Guess what working families will get to contend with if voters approve Sound Transit (ST3) in November – a sales tax rate of 10% in much of the greater Seattle area and 10.1% in Seattle, that’s what. Seattle already ranks fourth in the nation, with a rate of 9.6%, for highest sales taxes among major cities.
Chicago comes in “first” at 10.25%. Birmingham, Montgomery, Macon, and Mobile, Alabama are all tied for second at 10% while Fayetteville, Arkansas comes in third at 9.75%.
Of course, if ST3 were approved, Seattle would move into the not-so-honorable second place position.
While a sales tax rate of 10.1% is high, it’s not the highest rate residents within Sound Transit’s regional authority. Rather, it’s actually Snohomish County residents who will pay the highest sales tax rate should voters make the mistake of passing it, thanks to passage of that county’s Proposition 1 (a transit measure) last November.
Snohomish County voted to raise the sales tax rate by 0.3 percentage points for a total of 9.8 percent in much of the county. Should ST3 pass, Edmonds, Mukilteo, Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, Brier, and north Bothell would pay a whopping 10.3% in sales tax.
But, that’s not all. With a current sales tax rate of 9.9%, Mill Creek would pay a staggering 10.4% in sales tax – moving well ahead of Chicago for #1 in the country!
Those numbers make Chicago’s controversial 10.25% look cheap.
These sales tax rates really are unsustainable. They threaten small businesses that already struggle to compete in a tax environment that favors online retailers. And, as a regressive form of taxation, the sales tax most negatively impacts working families struggling to make ends meet
Adding insult to injury, should ST3 pass this fall, these taxes would never end. That’s Sound Transit’s way of avoiding accountability and having to come back to voters for more money in the future.
A sales tax rate as high as 10.4% for a transit agency that has, time and time again, broken all the promises it made to voters.
Sound Transit has proven itself untrustworthy. So, why should taxpayers trust Sound Transit to keep its promises and spend their hard-earned dollars responsibility?
Last year, Vancouver B.C. officials pushed a subway and light rail expansion project that carried a $7.5 billion price tag. They used many of the same arguments made by Sound Transit officials in an attempt to persuade the public. Voters rejected it by a whopping 62% of the vote.
As Shift previously stated, enough is enough. Voters should take a page out of Vancouver B.C. voters’ book. Sound Transit officials are asking for too much.
“Of course, if ST3 were approved, Seattle would move into the not-so-honorable second place position.”
The average taxpayer in King County receives a mere sixty-five cents in state government services for each tax dollar sent to Olympia. Yet almost every Republican-controlled county in our state receives more state government services than it pays in state taxes. Making these many Republican-controlled counties pull their own weight would reduce the tax burden on King County by far more than ST3 would cost King County. When will Shift use its enormous influence in state Republican Party circles to lift this socialistic burden from King County’s taxpayers?
That’s the shift in Olympia which King County’s taxpayers really need. Please let us know when you’ll deliver.
You are right, approving ST3 and increasing taxes to move less than 1 percent of all transiting peoples (by STs own study) every day makes total sense. Back in your hole, and come out when you can think.
Thanks, I’d rather ride quickly and inexpensively on Sound Transit.
Thanks, I’d rather ride door-to-door in my car without paying for freeloading 3%ers Unsound Transit’s rides
Then I suggest you use your grand glorious socialistic motoring subsidy to move outside Sound Transit’s taxing district, comrade.
So what you’re saying is I can either pay for you freeloading 3%ers transportation needs or leave? Sounds like Democratic Socialism in action.
I can either pay … or leave?
Yes, if you actively choose not to use your glorious socialistic motoring subsidy which we, your fellow taxpayers, have generously endowed upon you — that very same glorious socialistic motoring subsidy about which you lavishly bragged in this very comment thread, comrade! — to leave a district where you know the majority of us voters have freely chosen to tax ourselves for mass transit, then you will pay the same taxes we voters have freely chosen to levy upon ourselves. This is a logical outcome of our American Revolution, which demanded for all Americans the chance to decide for ourselves, by ballot, what our taxes would be. Your seething contempt for this most American of all values is duly noted.
“… freeloading … Socialism in action.”
