‘The state is not business-friendly’: Curley rips proposed vacancy tax amid 30% empty Seattle buildings

In January, the Puget Sound Regional Council reported that the region had lost 12,900 jobs last year. Last year’s losses were the first annual decrease in jobs since 2009 at the depth of the Great Recession.

John Curley, host of “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio, addressed the poor statistics, claiming that Washington is not business-friendly, and raised concerns over a proposed vacancy tax for business owners.

“Listen, you get a government in place that sees the business as the golden goose that they want to strangle all over the place, and then they talk about how Amazon’s the reason that there’s a housing crisis, because Amazon came in and paid a whole bunch of people a whole bunch of money, and that’s why you have a bunch of homeless people,” he said. “I saw, unfortunately, that all my friends at the 5th Avenue Theatre had layoffs. There are layoffs at the Pacific Science Center, and just ongoing problems in Seattle. The state is not business-friendly.”

Curley labels the proposed vacancy tax ‘the most absurd thing’

Curley noted that businesses and consumers make rational economic decisions based on incentives, although a vacancy tax would only punish them and force the business to leave Seattle entirely.

“You go to Costco and stand in line for an hour because the prices are better. There’s an incentive,” Curley said. “You drive past the old grocery store down the street and go somewhere else, because you can save money. Same thing with businesses. Businesses are making decisions that best benefit the people, and Seattle is not open for business. The fact that we have more than 30% of vacancies in our commercial buildings in Seattle is a problem. Then you have people who work for Katie Wilson, the new mayor, suggesting that they have a vacancy tax on top, which is the most absurd thing.”

“It hasn’t gone through yet,” he continued. “I guess they started the meeting with, ‘Okay, no bad ideas. No bad ideas. Anyone? Anybody?’ The guy is up there with the gigantic poster board, and they’re flipping it over the easel, they got the magic marker. ‘You, in the back, yeah, guy with a wool hat on, even though it’s hot outside and you’re vaping,’ he says, ‘What about a vacancy tax? Let’s put that down.’ And then they’re like, ‘Oh, where did everybody go? Why isn’t anybody working here anymore?'”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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