Seattle City Councilmembers Tammy Morales (District 2: South Seattle and Chinatown-International District) and Kshama Sawant (District 3: Central Area) say their proposed tax on two percent of the largest businesses in Seattle is intended to address a triple emergency facing the city: homelessness, housing affordability, and now the COVID-19 pandemic, which threatens to bring about an economic depression.
“I don’t think any of us have the luxury of not knowing somebody who’s deeply impacted by this crisis,” Morales said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s visceral and it is affecting our neighbors and our friends and our families, and the point of this bill is to try to address some of that suffering.”
Members of the Seattle Transit Riders Union and other demonstrators gathered in a socially-distant protest outside of City Hall on Wednesday, April 29, to advocate for widespread economic relief amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The protest came a few hours before a Seattle City Council budget meeting in which city council members discussed housing loans, cash assistance for low-income households and the development of permanently affordable social housing. They also considered the highly controversial payroll expense tax, which would impose a 1.3% tax on Seattle businesses with payrolls of $7 million or more annually.
