美国国家公共电台 NPR Voters May Tax Tech Companies To Fight Homelessness

Voters May Tax Tech Companies To Fight Homelessness

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Voters in San Francisco are considering raising taxes on the city's biggest companies, like Twitter and Uber, to pay for services for homeless people. From member station KQED in San Francisco, Guy Marzorati has more.

GUY MARZORATI, BYLINE¹: As it tried to climb out of the Great Recession, San Francisco changed its tax policies to help tech companies grow in the city. But like in LA and Seattle, the boom led to higher housing costs, which contributed to the worsening homeless crisis. So now San Francisco is deciding whether to change its tax policy again - this time, to raise taxes on certain corporations.

MARC BENIOFF: This is an extraordinary moment where we're in a crisis.

MARZORATI: That's Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. His cloud-computing company is the city's largest employer. And he is, surprisingly, the biggest advocate for the tax hike. Proposition C would use the new tax money to pay for things like rental³ assistance and shelters. And not only is Benioff donating millions to the Yes on Prop² C campaign, he's calling out other local CEOs who have opposed Prop C.

BENIOFF: What I've found is there's two kinds of people in San Francisco. There's people who are willing to give. And there's those who won't give at all, no matter what.

MARZORATI: Benioff specifically called out Twitter CEO Jack⁴ Dorsey, who says the tax would unfairly punish some smaller tech companies. In years past, the city specifically focused on helping⁵ these smaller companies grow and eventually go public while staying in the city.

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MARZORATI: One of San Francisco's biggest tax breaks got companies like Twitter and Uber to move here to the city's mid-market neighborhood. On a weekday morning, you can see workers head to the office to start the day and homeless residents sitting on the ground nearby.

Jennifer Friedenbach, head of the Coalition⁶ On Homelessness in San Francisco, says the neighborhood hasn't changed for the better.

JENNIFER FRIEDENBACH: I think the most dramatic change has been displacement⁷ of people who were living here. And so we've had mass evictions of folks in this area. We've had real increases in rent.

MARZORATI: Friedenbach says the massive federal tax cut for corporations has made it easier to ask big companies to pay more to fix local problems.

FRIEDENBACH: Now is the moment. And we can't predict that this same moment will happen in the future.

MARZORATI: But not everyone sees the proposed tax hike, or even this neighborhood, the same.

JIM LAZARUS: We're standing⁸ here with hundreds of people walking to and from places of work. The street looks good today.

MARZORATI: Jim Lazarus is with San Francisco's Chamber⁹ of Commerce. He says businesses already pay an outsized amount of taxes and extra costs to stay in the region.

LAZARUS: At some point, the straw breaks the camel's back, and some chief financial officer says, when the lease comes up, we're leaving town.

MARZORATI: That kind of threat actually happened in Seattle earlier this year. The city approved a new business tax. Amazon threatened to mount a repeal¹⁰ campaign, and the city council backed down and undid¹¹ the tax. Molly Turner, who teaches business at UC Berkeley, says the economic boom in the Bay Area has motivated advocates and local governments to push ahead with tax increases.

MOLLY TURNER: I think there's certainly an inspiration to take advantage of the enormous prosperity we have in the region while we have it.

MARZORATI: If there's any risk, Turner says, it's that a future economic bust¹² could make the money raised by the tax evaporate. For NPR News, I'm Guy Marzorati in San Francisco.

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1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 prop   

vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山

参考例句：

• A worker put a prop against the wall of the tunnel to keep it from falling.一名工人用东西支撑住隧道壁好使它不会倒塌。
• The government does not intend to prop up declining industries.政府无意扶持不景气的企业。

3 rental   

n.租赁，出租，出租业

参考例句：

• The yearly rental of her house is 2400 yuan.她这房子年租金是2400元。
• We can organise car rental from Chicago O'Hare Airport.我们可以安排提供从芝加哥奥黑尔机场出发的租车服务。

4 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

6 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。

7 displacement   

n.移置，取代，位移，排水量

参考例句：

• They said that time is the feeling of spatial displacement.他们说时间是空间位移的感觉。
• The displacement of all my energy into caring for the baby.我所有精力都放在了照顾宝宝上。

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

9 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

10 repeal   

n.废止，撤消；v.废止，撤消

参考例句：

• He plans to repeal a number of current policies.他计划废除一些当前的政策。
• He has made out a strong case for the repeal of the law.他提出强有力的理由，赞成废除该法令。

11 Undid   

v. 解开, 复原

参考例句：

• The officer undid the flap of his holster and drew his gun. 军官打开枪套盖拔出了手枪。
• He did wrong, and in the end his wrongs undid him. 行恶者终以其恶毁其身。

12 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。