Washington Hall has packed on Monday for Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s swearing in and rally to tax big business to fund social housing. Hundreds looked on as a diverse group of left-wing leaders voiced their support for progressive taxation and Councilmember Sawant’s vision for sustainably-built publicly-owned housing.
“I think we should consider a tax that would raise to at least $200 million to $500 million annually with no sunset clause,” Sawant said, surrounded by posters with rallying cries such as “Tax Amazon” or “Build City Owned Housing”.
A four-page handout distributed at the door sketched out how that vision could become a reality. A tax raising $200 million to $500 million annually would be several times greater than the employee hours tax (a.k.a. head tax) passed and repealed in 2018. That tax would have raised upwards of $250 million in the five years before it hit the sunset clause Mayor Jenny Durkan fought to add. Exactly how to calibrate the new big business tax, the housing plan, and the strategy to pass it is still being hashed out, with advocates gathering for a Tax Amazon action conference on Saturday January 25th to kickstart the process.
Councilmember Sawant won re-election with four points to spare after Amazon’s $1.5 million attempt to buy the election fizzled and the two-term socialist staged a dramatic comeback in late returns. Seattle’s now senior-most councilmember was officially sworn in at City Hall on January 6th alongside her colleagues, where she gave a relatively short speech. Sawant saved the fireworks for her rally this week, and the crowd gathered in Central District maintained a high level of energy for two hours of speeches. (Watch the Seattle Channel video online.)
“For us, the working people and the majority struggling in our city, it is not about revenge. It’s about our right to our city,” Councilmember Sawant said. “It’s about our region facing the worst affordable housing and homelessness crisis in the country, with an estimated 156,000 affordable homes needed just to address today’s needs.”
The 156,000 affordable homes figure comes from Regional Affordable Housing Task Force’s Final Report and Recommendations from December 2018. If the affordable housing crisis didn’t seem looming enough, Councilmember Sawant also tied it to the rapidly-worsening climate crisis.
“It’s about the climate crisis and the complete failure of capitalism and its representatives in the political establishment to taking any serious steps to avoid catastrophe,” Sawant continued. “We need to tax big business to fund a major expansion of social housing–publicly-owned, high-quality, affordable, green, and energy-efficient homes for working people built by union labor. Social housing is a lynchpin of winning a Green New Deal for Seattle.”
