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Seattle's Worst City Councilmember™ is at it again in a Seattle Times editorial. This time Alex Pedersen paired up with the chief economist for Windermere Real Estate to argue that Seattle should respond to the coronavirus pandemic with a 10% budget cut.
Pedersen is a trickle-downer of the highest order. His so-called "data-driven" solution for any problem is always some mix of budget cuts, lower taxes on the wealthy, and/or deregulation.
So I'm not surprised that he's calling for austerity measures as a response to the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But I am surprised that Pedersen is smugly banging that austerity drum before the crisis has even passed.
And it feels a little on-the-nose that Pedersen launched his call for less government in an editorial "co-authored" by the head economist for the largest regional real estate company west of the Mississippi—a firm that would undoubtedly profit from tax cuts.
In response to the economic downturn caused by COVID-19, Pedersen claims that the city should "trim at least 10% of its General Fund."
He says we should cut one out of every ten dollars in the city budget while the city is suffering what will likely be its worst employment crisis ever. At a time when the single busiest thoroughfare in the city will likely need to be replaced.
And let's not forget that Seattle's already out-of-control housing affordability crisis will likely get much worse because of the economic collapse.
Pedersen's proposed cuts would slash expanded food support for families, library hours, community centers, and cut the jobs of many of the first responders who took care of us in this crisis
Mike McGinn, who was mayor of Seattle during the worst of the last recession, offers some insight into how draconian a ten percent cut would be. We've never seen anything like it. https://twitter.com/mayormcginn/status/1252657349304610816?s=20
Look: budget cuts in times of economic crisis don't work. In fact, they slow the rate of recovery. As I've noted, Washington state was just starting to recover from the budget cuts of 2009 and 2010 when coronavirus struck. https://civicskunk.works/we-cant-shrink-our-way-to-economic-growth-58ccc8fbbe9f
There's plenty of evidence that budget cuts slow economic recoveries:
* https://www.cbpp.org/archives/10-30-01sfp.htm
* https://www.epi.org/blog/worst-recovery-in-post-war-era-largely-explained-by-cuts-in-government-spending/
* https://www.cbpp.org/archives/10-30-01sfp.htm
* https://www.epi.org/blog/worst-recovery-in-post-war-era-largely-explained-by-cuts-in-government-spending/
Most people recognize that this economic downturn is so enormous and so widespread that city and state governments are going to have to raise funds and continue spending to get us out of this. https://civicskunk.works/coronavirus-is-causing-an-economic-collapse-fixing-it-will-be-the-fight-of-our-lives-afbaa6eb8308
I guess Alex Pedersen thinks he and his wealthy pals can just stick to the same old trickle-down playbook and that people will just roll over like they always have. That won't work this time.
The whole point of having a government and a complex economy is that they protect our society when calamity happens. We need to build systems that work for us, not the other way around.
Pedersen's got it backwards. Government is for promoting the public good and protecting public health—not ensuring skyrocketing real-estate prices and preserving the fortunes of our wealthiest people.
We have to make big investments in our people and in our future. We can't decimate programs at the time when they're needed most. We can't cut our way to growth.
