Seattle City Council members seemed to forget that actions have consequences as they have pursued their liberal/progressive utopian city over the past few years. On the one hand they would make lofty policy pronouncements (end homelessness, defund the police, etc.) and then proceed to pass laws and budgets which would guarantee they would not achieve any of their goals.  Once such policy area was in pedestrian and traffic deaths, which Seattle liberals decided would be zero by 2030 (about the time they have Jay Inslee outlawing new gas-fueled cars).

The problem with well-meaning but impossible goals is that bad policies get put in place. Consider Danny Westneat’s review of the city’s old ticketing policy: “In 2018, I was one of about 28,000 Seattle drivers to get ticketed by police for a non-criminal driving infraction. In the 2010s, Seattle police doled out an average of roughly 40,000 tickets annually, more than 100 moving violation tickets a day. The cops have all but stopped. They gave out only 3,863 tickets for 2022 — a drop of 90% from the 2010s pre-pandemic average.”

That was intentional. As Seattle Council incumbent Tammy Morales blurted out at a hearing week, “I don’t think any of us want police involved in traffic stops.” Turns out that if you stop giving people tickets, they stop following traffic rules. And, what you don’t stop, you don’t catch.

And Westneat provided the outcome of Morales’ and other council member’s liberal foolishness: “Last year there were 28 deaths and 10,000 accidents, and the year before there were 30 deaths – the most in 15 years. This though the city is seven years into a safety campaign to eliminate all traffic-related deaths by 2030.” Turns out that actions, like elections, have consequences. (Seattle Times)

Let’s review the timeline. Monday, Spokane City Council passes massive increases in housing fees. Tuesday, people who build houses let people know that this is a dumb idea (they had told the council the same thing Monday, but the liberal majority on the council didn’t listen/understand/agree with the warnings). Wednesday, council members start backpedaling quickly as the magnitude of their error starts to sink in.

So here we are, waiting now for the liberal Council members to undo the damage of Monday’s partisan-driven fee increases, which as the Spokesman Review points out “range from a roughly 300%-1,400% increase depending on the fee.” There is hope however, as the paper reports that “before the end of the month, the City Council will vote on whether to temporarily adopt significantly lower fees, a version of an alternative from Councilman Jonathan Bingle that was supported by fellow conservative Councilman Michael Cathcart and earlier seemed dead in the water.” Guess we’ll find out if Democrats really want new houses built in Spokane this year. (Spokesman-Review)

Governor Jay Inslee has proposed borrowing $4 billion dollars – even though the state is CURRENTLY RUNNING A MASSIVE BUDGET SURPLUS – to solve the homelessness problem worsened by Democrat/liberal/progressive/Socialist policies on his watch. Future taxpayers would pay this money back – along with hundreds of millions in future interest payments – years after Jay has left the scene. But he says you can’t call this “tax” a “tax”, because … he says so. Even though it will be paid for with tax dollars collected from tax payers and not available to spend on anything else in the budget that people might want, just like it was a … tax. (yaktrinews.com)

Washington House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, Senator Manka Dhingra and the rest of the Democrat legislators in Olympia working to make life easier for criminals received a boost to their spirits with the news that, thanks to their multi-year efforts, Washington is now #3 in the country for car theft with 46,939 stolen in 2022. But according to KIRO 7, liberals can fear not, as we can claim to be number 1 on a per person basis, since “Washington’s number of auto thefts last year only trail behind California and Texas, which have significantly larger populations, with 202,685 and 105,015 vehicles stolen last year, respectively.”

Liberals are making sure we’re coming on strong under increased Democrat dominance in state government, as “Data shows that from 2019 to 2022, the vehicle theft rate in Washington increased by a whopping 31%. Only Illinois had a larger increase during that time period: 35%.” So, there is much to be done Speaker Jinkins and Senator Dhingra, if you’re still working hard to kill the police pursuit reform bill now in the state house. (KIRO 7)

One reason why Democrats have not felt much pressure for the disastrous consequences of their 2021 anti-police laws, including the one to stop police from pursuing suspects fleeing in cars, is that the mainstream media seems not to care.  Here is yet another editorial board praising the Democrats for standing firm in their conviction that stealing a car should not result in police pursuing you. Guess that proves the power of “dueling data” – when in doubt, believe the liberals. (Everett Herald)

In what has become a reoccurring theme at school board meetings, folks in Southwest Washington are asking how schools could find themselves so deep in debt, shortly after giving away massive employee pay and benefit increases under the pressure of illegal strikes.  Who could have guessed that increasing costs while facing decreasing revenue would lead to problems? (Columbian)

Again this year Democrats are claiming that Republicans are killing bills, this time about rent control, in a chamber dominated by Democrats … and the Yakima Herald editorial board believes them. Now, not that killing rent control bills would be a bad thing, but if the minority party had the power to kill the bills it did not like, we would not be relying on the State Supreme Court to stop the Democrats’ state income tax and we wouldn’t be paying a quarter (or more) a gallon for gasoline right now thanks to Inslee’s cap-and-tax scheme. But, evidently spinning works, if you get the media dizzy enough. (Yakima Herald)

Gotta love working for taxpayers – pay is good and, oh, the benefits

Remember – Democrats do not want police to pursue car thieves or suspects who drive away