
Socialists Are Beating Jeff Bezos in Seattle (Again) - 0x262d
https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/bezos-seattle-amazon-tax/
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0x262d
Since someone went ahead with the obligatory "they're gonna leave Seattle"
comment I will respond to that. They might try (although they're extremely
invested and this is a relatively small tax). But if you think every city
should lower their taxes and living standard, to maximize short-term profits
and therefore incentives for companies to move to or stay there, where does
that leave you? The logical endpoint is racing to the bottom in a bidding war
for corporate for-profit investment that most residents can't use. Or, in
other words, recreating the off-shoring, re-shoring, and hollowing out of
communities that has happened for decades in search of labor cost arbitrage.
It's unsustainable and unhealthy. The political momentum to tax the ultra-
wealthy can spread much faster than they can pack up and move. It's time to do
that.

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semanticjudo
The problem they're going to have is not whether or not Amazon leaves Seattle.
It is that existing or new corporations that may fall into this tax category
will not move to Seattle because of it.

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0x262d
Yesterday, the council had the final vote and passed a big business tax 7-2.
It will tax large companies, with Amazon as by far the biggest payer, about
$240m/year, to pay for COVID relief and affordable housing.

This article is written by Kshama Sawant, a member of the city council. She,
Tammy Morales (councilmember), and socialist orgs and unions organized the Tax
Amazon movement over the last 7 months, to tax similarly large companies at
$500m/year to fund social housing, COVID relief, Green New Deal retrofitting.
Last week, after months of stonewalling by the city council on every aspect of
that legislation, Tax Amazon announced they had 30k signatures, enough to put
it on the ballot. The following day, in clear response to the pressure, the
council voted 7-2 in their budget committee for this competing, smaller
legislation, authored by a Democrat, Teresa Mosqueda. Tomorrow, all interested
volunteers can go to a Tax Amazon action conference where they will vote on
whether or not to continue with the ballot measure in light of this passing.

Big tech has led to an almost never before seen concentration of wealth and
the political fallout is only beginning.

