Note: This was published in the Puget Sound Business Journal. This version has minor edits to acknowledge recent developments.

There’s a narrative out there, in various circles, that West Coast Blue Cities are incapable of being run well. We must push back on that narrative, starting with prudence around how we budget and think about our spending and taxes.

Every day we must take steps to fulfill our charter responsibilities: providing services, supporting communities, protecting the public, and being wise stewards of taxpayer dollars, while adhering to our Seattle values of being a diverse, equitable, inclusive, accessible, and welcoming city. Fulfilling these responsibilities requires us to take a hard look at what we can do better.

Seattle faces a $140+ million budget deficit next year, with even larger deficits beyond. In her recent state of the city speech, Mayor Wilson acknowledged that the upcoming budget will be challenging, and we need to start the conversation now about what we need and where we want to be. While our 2026 budget is balanced, it is, as stated in City Council budget committee, “inherently unsustainable.”  We’ve utilized progressive revenues to fill our budget gaps in recent years, but even with those new revenues, hard decisions for the 2027 biennium budget loom.

I support progressive taxes generally. The layering of progressive tax on progressive tax again and again is also “inherently unsustainable.”  As a recent Times articles notes – “Seattle’s appetite for new property taxes approaching its legal limit” – using property levies to fund critical initiatives may not be an available option for both legal and political reasons. Moving forward, I’m calling for two actions we can take as a city to reform our budget and ensure sustainability for the future: 

• Place a true hold on increased spending & create a Spending Stabilization Work Group
• Pause further increases to city taxes & assess the impact of taxes on our economy 

I highlight these points because we do not live on an island. For every action, there is a reaction, and we see this in tax policy as well. Recent taxes aimed at sizeable Seattle businesses are now seeing a backlash. Companies are asking their employees to work in Bellevue to avoid the growing tax burden in Seattle. I know employees who wish to work in Seattle but cannot. While tech jobs are growing across King County, they have stalled in Seattle. 

The signs of jobs shifting can be seen on our streets – I saw this when I recently attended an event in Bellevue.  As I turned up Bellevue Way that evening, the line of cars going from Bellevue back to Seattle was incredible.  Sentiment for the new Sound Transit 2 (ST2) crossing of Lake Washington also makes this shift clear. The line was intended for Eastside residents to come work and experience events in ‘the city’ and create revenue, but now people are talking about it as a way to commute to the Eastside for work. 

Seattle is also hit hard by disastrous national tariff policies, especially impacting our maritime economy. According to Axios, these illegal tariffs cost Washington importers an estimated $2.5 billion over 11 months. This vital industry faces severe headwinds and because of this so will our budget. Further headwinds exist in real estate, retail, manufacturing, and tech, all crucial to our tax base.

For all these reasons, I’m calling on our city to take a pause on continuing to increase piecemeal taxes until the opportunity cost impacts of doing so are truly understood. Taking a short-term approach can hurt our revenue opportunities in the long term. Incoming city revenue is not keeping up with rising costs, creating an ever-growing budget deficit. A long-term progressive tax like the millionaire’s tax proposed by the state legislature could eventually help us to alleviate some of our levies instead of layering on more. It could also address the high cost of doing business in the city by exempting 70% of small businesses from the state B&O tax.

Setting ourselves up for economic success requires looking critically at both revenue and spending. So again, this year I’ll be calling for a Seattle Spending Stabilization Work Group.We need to ask ourselves, is this worth spending on?  What is the effectiveness and efficacy?  How does it align to our values and principles of good governance?  We’ll also need to ensure spending is not just one time, but that our programs and services are accounted for year over year. And we cannot continue increasing our reliance on levies.

If Seattle is to continue as a well-run West Coast blue city, we need to start work now on shoring up our budget. We should evaluate our current economy, pause our piecemeal tax increases, and take a critical look at our spending. No matter what, we cannot continue down the same road expecting the different results – we need to take new approach in moving forward to create a truly sustainable, long-term budget from the inside, out.  

Robert Kettle is the Seattle city councilmember for District 7 (Magnolia, Queen Anne, Uptown, Westlake, Interbay, Eastlake, South Lake Union, Belltown, and Downtown). He serves as chair of the Public Safety Committee.

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