I do solemnly state, and duly affirm, that I am not now, and never have been, a resident of the most consistently and stridently conservative counties in Washington state.
Your selective cut-and paste reveals the weakness of your position and debate skills, comrade. You freeloading 3%ers certainly do get belligerent when demanding others pay for your transportation. That’s democratic socialism for you.
You freeloading 3%ers certainly do get belligerent when demanding others pay for your transportation.
I’m very sorry that you have decided to comment on Sound Transit’s finances without knowing how their revenue stream actually works. Tax paying riders of Sound Transit supply a big part of ST’s revenue, and your continuing reference to us as freeloading merely emphasizes your own continuing ignorance of this topic.
Plus, if you actually cared about freeloading transportation users, you’d be demanding the motorists in most counties of Eastern Washington actually pay for the paved roads out there, instead of relying upon the wealth-redistribution scheme in Olympia to pay those costs for them. Is your deep enjoyment of your glorious socialistic motoring subsidy causing you to sympathize with the freeloaders out east, or are you still just unable to admit they’re not pulling their own weight?
“Tax paying riders of Sound Transit supply a big part of ST’s revenue”
Then why do you freeloading 3%ers need $50 Billion to fund your transportation choices? How big of a part are riders kicking in to fund their own transportation? You can be more specific than “a big part”. Is it a bigger part than the gas tax is for funding roads? You sound knowledgeable about the subject. Let’s see some numbers.
Then why do you freeloading 3%ers need $50 Billion to fund your transportation choices?
Um, you *do* know the difference between capital and operating costs, right? The $50 billion will go for construction of more rail lines, purchase of rolling stock and busses — you know, mass transit infrastructure. It’s like the building of new roads in Washington state’s right-wing counties: a capital expenditure financed by taxpayers in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties. The difference is that Sound Transit’s capital expenditures will actually benefit the tax-paying citizens of those same three counties. (Is that what you’re really so very, very angry about?)
Oh, and while we’re on the topic of Washington state’s many conservative counties, I must remind you that you get credit for knowing what “freeloading” means only after you successfully apply it to describe the lifestyles of citizens in our most right-wing counties, who slurp down big-government subsidies to support their unearned lifestyles as fast as we wealth creators in Seattle can pay taxes to subsidize those unproductive lifestyle choices.
“Let’s see some numbers.”
Why, Biff, there’s an entire post on Sound Transit at the top of this very page! Surely it must contain all of the numbers you seek. If it does not, then what possible reason could we readers have to believe anything posted there about this topic?
Um, you *do* know what funding means, right? It’s when you freeloading 3%ers sponge off everybody else to pay for your transportation.
Got a source for that 3% figure you keep shouting? Or is research so far beyond you, you can only demand other people do it for you?
The difference is that Sound Transit’s capital expenditures will actually benefit 3% of the tax-paying citizens of those same three counties. Fixed that for you.
What you’re saying is that everybody can pay to build your transportation system for you and then you freeloading 3%ers will pay an unspecified “big part” of the operating expenses that you use.
Surely the article doesn’t contain the numbers on just how big an unspecified “big part” really is. The unspecified “big part” is a fantasy of yours, If there were numbers to corroborate the “big part”, your research machine would be in overdrive trotting them out. Keeping the real numbers hidden serves you well, comrade. The truth is the “big part” is a pittance because you freeloading 3%ers don’t even cover the operating expenses of your transportation choices, much less the capital costs, hence the $50 Billion demand.
So, Shift has failed to provide any useful information for our civic dialog. Quelle surprise.
Maybe if you gave them more money, they’d actually do their own research before writing their posts, and you wouldn’t be left to humiliate yourself by ineffectually begging one of the liberal readers here to do it for you?
(Not that I’m advocating you give them more money, but your having done so may explain why your fellow voters won’t listen to you on the topic of how we should spend our own.)
How about this useful information for our civic dialog: Everybody that pays sales tax or registers a car anywhere inside the King County RTA’s (Regional Sponging Authority) boundaries is really funding transit. The minuscule part (3% upsets you) of our citizens plopping a buck-fifty in the farebox is nobody’s “big part”, so everybody pays for the transportation choices of a minuscule part of our glorious comrades. Even if the farebox was a “big part”, why isn’t it the whole part? Too much? Make different transportation choices.
