Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson told an audience at a Seattle University event earlier this month that she isn't worried about wealthy residents fleeing Washington over the state's new 9.9 percent income tax on millionaires. Her message to anyone who leaves: "bye."
The 43-year-old Democratic Socialist, sworn in at City Hall on January 2, 2026, told the crowd:
"I think the claims that millionaires are gonna leave our state are super overblown, if the ones that leave, 'bye.'"
That's a revealing posture from a mayor whose city depends on the tax revenue, jobs, and investment that high earners and major corporations generate. It also happens to collide with real-world signals, from Starbucks to Microsoft to Amazon to Meta, that Washington's business climate is deteriorating fast.
Governor Bob Ferguson signed the new state law at the end of March. Under its terms, anyone earning over $1 million per year will face a 9.9 percent tax hike beginning in the 2028 tax year. Ferguson called it "historic."
State Republicans criticized the measure all the way up until Ferguson signed it, warning that large corporations like Starbucks and T-Mobile would leave Washington. That warning did not take long to find its first vindication.
Starbucks, founded in Seattle in 1971, announced plans to build a new headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. Ferguson said on Tuesday that he had a "lengthy" conversation with the company and pledged to support the firm "in every way possible."
Ferguson acknowledged the stakes plainly enough:
"Starbucks is an important part of the fabric of our community here in Washington state, to put it mildly."
If the governor recognizes that losing a flagship corporate headquarters is a serious blow, Wilson's flippant "bye" lands differently. The mayor treats capital flight as a talking point to wave away. The governor is already on the phone trying to stop it.
Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, raised his own concerns about Washington's trajectory last year. In comments to KOMO News, Smith offered a blunt assessment:
"I'm probably more worried right now about the business climate in Washington than at any point over the last 30 years."
Smith went further, drawing a direct line between tax policy and job losses:
"If other people are paying for jobs to leave and we're taxing them to stay, that will make everything harder."
That isn't a Republican politician scoring points. It's the president of one of the largest employers in the state, a man with three decades of context, saying the trajectory is the worst he has seen. Amazon and Meta have already cut jobs in Washington. The pattern is not hypothetical.
Wilson, meanwhile, contended that implementing progressive tax changes is not easy, but she welcomed the millionaire tax all the same. The gap between her breezy confidence and the actual corporate behavior unfolding around her is hard to miss.
Wilson won office last year after defeating incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell, who conceded after later-counted mail ballots broke heavily in Wilson's favor. She ran as a democratic socialist, criticizing Harrell's homeless encampment sweeps as "cosmetic" and positioning herself as a more progressive alternative.
As Newsmax reported, Wilson's victory signaled a further leftward shift in Seattle politics, driven by voter frustration over affordability, homelessness, and public safety, the very problems that progressive governance has deepened.
Wilson has acknowledged her own privileged upbringing. She and her husband spend $2,200 per month on daycare for their toddler and another $2,200 to rent their apartment. Those are real costs, and they suggest Wilson understands the squeeze on working families, which makes her indifference to the economic consequences of driving employers out of the state all the more puzzling.
The millionaire tax remark was not Wilson's only brush with controversy. She denied telling Seattle Police not to arrest people for taking illegal drugs in public after being sworn in. But a memo filed by Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans on January 1 tells a different story.
Evans's memo directs that anyone arrested for doing drugs in public must be referred to the city's "LEAD" diversion program, which tries to offer addicts treatment. Evans, also a Democrat, added that only users whose circumstances are very "acute or problematic" should be referred to her office for prosecution. The practical effect: it has become much harder for police to charge illegal drug users in Seattle.
The Daily Mail visited downtown Seattle, Beacon Hill, South of Downtown, and Chinatown earlier this year and reported finding drug users on street corners, in bus stops, and in doorways. Tent encampments were visible near the Space Needle and the Museum of Pop Culture.
This is the city Wilson governs. The streets are not abstract policy debates, they are where taxpayers, shop owners, and families live. When the city attorney's office effectively decriminalizes public drug use and the mayor jokes about wealthy residents leaving, the people stuck with the consequences are the ones who can't afford to move.
Wilson's approach to policing has drawn scrutiny on other fronts as well. Her administration paused the expansion of police cameras over concerns the technology could be used against illegal immigrants, prioritizing sanctuary politics over public safety tools.
That stance fits a broader pattern. The Seattle Police Union rejected Wilson's directive requiring officers to monitor ICE activity, another flashpoint in the mayor's ongoing effort to shield illegal immigrants from federal enforcement.
And the public safety environment she presides over has produced real consequences. Gunfire near a Seattle community center forced Wilson herself to flee a press conference, a moment that crystallized the gap between the city's progressive rhetoric and its street-level reality.
Seattle is running an experiment. A Democratic Socialist mayor welcomes a major new tax on high earners. The city attorney makes public drug prosecution nearly impossible. Sanctuary policies take priority over law enforcement cooperation. And when the most prominent employers in the state warn that the business climate is the worst in a generation, the mayor's answer is a punchline.
Brad Smith didn't mince words. Starbucks didn't bluff, it picked Nashville. Amazon and Meta have already trimmed their Washington workforces. The evidence is not speculative. It is happening now.
Wilson may think the warnings are "super overblown." The workers who lose their jobs when the next headquarters moves south will have a different word for it.
When your mayor's response to economic warning signs is a joke, the joke is on the people who can't leave.
