Seattle’s socialist mayor is apparently so focused on her leftist agenda that she does not care millionaires are fleeing Washington state due to pressure from taxes.
During a recent event at Seattle University, Mayor Katie Wilson said, “I think the claims that millionaires are going to leave our state are like super overblown, and the ones that leave, like, bye,” Fox News reported Friday.
Attendees laughed and applauded her remarks, and she continued by stating her office was looking at “what our options are in terms of progressive taxation.”
One social media user who criticized Wilson for her remarks wrote, “Love how these liberal Mayors think they don’t need rich people in their cities. Who’s going to bring in the money if you keep chasing them away?”
Jason Mercier of the Mountain States Policy Center said, “A couple of Beatle songs come to mind. The first is ‘Taxman,’ and then Seattle says, ‘Goodbye’, and Idaho says, ‘Hello Hello, Hello,’” Seattle Red’s Jason Rantz reported.
Wilson’s comments addressed the state’s “millionaire’s tax” that is set to impose a 9.9 percent income tax on households earning over $1 million a year and will go into effect in January, per Breitbart News.
Business owners in the state fear it will spread to those who do not earn that much money, with Seattle barber Matt Humphrey stating, “There’s a lot of fear and trepidation with what’s going on in our government when it comes to taxes. This new millionaire’s tax is definitely going to impact us. We’re afraid… they treat us a bit like an ATM when it comes to paying out taxes as a small business.”
Meanwhile, Rantz noted that a survey from the Association of Washington Businesses showed the issue should not be taken lightly:
According to MyNorthwest, the number of businesses considering leaving Washington has nearly doubled since the millionaires’ tax was first introduced. And Washington’s housing market is already stalling, with active listings surging 29 percent year over year while closed sales barely moved. Experts say this is directly due to wealthy buyers disappearing from the market.
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The Washington Post editorial board warned after Wilson’s election that Seattle was about to run a “real-time experiment in radical governance” under a democratic socialist mayor with no meaningful management experience. Wilson defeated incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell last November and has since been compared to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
In addition, Seattle has been struggling to handle problems including homelessness and crime that are plaguing residents.
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