The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Seattle, like a lot of large cities, has a homeless problem. Not too surprising, really, when you consider that the average price of a house in the Emerald City is somewhere above the rainbow, well over half a million dollars. Rents are skyrocketing accordingly and if you aren’t employed or if you work at minimum wage jobs, chances are good you can’t afford to live in a house or an apartment. If you own a car, running or not, you can park it and call it a home. If not, the options are not real good for you. Check out the freeway overpasses and bring a tent.

Seattle’s City Council decided it might be time to address this situation and so they floated a plan to tax the largest companies and corporations a head tax on each of their employees, the money to be used to house the homeless. I guess the idea was that these folks had benefited from Seattle’s attractive work environment, the one before traffic gridlock and income disparity had created a model for the Have – Have Not society, and that taxing them would begin to address some of these discrepancies. Might even keep Seattle an attractive city for corporations.

Amazon, that posterboy for corporate bully, the Godzilla in the Godzilla vs. Bambi movie, weighed in and promptly stopped construction of two projects in the downtown area. The steel worker’s union literally shouted down the councilwoman they have who is a socialist and probably their most ardent supporter for fear their jobs on the Amazon towers would be lost. So much for worker solidarity, comrades. It should be noted that Amazon’s objection to being taxed to help support the folks they bear some responsibility for comes at the same time they pay zero federal taxes. Zero, as in none, nada, zip, zilch. I know, it boggles the mind, at least mine. I pay more federal tax than Amazon. The folks under the freeway overpass probably pay about the same.

In the end Amazon forced a compromise, cutting the head tax in half. I guess this was a victory for the Job Creator, one small step for Godzilla, one helluva toejam for Bambi. If you’re poor, it’s time to leave Seattle. Kind of why I left 40 years ago.

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