Why I rejected another tax hike

Local families are getting buried by taxes.

ST3 has raised car tabs by hundreds of dollars. Property taxes have gone up thousands of dollars for many families. A lot of King County residents are going to see another giant hike in property taxes as part of the new state budget deal.

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We have local politicians who constantly talk about how much they care about the poor and the working class, but their actions sure aren’t consistent with their words.

King County Executive Dow Constantine has decided that the poor and working class people of the county should turn over a lot of their money to his buddies in the arts community. On Tuesday’s ballot is a proposed $469 million sales tax increase with the money going to some of the wealthiest arts organizations in our area — like the Seattle Symphony and the Woodland Park Zoo.

By no means am I against the arts. My wife and I loved exposing our kids to live theater. In fact, I was on the board of Seattle Children’s Theater for two years. She and I still love going to see live theater productions at The Paramount and The 5th Avenue Theatre. So this isn’t coming from some knee-jerk critic.

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I just recognize how ludicrous it is to take money from already overtaxed families to transfer to very wealthy arts groups. With all the problems that persist in our region, is the arts such a priority that it’s worth a nearly half-billion dollar tax increase?

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