redbloodedamerica:

Seattle’s “Amazon Tax”

Seattle’s silly City Council just passed the new “head tax” on its 600 biggest companies.  “We need the money,” say the politicians, “to provide apartments for homeless people.” 

This Councilwoman, a member of the “Socialist Alternative” party, led this protest.  Seattle does have a problem with camps of street people.  Homelessness has doubled in the last eight years.  There are many reasons for that, but one is that Amazon and other companies brought so many new jobs to Seattle that the demand for housing exceeded the supply.  

Normally when that happens builders are thrilled because prices go up, and they quickly build new housing to sell to the new workers.  Win-win.  But in Seattle, politicians make that very difficult.  Seattle’s building code is 700 pages long.  It says things like “welded splices must be made of a certain kind of steel,” “foam plastic signs shall not be greater than a half-inch thick.”  Then the residential building code is another 700 pages. 

Can Seattle relieve its housing shortage by building more skyscrapers?  No.  In most of Seattle’s land area, high-rises are illegal – zoning rules say only single-family houses may be built.  Seattle’s big government restrictions created the housing problem.  So now they want to solve it with more heavy-handed government? 

When the politicians proposed the head tax:  “Amazon announced it would pause construction on its new building downtown, pending the final decision.”  Amazon’s web services boss said, “What company is going to want to start, or move to, or grow in a city that penalizes them for hiring full-time employees?”  Good question.  Construction workers started protesting against the head tax.  Supporters of big government aren’t used to protesters drowning them out.  

Still, in Seattle, plenty of leftists are ready to march in the name of “class warfare.”  Amazon’s executives they say are behaving like mobsters.  For stopping construction, they should be prosecuted for extortion.  They call Amazon the enemy.  Give me a break!  Amazon created the jobs that the politicians now want to tax.  If a company says, “tax us too much, we’ll leave,” that’s extortion?  Come on.  If anyone’s acting like mobsters, it’s the politicians. 

At least America has some tax competition.  If politicians in one city or state get too greedy, people can move elsewhere.  A few years ago, when New York politicians raise taxes, Donald – not yet President – Trump told me rich people will eventually just leave.  He was right.  We don’t want the spiral.  If wealth creators leave, then there’s no one left to tax.

Monday, Seattle’s politicians finally realized that…sort of.  They said, “okay, we won’t take $500 per employee, now it’ll be ‘just $275.’”  That adjustment was enough to get Amazon to resume its construction in Seattle, but it says future expansions are now in doubt.  Seattle’s taxes and rules are a reason that Amazon will build its second headquarters someplace else.