A proposed ballot measure to tax San Francisco’s lucrative tech companies was blocked in committee last week before it could be heard by the full Board of Supervisors. The Budget and Finance Committee has effectively killed the controversial plan for now, but not without exposing major rifts between politicians, regular folk, and the city’s wealthy tech class.
The initiative would have asked voters to levy an unprecedented 1.5 percent payroll tax on tech companies in the city in return for an estimated $140 million in annual revenue. That money would have been spent on critical needs like affordable housing and homelessness, proponents said.
Opponents saw the measure as an act of class warfare that could harm the local economy.
“People don’t want to talk about it that way, but this is pitting one San Franciscan against another,” said Supervisor Mark Farrell, who voted against the proposal. “We need to be building community, not tearing the community apart.”
Farrell even likened the approach to “the politics of Donald Trump” because in a progressive city like San Francisco, few things are worse than being associated with the pugnacious Republican leader.
The plan may be dead, but it’s just the latest event to highlight a growing cultural schism in San Francisco. The city’s booming tech sector is increasingly being blamed for a precipitous rise in costs of living, with activists accusing it of figuratively and literally driving the poor and middle class away.
The San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation reacted to the measure’s defeat with the following statement:
This measure was an example of bad policy and sought to divide and widen the gap between the tech sector and the San Francisco community, targeting companies as the cause of our current homelessness and affordable housing crisis. Furthermore, the measure would bring the antiquated payroll tax back to San Francisco, which would have made San Francisco the only city in California to implement such a tax. This step backwards would have stifled company growth and led to thousands of jobs lost and companies relocated, effectively undoing years of successful efforts to make San Francisco the envy of the nation with a 2.9% unemployment rate.
Read more about the vote here.