As reported here, the City Council has made a counter proposal to the Mayors $1.8 billion, 20 year tax package, that would supposedly shave 23% off of what the Mayor has proposed "... in hopes that the slimmed-down proposal will be more acceptable to voters. ".
"The council on Monday will discuss the counterproposal, which would trim the mayor's 20-year spending plan for major road projects and street and sidewalk repairs by more than $15 million annually." Oh, goody! They "only" want to spend roughly $75 million dollars a year, rather than the $90 million the Mayor wants to spend. How responsible of them.
"The changes reflect discomfort among council members with the original size of the mayor's proposal and a strong lobbying effort by the parking industry against the parking tax Nickels proposed."
""Our concern was voter fatigue," said Councilman Richard McIver, who said he supports almost all of the revised package. "I think (the change) gets it down to a cost I think is reasonable to the taxpayer.""
I'm glad that the City Council felt 'discomfort' over the size of the Mayor's proposal, and that they are 'concerned' about 'voter fatigue'. Let's see now. Ron Sims wants to increase the sales tax in King County; the State Legislature voted to increase the state gas tax 9.5 cents per gallon (on top of the 38 cents they already had assessed in previous years) - to fix roads by the way, plus other and sundry taxes they passed both last year and this year; the Mayor then dumps a whopping $1.8 billion tax package on the citizens of Seattle, with the City Council making a counter proposal that still comes in at a whopping $1.5 billion dollars, and Councilman McIver thinks this is 'reasonable'?
Guess again. The only real changes in the Councils counterproposal are to cut the parking lot space tax from 10% to 8%, and to cut the property tax by 26% (which still needs voter approval to implement anyway), while retaining the $25.00 per employee tax. Not a whole lot of changes or reductions, really, when you look at the overall numbers.
I'm hoping that the City Council does put the property tax request on the November ballot, so that the voters in the city of Seattle can demonstrate just how 'fatigued' we really are. I for one, am really 'tired' of having politicians dipping into my wallet at the drop of a hat.
1 comment:
Gah, I see you're getting hit with tax, after tax, after tax much we are in my area of the world. At least you can get the issues put on a ballot...
Best of luck lowering the property tax and preventing others from going up.
In business, they keep pushing "do more with less". Time to start pushing our politicians with the same goal. You politicians do more with less... we're already doing much with practically NOTHING left over.
Grrrr....
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