Seattle

While the NY City mayoral race got all the attention, another democratic socialist Katie Wilson was elected mayor of Seattle. She has been active in social issues for the past ten years and decided to run for office. She headed campaigns to raise the minimum wage and was the co-architect of the payroll expense tax which taxed large companies to pay for public housing. It was set at 2% of company payroll. Later an additional 5% tax was added. She campaigned for free and subsidized bus passes for low-income groups. She added abolishing the police to later cutting the police force by 50% and later again to working with the department. She still maintains that many 911 calls can be handled by unarmed civilian responders. She tried to impose a sur tax on upper income people but the courts shut that down. She co-founded the Seattle Transit Riders Union where she was paid $72,000 per year. As mayor she will receive $230,000 per year. She purports to be a woman of the people as she and her husband with their daughter live in a small apartment and they to not drive but prefer public transportation. Her basic political philosophy is to tax the rich and use the money for public assistance programs. When the payroll tax was introduced, Amazon moved thousands of jobs to nearby Bellevue to avoid the tax. The tax generated $360 million but fell short of estimates by $47million and caused the city to scramble to balance the budget. One of her first priorities is to lift the one percent maximum on property tax to get income to pay for other social programs.