Everybody that pays sales tax or registers a car anywhere inside the King County RTA’s (Regional Sponging Authority) boundaries is really funding transit.
Yes, that is all per consistent decisions made by us voters, or our elected representatives, from 1996 to today. We have the authority to tax ourselves to build mass transit if we so desire. What part of that have you completely failed to understand?
…3% upsets you…
No, it amuses me that you simultaneously demand I validate my statements while you simply repeat your own claims without any source citations of any kind whatsoever. (I think we’re beginning to see why “hypocrite” is your go-to attempted insult…)
…so everybody pays for the transportation choices of a minuscule part of our glorious comrades.
And King County’s liberal taxpayers pave roads for socialistic benefit of glorious comrades in faraway, conservative counties. The difference is that no one in King County ever explicitly voted for a plan to send over one-third of our state’s tax money as government pork to right-wing counties.
Even if the farebox was a “big part”, why isn’t it the whole part?
First, reading comprehension genius, my entire phrase was actually, “tax paying riders of Sound Transit supply a big part of ST’s revenue,” so I never claimed “the firebox” alone was a “big part.”
But yes, why don’t you pay a toll on every public road you drive? Because of your glorious socialistic motoring subsidy, comrade! And, as a general rule, the farther away you move from Seattle in Washington state, the more money Seattle’s taxpayers will spend to subsidize your glorious socialistic motoring subsidy, comrade!
Think about it…
“Yes, that is all per consistent decisions made by us voters, or our elected representatives, from 1996 to today”
Nice to see you’re finally admitting motorists fund you freeloading 3%ers transportation choices.
“I never claimed “the farebox” alone was a “big part.””
Then exactly what constitutes your claimed “big part”? How “big” of a part is it? 60%? 70%? 80%? To be a “big part”, logic says it’s more than half, but being counter to logic has never stopped you in the past. No need to be vague, comrade, unless opacity is all you have.
“why don’t you pay a toll on every public road you drive?”
I do. Every time I stick the pump handle in my car I pay the 3rd highest gas tax in the country which pays for the roads I drive on. Metro doesn’t pay gas tax so you freeloading 3%ers don’t even pay for the roads your glorious mass transit operates on.
state your sources
“state your sources”
Sure. Table 1 of this report shows that for FY2013, King County received $0.65 in state government spending for every tax dollar sent to Olympia. It also shows the raw figures. King County taxpayers sent over $6.5B to the state, and received less than $4.5B in return. That’s over two billion dollars in just one year.
Anyone who truly cares about King County’s taxpayers can start by getting conservative counties off the state government welfare rolls.
“Anyone who truly cares about King County’s taxpayers can start by getting conservative counties off the state government welfare rolls”
Yeah, there’s got to be some room to put you freeloading 3%ers on Unsound Transit’s welfare rolls.
Just like any cost/benefit or sale/accounting volume works wonders.www.wsdot.wa.gov . What about the $$ collected by Seattle/King county when people go to a sporting event and stay in a hotel. Hotel tax, parking tax . People come from other parts of the state to shop and stay . Not so much in other counties.
What about the $$ collected by Seattle/King county when people go to a sporting event and stay in a hotel. Hotel tax, parking tax . People come from other parts of the state to shop and stay . Not so much in other counties.
Those persons have freely chosen to come here and spend their money. No one ever asked King County’s taxpayers if we wanted over one-third of our tax dollars redirected to other parts of the state.
Seattle now has all the transit it needs thanks to the glorious Silly Clowncil’s and Special Ed’s shrewd purchase of a bike share company that only failed one out of one time it operated. The proletariat can now happily bike all over West Beijing and limousines for the ruling elite will cost way less than $50 billion, rendering ST3 unnecessary.
The core of this ST scam is it is unneeded. Even the ST bus system has shown to be operating with the least serviced, and the highest per/rider cost. The ST3 will put this to shame and will cost taxpayers a much higher per/rider cost.
And now it’s passed! $400 yearly tax increase for something we won’t see for at least a decade or two!
Why do I have to pay for something I won’t use and most likely be bombarded with delays and budget problems?