Shhh – City of Seattle doesn’t want you to know what it supports

Evidently the elected “leaders” of the city of Seattle have figured out why its legislative priorities so rarely make it through the evenly-divided state legislature – because if elected officials from other parts of the state find out Seattle politicians are for something, that makes it suspect in the eyes of their non-Seattle voters.

None other than retiring lefty city councilman Nick Licata let that cat out of the bag in an interview with the favorite publication of city hall staffers, The Stranger: “In some cases, Licata says, ‘we support [a policy], but we don’t want to be leading the charge… because our natural allies wouldn’t want to be allied with ultra-liberal Seattle.’ ”

For instance, the Stranger disapproves of Seattle “leaders” hiding behind such vague language as “We support comprehensive tax reform that leads to a more equitable and progressive tax structure and decreases reliance on flat tax sources like sale and property taxes” — instead of saying what Democrats everywhere really mean when they say “tax reform” – create a state income tax, now!

Of course, a state income tax is a great rallying cry for liberals throughout the city of Seattle, but they can’t even get the Democrat-controlled state House (run by Seattle’s own Speaker, Frank Chopp) to bring the issue up for a vote.

And, they can’t get an income tax approved by going directly to voters, as has been shown repeatedly, most recently in 2010.

So, even Seattle’s Council president appears to have learned this anti-Seattle, anti-income tax lesson: “ ‘I do [want a state income tax] and I’ve said that,’ Council President Tim Burgess told me when I asked him about this. ‘I think it goes to: What are we going to put forward that we have a reasonable chance of achieving? Where are we going to place our energy? I don’t believe the legislature this session is going to adopt an income tax.’ ”

Especially not if Seattle politicians keep talking about it.