Kshama Sawant and Old World Solutions

The transfusion of the country with immigrants has always been part of the nation's health. A problem, however, is that often the immigrant brings with him a contamination, old world solutions to old world problems that exist in his home country which he feels necessary to apply here, to the new world.


                          Kshama Sawant and Old World Solutions

The Seattle City Council last week approved a new tax on large businesses, two years after the council repealed a big business tax amid pressure from corporations such as Amazon and the prospect of a voter referendum.

The new tax called “JumpStart Seattle,” from lead sponsor and council member Teresa Mosqueda, will target companies with many highly paid employees, whereas the 2018 “head tax” would have applied to all employees at large companies.

The council voted 7-2 on the measure, which is expected to raise more than $200 million per year. The tax repealed by the council in 2018 weeks after it was adopted was expected to raise $47 million per year.

Mosqueda and council members Lorena González, Kshama Sawant, Tammy Morales, Lisa Herbold, Dan Strauss and Andrew Lewis voted for the new tax Monday. Alex Pedersen and Debora Juarez voted against it. In last year’s council elections, five candidates defeated opponents who were supported by big business groups.

“This is a huge win,” Mosqueda said. “This is about caring for Seattleites now and into the future. It will help Seattle survive the crisis of COVID and emerge stronger and more equitable.”

Under the new tax, companies with annual payrolls over $7 million will be taxed based on their pay to employees making over $150,000 per year. As amended in committee last week, the tax rate would range from 0.7% to 2.4%, with tiers for various payroll and salary amounts.

One vote "yes" came from Kshama Sawant. Wiki says that Kshama Sawant is an American politician and economist who has served on the Seattle City Council since 2014. She is a member of Socialist Alternative, a Marxist organization formed in Great Britain. A former software engineer, Sawant became an economics instructor in Seattle after immigrating to the United States from her native India.

Ms. Sawant posted this in a video address Tuesday on Socialist Alternative.
"I have a message for Jeff Bezos and his class. If you attempt again to overturn the Amazon Tax, working people will go all out in the thousands to beat you. And we will not stop there. You see, we are fighting for far more than this tax. We are preparing the ground for a different kind of society, and if you, Jeff Bezos, want to drive that process forward by lashing out against us in our modest demands, then so be it. Because we are coming for you and your rotten system. We are coming to dismantle this deeply oppressive, racist, sexist, violent, utterly bankrupt system of capitalism. This police state. We cannot and will not stop until we overthrow it, and replace it with a world based, instead, on solidarity, genuine democracy, and equality: a socialist world. Thank you."