As reported here, the Seattle City Council has approved the Mayor's tax proposal "to fix the roads", trimming the original $1.8 billion dollar proposal to a mere $1.6 billion dollars.
The problem here is that the headline is misleading, in that, the only portion of the Mayor's proposal that the voters will have a say on is the property tax portion of it. The Council approved the parking space tax, and the per-employee tax portions of the proposal.
The other thing that gets me is this nugget -
"The parking and business taxes had been opposed by business interests, but those taxes would not be imposed until mid-2007 to allow the city and businesses to lobby the Legislature for more acceptable taxes."
So, the Mayor, with City Council approval, comes up with some new taxes on businesses (which, of course, will be passed on to consumers) which are frowned upon by business interests, so they can then lobby the State Legislature for "more acceptable" taxes? What kind of logic is that? And acceptable to whom, exactly? Business interests, or the people of Seattle?
More "acceptable" taxes are not what we need, Mr. Mayor. What we need is more efficient spending of the taxes that are already being collected. My hope is, that when November rolls around, and it's time for us to vote on the property tax increase, that the voters of Seattle will defeat this increase.
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