Washington State's proposed 9.9% "millionaire's tax" is rattling Seattle's economy from the NBA to the startup world — NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's own meeting docs reveal investor flight to Florida is already threatening any Sonics comeback. Meanwhile, street outreach workers in Seattle and San Francisco are publicly breaking with the city's housing-first orthodoxy, with on-the-ground evidence that many people living in encampments already have taxpayer-funded apartments — and that fentanyl, not housing, is the real crisis.
Washington State legislators are building a tax regime so hostile that NBA investors are spooked and founders are planning their exits.
Street outreach workers from SF to Seattle confirm what politicians refuse to admit: half of people using drugs in public already have apartments.