4 ms·

It's always amusing to me to hear people complain about taxes in Seattle. Washington State doesn't have an income tax, y'all. If you haven't figured out that a

It's always amusing to me to hear people complain about taxes in Seattle. Washington State doesn't have an income tax, y'all. If you haven't figured out that a lot of the weird (and bad) city tax issues arise from that, welp.

lacker 7y ago
To me all of these issues seem like the same ones San Francisco is facing, which leads me to conclude that neither lowering income taxes nor raising income taxes is likely to solve them.
- BryantD 7y ago
  I've lived in both those cities this decade; the results are in some cases similar, but the issues are in fact different. The thing that's similar: both cities are warm enough so that you can reasonably live on the streets year round. Boston's an intensely liberal city and nobody uses it as an example of how liberal cities always have homeless problems. Similarly, Google "dallas homeless problem" sometime. Warm city, poor coordination of solutions for the homeless -- whoa, homeless populations are rising! But that once more does not fit the narrative, so nobody talks about it in threads like this. (Houston is doing much better. Houston, unlike Seattle, has put a priority on coordinating efforts to help homeless. HUH.) That said you're right -- it's not just about taxes. Seattle is low on revenue, but that's only part of why the city has failed to produce a coordinated response to homelessness. Bad organizational skills are not restricted to the right or the left, though.
  - loft-a-way 7y ago
    Homelessness/drug use has indeed become a problem in Boston over the last few years - see [1]Methadone Mile and the problems in the [2]Common. [1]https://apps.bostonglobe.com/graphics/2016/07/methadone-mile/ https://apps.bostonglobe.com/graphics/2016/07/methadone-mile... [2]https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/08/21/boston-common-jewel-of-the-city-needs-first-aid/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/08/21/boston-common-jewel-...
    - dublinben 7y ago
      Those are acute issues that can be directly linked to the closure of the shelter on Long Island.
    - BryantD 7y ago
      a) Probably wise not to conflate homelessness with the opioid crisis. I would be a fool to argue that the latter correlates in any way with winter temperatures. b) Different scale, man. Seattle's issues are way bigger than Methadone Mile. (I've lived in Boston too.)
  - asdff 7y ago
    More homeless die of hypothermia in Los Angeles than in NYC.

lacker 7y ago

To me all of these issues seem like the same ones San Francisco is facing, which leads me to conclude that neither lowering income taxes nor raising income taxes is likely to solve them.

BryantD 7y ago
I've lived in both those cities this decade; the results are in some cases similar, but the issues are in fact different. The thing that's similar: both cities are warm enough so that you can reasonably live on the streets year round. Boston's an intensely liberal city and nobody uses it as an example of how liberal cities always have homeless problems. Similarly, Google "dallas homeless problem" sometime. Warm city, poor coordination of solutions for the homeless -- whoa, homeless populations are rising! But that once more does not fit the narrative, so nobody talks about it in threads like this. (Houston is doing much better. Houston, unlike Seattle, has put a priority on coordinating efforts to help homeless. HUH.) That said you're right -- it's not just about taxes. Seattle is low on revenue, but that's only part of why the city has failed to produce a coordinated response to homelessness. Bad organizational skills are not restricted to the right or the left, though.
- loft-a-way 7y ago
  Homelessness/drug use has indeed become a problem in Boston over the last few years - see [1]Methadone Mile and the problems in the [2]Common. [1]https://apps.bostonglobe.com/graphics/2016/07/methadone-mile/ https://apps.bostonglobe.com/graphics/2016/07/methadone-mile... [2]https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/08/21/boston-common-jewel-of-the-city-needs-first-aid/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/08/21/boston-common-jewel-...
  - dublinben 7y ago
    Those are acute issues that can be directly linked to the closure of the shelter on Long Island.
  - BryantD 7y ago
    a) Probably wise not to conflate homelessness with the opioid crisis. I would be a fool to argue that the latter correlates in any way with winter temperatures. b) Different scale, man. Seattle's issues are way bigger than Methadone Mile. (I've lived in Boston too.)
- asdff 7y ago
  More homeless die of hypothermia in Los Angeles than in NYC.