On Wednesday, crosswalk beg buttons throughout town had loads to say.
5 beg buttons—three within the College District, one near South Lake Union, and one other in Wedgwood—had been hacked to sound loads like Amazon CEO and wannabe area cowboy, Jeff Bezos. Push the button and as a substitute of a robotic voice saying “wait,” an AI Bezos opined a few wealth tax.
“Hello, I’m Jeff Bezos,” AI Jeff mentioned. “This crosswalk is sponsored by Amazon Prime, with an necessary message—please, don’t tax the wealthy, in any other case all the opposite billionaires will transfer to Florida, too. Wouldn’t it’s horrible if all of the wealthy folks left Seattle or bought Luigi’d? After which regular folks might afford to stay right here once more.” Then, comic Bo Burnham’s “Bezos 1” tune performed.
The Bezos Beg Button’s anti-wealth tax plead adopted Gov. Bob Ferguson’s resolution to kill a proposal by state Democrats that may tax the wealthiest Washingtonians and the state’s top-earning firms. Now, Democrats are proposing a brand new quiver filled with taxes which incorporates elevated capital features and property taxes, elevated enterprise taxes, extra taxes on nicotine merchandise, new gross sales taxes on companies, and hiked up enterprise and occupation surcharges.
The in comes Individuals for an Reasonably priced Washington, the PAC that is spent over $1.5 million on commercials, polling, and textual content messages naysaying a wealth tax, simply since February. The oldsters behind the PAC will not be happy with any kind of enterprise taxes. And, by of us, in fact I imply companies, since 99% of that $1.5 million got here straight from companies. T-Cellular contributed $300,000. Microsoft contributed $300,000 in money and an extra $24,000 in in-kind contributions. Alaska Airways gave $100,000 and so did candy, candy Costco, which—regardless of supporting its employees and its range hiring initiatives—would not appear to care about our regressive tax system, or patching large, fats funds holes that may impression state applications.
However, and not using a wealth tax or a high-earners payroll tax at a state degree, it looks like the company cash that flooded our airwaves with anti-tax adverts labored. AI Bezos must be happy. We’ll see simply how happy he’ll be because the legislative session involves an in depth on April 27.
Besides, we won’t, as a result of the Seattle Division of Transportation has killed the AI Bezos Beg Button.
“We’ve corrected stroll sign messages in a number of places and proceed to answer tampered push buttons as we study of them,” SDOT mentioned in a press release.
It is unclear how the hackers bought into the crosswalk beg button system, although a YouTube video from final yr implied that anybody might attempt to entry the crosswalk buttons by way of a smartphone app. SDOT mentioned it’s stepping up it safety techniques. In spite of everything, hacking into crosswalk beg buttons in order that as a substitute of helpful directions its a wealthy man pouting about taxes does nothing to assist the visually impaired.
Possibly this would be the final we hear of the AI Bezos Beg Button. Sadly, it probably will not be the final we hear of the extremely rich whining about paying their dues.
