Constantine Proposes 0.2 % Sales Tax Hike for Public Safety and Health

Is the South Park bridge in or out? They've been bickering about that.

No. Its time we fix our tax system and I for one am done holding my nose and supporting regressive and annoying taxes. You want to tax my income, go for it, but I won't be voting for anymore sales taxes.

If we keep saying yes what is the motivation for change?

I'd rather they ask for money for the general fund and not scare people into the tax for fear the police won't be around. Police should be about the last cuts.

Future union contracts should include pay cuts during bad economic times. We should keep as many people working albeit at lower wages.

1) The economy is supposedly just beginning to rebound. This should help sales tax revenues. Why don't we wait and see if sales tax revenues start increasing at a healthy clip, before we raise the sales tax rate.

2) This is one of the results of wasting billions and billions of tax dollars on the Sound Transit light rail and Sounder boondoggles. Sound Transit is collecting 0.9% sales tax in most of three counties, and most of that money is just being flushed down the toilet of subsidized trains. What a stupid waste of billions of tax dollars Sound Transit is.

3) How high do you think sales tax rates in our area can rise before more and more people just stop buying things here, and go elsewhere to shop to avoid our very high sales tax?

Grover,

You might want to look up “billion” in the dictionary.

It goes into the general fund, part of it must fund public safety, but then the authorizing bill stripped out non-supplant language (hb 3179), so, it could be a shell game to some degree, though the KC budget already commits a boatload of money to those things already.

Grover: You might want to check out articles on “jobless recovery” also. The stock market is recovering; actual people are not.

People with money (MSFT employees, etc.) are not going to travel to Oregon to buy things; they'll buy them here. A sales tax increase will get money from people who can still afford to buy things.

Oregon? You can get plenty of stuff online, out of state. I get all my tech stuff through J&R Music, no WA sales tax. Just got a new Mac, probably saved $300 just in taxes.

if we really need this funding, the council should vote in the tax.
if we don't, not.

I will be voting “yes.” Sales and property tax revenues are waaaaay down. Public safety and the courts are absolutely essential government services. The cost of this slight increase in sales tax–which I hope will be eliminated after the economy has recovered–will be less than a family of four spends for a meal at Micky D's, or the average coffee drinker spends in a week at Starbucks (or wherever).

Want to save a lot of money for County services?

START AT THE TOP. Without looking at cuts and efficiencies among the bloated and overpaid management and adminstrator positions in King County – a sales tax hike is premature.

http://pstransitoperators.wordpress.com/2010/04…

Billion: 1,000,000,000.

Oscar, you might want to look up the cost of ST light rail:

Central Link: $2.6 BILLION

UW Link: $1.9 BILLION

East Link: BILLIONS

North Link: BILLIONS

What is it about BILLIONS of tax dollars that you don't understand, Oscar?

sarah, do you enjoy contradicting yourself? If the stock market is recovering that helps people with money, like MSFT employees, does it not? Don't you think people with money might have a little of it invested in stocks, which had a “very good year” last year, sweetheart?

And, if people with money invested in the stock market, who made a lot of money last year, spend their money here, that will help with our sales tax revenues, without raising tax rates, now won't it, sarah?

Is this over your head, sarah? Or can you understand what Farmer Ted just explained to you?

I know that as a conservative everyone thinks that I hate paying taxes. Well, I do. I see taxes, like goverment, as a nessassary evil at best. (Thank you Thomas Paine.) That being said, I could support a sales tax increase to get through a budget chrisis. I am a supporter of sales taxes. I believe that property taxes are the most unjust form of taxes we use and income taxes are only slightly less unjust. I believe sales taxes are the most just. The only thing I would ask to be added is an experation date of the new taxes. If these are supposed to be temporary make sure they are. If they need to extended we can vote to extend them. This would set the right tone for saying that this is only a temporary tax for an emergency situtation.

This is a silly argument. Not everyone with money invests in the stock market, and it wasn't a “very good year” last year. And you were claiming that people with money would spend it elsewhere, but now you say they will spend it here. If the latter is the case (and I think it is also), why on earth would .02% stop them? That's $100 on a $5,000 purchase.

Here's what you said above, Grover.

“And, if people with money invested in the stock market, who made a lot of money last year, spend their money here, that will help with our sales tax revenues, without raising tax rates, now won't it, sarah?”

Again, $100 on $5,000. That's a pretty good deal for being able to see it before you buy it, and buy it locally.

Was there suddenly a 0.2 interest increase in the cost of “public safety and health”? How many suckers do they think there are in this County?!

To be fair though, consider that the $100 in your example would be in addition to the taxes already being taken with that $5000 purchase.

.2% total is a lot different than a .2% increase.

I'll be voting “no”. I agree that public safety and the courts are essential services, but I disagree with their revenue schemes. When the economy is good, they either guilt trip us by saying that because we have more money, we should be willing to pay more for 'better' services, or they simply say 'such and such city/county/whatever has 'X' and if you want to be considered a real city/county/etc., then you should pay for that as well'.

Households have had to cut down or cut out non or less essential items, it's well beyond the time that the county should prioritize it's services as well and do likewise.

