The tyranny of local government was on full display this week. The culprits are some greedy members of the Seattle City Council. Backed by their union friends, they just voted to impose a "head tax" on large employers, such as Amazon and Starbucks. The real victims, of course, will be the companies' employees.
Thanks to Seattle's many thriving businesses, its revenue base has been growing much faster than its population. Unfortunately, the City Council is doing what it does best and, rather than look into streamlining and cutting its ineffective spending programs in order to combat Seattle's homeless problem, is looking for fresh cash. Seeing as large companies have it, the council set out to take it.
The result is the so-called head tax on Seattle businesses that gross at least $20 million annually. According to The Seattle Times, 585 businesses in the city will be subject to the tax. Not surprisingly, the tech giant Amazon is expected to pay the most under the tax. The initial proposal was for a $500 tax per employee, which, in Amazon's case, would have meant an added $20 million in labor costs. Thanks to a veto threat from the mayor, the council reduced its tax grab to $275 per employee.
When the tax was initially proposed, the company announced that under those circumstances, it was going to pause construction planning for a new giant office tower on its new downtown campus. If you employed 40,000 people and realized that you might always be the target of revenue-addicted bureaucrats, you might do the same. But those who constantly lust over other people's money have no shame. A union-backed activist group named Working Washington immediately called for — wait for it — Amazon to be charged with a felony for the crime of "intimidating a public servant." Simply questioning whether its business expansion in Seattle would be a good idea in the face of an arbitrary and substantial increase of its labor costs was the alleged crime.
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