It's in the P-I

Seattle's Mayor and City Council are trying again to lard up the city's property tax by renewing something called the "Families and Education Levy". Like most tax increases, it would appear on the September primary ballot when turnout is lower than in the November general election. Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer quotes Councilmember Richard Conlin's tortured explanation that it's a good idea to renew 1997's expiring $69 million 7-year levy with an increase to $143 million:

The city's total assessed property value has doubled since the levy was first approved, he said, and household income is up 81 percent.

"You can make an argument that we're tapping way less of this community's resources, even if we increase the levy to $143 million," he said.

You can make that argument. But unless you're speaking to someone who is incapable of performing arithmetic, you just can't make that argument stick. $143 million represents a 107% increase over $69 million, which is certainly more than the purported increase in household income. (How many households saw their incomes increase 81% in the last 7 years anyway?) 107% is also more than the "doubling" of the assessed values (With a 98% increase, according to the King County Assessor, it actually fell slightly short of "doubling"). But using real estate price inflation as an excuse for raising taxes is particularly specious, because people can't actually benefit from appreciation in their property values unless they sell and move to a less expensive community. An option that a tax hike only makes more attractive.

Nevertheless, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's reporter didn't challenge Councilmember Conlin's innumerate claim that using more of the community's resources is somehow using "way less" of the community's resources, and we can only speculate about the reasons for this. Meanwhile, the Post-Intelligencer's editorial board endorses the levy under the headline "Smart spending sells Seattle levy". Please, no jokes about the juxtaposition of "smart" and "post-intelligencer".

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 29, 2004 04:29 PM