In a situation that is synonymous with other municipalities across the grand expanse of the US republic, the ruling government of Seattle and the city council went on an egregious spending spree in transforming public money into perpetual sinkholes and generous salaries. Warning- this can happen anywhere.
The Seattle Times is a well-known agenda driven news organization with leanings “slightly” to the left, however certain staff members were able to compile data from public records and report on the farce that the city government is in facilitating a dystopian wonderland of enablement, as small businesses are routinely taxed out of existence, and herds of drug addicts and violent homeless cretins are allowed to aggressively harass citizens and tourists in the downtown corridor, while using the sidewalk or walls in alleyways as personal lavatories. If Chicago, thanks to a heedless and unchecked proximal group of elected officials in practicing despotism, is the murder capital of the nation, Seattle, plagued by the same willful and incompetent notion perpetuating impossible dreams and effectively eliminating the middle class, is the city that offers the belligerent and lazy an array of overfunded public resources in a harrowing wonderland lacking accountability, except for the hard working individuals, who make the nightmare possible. This is the same group of political buffoons that passed an unreasonable gun and ammo tax within city limits last year, effectively driving out gun retailers.
The Amazon effect is in full swing over the last decade, as an explosion of profitable tech companies located within the municipality has attracted tens of thousands of software professionals to high paying jobs and thus generating more tax revenue for the city. Not surprisingly, the Seattle Times article cites that with the recent economic boom, local government spending has increased disproportionately, with no apparent effect on the glaring issues that residents face a daily basis. Since 2012 alone, expenses by the city have increased by 39% and last year, half of the city’s full-time workers made over $100 thousand! (the median household income for the city is around $90 thousand.) Add to this recipe for bureaucracy the sideshow of a pedophile mayor, who was forced to resign from office earlier, and numerous examples of reckless and unethical expenditures, and the subsequent metaphorical banquet is only one bread roll short a complete mockery.
And . . . with Seattle’s help and an enormous budget, by some measures Washington dropped from 48th worst, to very last place in the country for care of the mentally ill.
The sickening narrative shared by the Seattle Times is worth a read and exemplifies Ronald Reagan’s famous words, “…government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Read the Seattle Times report here.