Seattle Suicide

What’s the most poorly governed city in the United States?

• San Francisco, where there are “poop patrols“?
• Chicago, which is spending itself into oblivion?
• New York City, home of America’s worst mayor?

Those are all good options, but Seattle may deserve this award. Following municipal elections last November, the City Council is controlled by hard-left members who want to impose the local version of “democratic socialism.”

In a National Review article from February, Christopher Rufo describes their agenda.

Seattle has effectively become the nation’s laboratory for socialist policies. Since the beginning of the year, the socialist faction on the Seattle City Council has proposed a range of policies on taxes, housing, homelessness, and criminal justice that put into practice the national democratic-socialist agenda. In the most recent session, socialist councilwoman Kshama Sawant and her allies have proposed massive new taxes on corporations, unprecedented regulations on landlords (including rent control and a ban on “winter evictions”), the mandated construction of homeless encampments, and the gradual dismantling of the criminal justice system, beginning with the end of cash bail. …In order to consolidate their newfound power, the progressive-socialists have begun to manipulate the democratic process in their own favor: first, by providing all Seattle voters with $100 in taxpayer-funded “democracy vouchers,” which are easily collected by unions, activists, and socialist groups; and second, by implementing a ban on corporate spending in local elections… the progressive-socialists are no longer interested in gaining reasonable concessions; they intend to overthrow capitalism itself.

The Wall Street Journal opined this week on the latest development in Seattle’s suicidal approach.

The economy is on life support, but that isn’t stopping the Seattle City Council from trying to soak employers with a new tax on hiring. …The proposal is a reprise of the council’s 2018 tax on each new hire that was repealed amid public opposition. The new proposal “is 10 times larger than the 2018 version, and it’s also in an economy that’s about 1,000 times worse,” says James Sido of the Downtown Seattle Association…a 1.3% payroll tax on most Seattle businesses with $7 million or more in payroll. …Businesses would be assessed based on the prior year’s payroll, but revenue has cratered this year amid the pandemic. …businesses on the margin that have been forced to lay off or furlough employees may not bring them back if it means crossing that $7 million payroll threshold. The tax would discourage smaller companies from growing in Seattle. …Seattle is the hardest hit city in the U.S., with unemployment rising 105.92% between January and March. Only a socialist would think now is the time to further punish job creation.

Good points.

Though I would add that it’s never a good time to raise taxes and punish job creation.

Here’s what the greedy members of the City Council don’t understand (or pretend not to understand):

It’s complicated and difficult to move out of a country.

It’s a potentially expensive hassle to move out of a state.

It’s relatively easy to move out of a city.

And that’s why Seattle’s experiment with socialism is bound to fail.

If the socialists on the City Council impose this tax, there inevitably will be an out-migration of entrepreneurs and businesses to surrounding suburbs. That will be bad for ordinary people in the city (a point that workers in the economy’s productive sector already understand).

And when that happens, I wonder if they’ll learn that it is possible to run out of other people’s money?

P.S. Seattle’s politicians already have destroyed jobs and ruined businesses with a big increase in the minimum wage.

P.P.S. The constitution of the state of Washington prohibits an income tax, so there’s an ongoing debate whether Seattle’s tax grab – if enacted – would survive a court challenge.