Councilmember Kshama Sawant unveiled her legislative plan to raise $300 million from Seattle’s largest businesses and use it for affordable housing and to retrofit tens of thousands of homes in the city.
The legislation would levy a 1.7 percent payroll tax on Seattle’s wealthiest corporations — about 3 percent of all businesses in the city. The hundreds of millions of dollars would build 8,000 homes and retrofit roughly 47,000 more.
Sawant also bills the measure as a “public-sector jobs program” that will provide thousands of well-paid jobs. ...