By all means, keep fire & life safety type services to the degree absolutely necessary, and keep the courts funded enough to continue to pretend to be functional (hmm, maybe some creative cuts there would spur some results…), but the Council should show a little character and make more cuts elsewhere to come up with the funding.

50% + 1.

I would prefer a two year general revenue tax increase. I dislike the fear politics of vote for the tax or have the crooks run wild.

The $100 new tax (actually $10) is just the marginal amount – people will look at the total and say I can save almost $500.

God I'm sick of sales taxes.

This tax will not be eliminated “after the economy recovers.” This is not a typical recession. We reached maximum household debt- having built the debt levels over the past 20 years, then our banking system blew up, now we are relying on Gov't spending to keep everything together. To think that sales taxes will ever “catch up” to expenditures – assuming the unions need their 3% per year, every year or whatever – is preposterous. Private sectors wages have been flat for a long time, employer-provided private sector benefits have been declining for some time, and public sector somehow thinks its entitled to growth in both categories, or, at minimum, a freeze on wages and benefits. The math won't work.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2010-01-0…

“The final numbers don't say much about what really happened to the U.S. stock market in 2009. The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index ended the year with a 23.5% gain that was its best annual showing since 2003.”

What's your definition of a “very good year”, sarah? A 23.5% gain works for most people.

You don't think people would prefer to spend their money where sales taxes are lower? At some point, high sales taxes cause people to make their large purchases outside of King County.

YOUR arguments are silly, I agree.

Buy locally? Electronics, furniture, clothes, cars, etc. are for the most part not made in our area. They are shipped here.

What difference does it make if you buy stuff in King County or outside of King County, other than you pay a lower sales tax outside of King County? If you buy something from IKEA, or SONY, or Mercedes Benz, it is probably not going to be manufactured here — it is going to be shipped here.

You can see things in a store here, then purchase them somewhere else, or online. What percentage of purchases do you think are made online these days?

For those renters out there – the $250,000 apartment you're living in is billed about $1250 in taxes today. That's for 6 months of taxes. Not to say it's too high a rate, but I don't think renters are aware of the amount.

King County will have the highest sales tax on the West Coast and the second highest sales tax in the country behind Chicago.

I'm sure Martin Luther King would be proud to have his name associated with the most regressive taxing government in America.

A very good showing after an epochally bad showing still adds up to a very bad two-year period. 50% down is measured from the top, 25% up measured from the bottom, so if your $100 would have gone down to $50 then back up only to $62.50. Still down 37.5%. Still not good.

Maybe you need a new broker?

If the sales tax goes down, is the result a forced decriminalization of small-time drug users & perhaps low-level dealers. They'd probably be the first to be sent out of jail if serious cuts needed to be made, right?

If this is the result, I think I'm voting no.

You can see it before you buy it:

Go to a local store. See it. Go home, buy it online.

We just ordered $2K of new tile showers that way from out of state. Shipping? Free. Taxes? Zip. The new Bose speakers I order form JR? Checked them out at Best Buy in Northgate.

Oh Sarah, you're not in the market are you? Two of my investments doubled in value last year. It was a good year last year, this year even better.

And why will 0.2% stop me from doing the majority of my major purchases on line, out of state? Because I woouldn't be saving 0.2% of the $2K we just spent on new shower tiles, we saved 8.5%. Most online stores have free shipping too.

And there's plenty of stores in Seattle where you can check out products before you buy them online.

I'm not a charity; I'm a rational human being seeking to save money, protect my wealth and get the bets deal possible on my purchases.

“Not everyone with money invests in the stock market”

Really? What, do you think they keep it under the mattress? Or in 3 month CDs? Everyone I know invests, most through mutual funds, 401Ks, SEPS, Roth IRAs. Some directly in stocks and bonds.

Depends when you got out and when you got back in. Some of us got out before the crash and even if you didn't, you made up the losses by last September (two of my mutuals did) and are now very much in positive territory.

thank you President Obama for protecting the wealth of the upper middle class. You have my vote in 2012!

Since I don;t live in the ghetto, I have no problem with crack dealers being released.

When I owned two rental apartments in the early 2000s I used to send the invoice to my renters every month showing the break down of what was rent, what was utilities (garbage) and what was property taxes.

I know for a fact that at least two of my renters voted against property tax raises in '02!

Did you also note the share that was investment return for you and increases to your equity that they were funding?

When the market hit bottom last March consumer spending was very bad, also. Since then — the past 12 months, or so — the market is up something like 35%, depending on which average you look at.

Bottom line is that consumer spending is starting to RISE again, recently. Many people feel richer than they felt 12 months ago, partly because their investments are doing much better than they were 12 months ago, in general. These people are starting to spend again.

Spending has started to increase. Therefore, sales tax revenues should be starting to increase, also.

What part of this do you not understand?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesst…

“Consumer spending has risen five straight months, retail sales four, and restaurant sales surged this spring after being stagnant since 2008.”

Does this clear it up a little for you?

Consumer spending, retail sales, and restaurant sales are all up the past few months. This should translate into increased sales tax revenues. Why don't we wait and see how much effect this is having on WA sales tax revenues before we raise the sales tax rates?