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 …The proposal is a reprise of the council’s 2018 tax on each new hire that was repealed amid public opposition.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.
[…] It’s not easy to identify America’s worst-governed city. You can make a case for jurisdictions such as San Francisco, Detroit, New York City, Minneapolis, or Seattle. […]
[…] for cities. Yes, New York City is a mess, but is it better or worse than places such as Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, and San […]
[…] Yes, New York City is a mess, but is it better or worse than places such as Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, and San […]
[…] for cities. Yes, New York City is a mess, but is it better or worse than places such as Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, and San […]
[…] hard to decide because there’s strong competition from places such as New York, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, and San […]
[…] Nobody should be surprised when Seattle politicians enact bad […]
[…] hard to decide because there’s strong competition from places such as New York, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, and San […]
[…] that’s hard to decide because there’s strong competition from places such as New York, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, and San […]
[…] But as you can see from this video, some Seattle politicians are genuinely crazy. […]
[…] While San Francisco is a bit of a mess, folks in other cities (such as Seattle, Chicago, New York City, Detroit, etc) can make a legitimate claim that they have the […]
[…] I don’t think that will happen. The city’s crazy politicians will be more than happy to tolerate CHAZ if it’s a socialist experiment, but they’ll […]
Reblogged this on Gds44's Blog.
Shale, do not worry, Trump will eventually be gone, but that will change nothing other than giving the left a harder target to attack.
Trump is not the enemy of democracy at all, He is a Bronx style dufas and our elite leadership and press do not like the common man that Trump represents.
I realize endless indoctrination that orange man= bad will totally control those without a firm grasp on the world.
Yes, most people like you confuse democratic socialism, which is an oxymoronic phrase, as no actual democratic socialism can ever exist, you just end up with socialism , which is the opposite of democratic. How politically shallow can you be?
If you want more Scandinavian style safety net , then you should advocate for more taxes on workers to pay for it like they do. Wanting the benefits of free market capitalism ( Scandinavia) by pretending that it is socialism will help no one.
The left has forgotten that workers only do well when business do well, we are all in it together.
When companies do decide not to expand or to leave the city, I’m sure the socialists will say that the resulting problems were caused by the greed of the capitalists. And of course, when the people who lost their jobs because of these policies move to Colorado or Texas, they will continue to vote Democrat. Because they won’t for a moment suppose that they lost their jobs because of these bad liberal policies. They’ll be baffled how to explain it, but that can’t be it.
hi Dan, i’m wondering if there are good discussion boards anywhere for left-leaning libertarians like myself. for example, i enjoyed your article on FEE.org about Amazon’s crony politics, and i like your writing in general. but it seems that most of your ire is directed against unfair tax burdens for big business. i get how there’s a trickle-down effect to the working class here, but there’s another aspect too. you have a “moocher hall of fame” for welfare cheats. where is the equivalent list for corporate cronyism? you label Bernie Sanders as “insane,” and i can see why his pandering to the poor does not equate with good policy. but you consistently give Trump a pass by portraying him as slightly misguided, an affable goofball perhaps out of his depth as president, rather than a terrible businessman, shameless narcissist and textbook sociopath. if you haven’t read The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis, i recommend it highly. if Trump is not a true enemy of democracy, i don’t know who is. so do we need yet another political party, for people like me [yes, there are a lot of us] who think Trump is actually malevolent, and Bernie is merely mistaken about socialism? and does every article or cartoon about socialism on a libertarian blog need to include a cute reference to Che Guevara, Lenin, Stalin, or Mao? is it ever ok to admit that people might be confusing social democracy with actual socialism, instead of making fun of them? if libertarians are really the “people’s party,” and there’s good reason to argue for that, then why squander social capital by seeming to align more with the right than the left? the dems are already doing a great job alienating the working class by squabbling over political correctness, while the GOP is gleefully embracing contempt for the poor and immigrants; so it seems that libertarians could sail right down the middle and capture the majority, right?
As the great contemporary philosopher Ron White once stated: “You can’t fix stupid.”
[…] https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2020/05/02/seattle-suicide/ […]