?

Get a clue, ok?