Three days after the Seattle City Council passed a head tax on large businesses, the editorial board of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, thousands of miles away, made the extraordinary decision to weigh in on an issue that would typically be confined to local interest in the Pacific Northwest.
On May 17, the paper published a scathing criticism of Seattle’s head tax, comparing the city to a bank robber targeting Amazon for no better reason than that’s where the money is. The Gazette’s editors slammed Seattle for taxing big business without a plan and taking the wrong approach to housing market failures.
Watch: The Amazon Effect
“Seattle is prosperous because of the enterprises it is now waging war on,” the editorial said. “Amazon, take note: This will not happen in Pittsburgh.”
