leave it to the stranger to have a position that the proposed income tax does not include ENOUGH taxation.

The so-claimed giveaway to "big business" is in fact a reduction in the B&O tax - expanding the exemption to the first $300K in GROSS receipts. gross receipts are not profits, that is the raw income before any expenses or taxation. If a business for example has a 10% profit margin - pretty good in many businesses - on 300K gross receipts, then that business makes $30K in profit a year - considerably less than equivalent full time minimum wage in seattle. Thats not a big business - thats a side hustle. I'm against this bill regardless but the one good thing about it is that they did make some token effort to reduce taxes hitting the little guy in exchange for taking more from higher earners.

Second I'd like to push back on these claims of 'withering' social programs. Look at WA's budget over the last few years and it has gone up DRAMATICALLY and far in excess of inflation * population growth. So where the heck is all that money going then? Raising taxes by billions a year (they did it last year too, remember?) is not sustainable. If we are going to pursue social justice via 'redistribution' of our tax burden then we should also pursue 'reprioritization' of our government spending, since there is a limit to how much money can be raised via taxation. We are already seeing early responses among business and high net worth people starting to consider their options. No, there won't be a huge exodus of wealthy or business overnight over one tax increase, but you better believe every time they move, every time they consider investing in a new business venture, every time they buy real estate, they consider the tax load and local jursidicition's cost benefit balance. So over time, you better believe higher taxes with no tangible benefits in return will drive away investment and the top tax payers.

Somebody at The Stranger really screwed up on their image links yesterday.

"Oliver Miska (any pronouns)"
LOL