The problems with Seattle Public Schools shifting teachers around this far into the school year and homeless people taking over long-vacant buildings were big news last week. But they’re nothing new and certainly not surprising.
Neither is the city’s push for its $930 million Move Seattle transportation levy on the November ballot.
It’s what happens when an ever-growing city is faced with ever-growing lists of needs and wants it can’t fund and problems it has no solutions for. Or at least solutions it wants to consider.
The state is in a very similar situation, with a state Supreme Court mandate for the Legislature to fully fund public education, plus its own lengthy list of needs and wants for services and infrastructure to fulfill.
Instead of waiting for benefactors to get so frustrated with bureaucracy that they willingly part with $70,000 (like one Ballard resident did for a West Seattle school to keep a soon-to-be-transferred teacher), the Legislature may need to finally consider…a flat-rate state income tax.
With Seattle’s growing class of new tech-sector wealth, a state income tax might level the playing field more among the city’s residents. Because fewer people could afford them, the demand for high-end homes locally might come down, causing rents and home prices to decrease, too. The city could concentrate on its own jurisdiction’s problems, instead of trying to solve other agencies’ quandaries, like a citywide preschool program. The state might be able to sufficiently fund its public schools and services, and school districts wouldn’t need to rely so heavily on property-tax levies.
A state income tax is a very unpopular concept, because who wants to part with the money they’ve worked so hard to earn? But our state and city governments are already taking it through regressive sales taxes, property taxes, gas taxes and business-and-occupation taxes. And no combination of these taxes has yet to adequately fund…anything.
Washington is currently one of seven states without an income tax. But it has the fifth-highest gas tax in the country, according to the Energy Information Administration; the sixth-highest median amount for residential property taxes, based on the U.S. Census; and the worst regressive state tax system in the country, says Bankrate.com.
If a state income tax replaced the regressive taxes, maybe taxpayers would finally be more willing to accept it — even after voting it down six times, as recently as 2010. Back then, retired attorney and philanthropist Bill Gates Sr. proposed Initiative 1098, which would establish a state income tax and reduce other taxes.
Of course, a viable state income tax is contingent on getting the right state and local lawmakers in place who would spend the money on the right things, no tax breaks for developers and big business and no more Tim Eyman initiatives.
So…any other solutions?