Under massive public pressure, Seattle’s madcap city council has repealed its so-called “head tax.” This tax would have fallen on major corporations like Starbucks and Amazon, but also on smaller companies with over $20 million a year. They would have had to pay about $275 for each full-time employee. The income would have gone to pay for housing for Seattle’s homeless.

Of course, the big companies would not have been the only firms affected. The natural integration of small, mid-size, and large companies means that the “Amazon Jobs Tax” would have hit existing and potential jobs down the line. The owner of a small bar and pizza restaurant, Peel and Press, opposed the tax because he knew its ripple effects would hit him, hard.

Dan Austin, the restaurant’s owner, said, “I do not do $20 million in sales … but all of my vendors pretty much do. … So as a small restaurant, I’ve already been told by the majority of my vendors that their prices will be going up. So that means I will pass along as much as I can to my customers through menu increases. Can’t pass it all along. So, for the third year in a row, I will do more in sales and make less in profit.”

This man understands how the economy works better than the Seattle City Council. So did many others. The pushback was fast and dramatic: “Seattle will not be a priority for some in business community if head tax remains,” read one headline. “Phoenix using head tax to recruit Seattle companies,” read another.

The Issue in Context

Why did Kshama Sawant (“America’s only openly Trotskyist elected official”) and her colleagues on the council want to penalize companies and drive businesses out of Seattle? Did they really want to cripple employment and, thereby, prosperity in the city they represent?

No — not consciously. They claim to have supported the tax because of their care for Seattle’s homeless. I suspect they support it because they see corporations as predators or — at best — unjust exploiters who should be made to give up some of what they have taken.

Let’s put the issue in its context. Seattle already delegates $50 million annually to help house the homeless in various ways (e.g., tent cities). A survey released last month shows that Seattle has about 12,000 homeless people. About two-thirds are men. Over three-quarters lived in childless households.”

Some people, through no fault of their own, become homeless. That’s why an adequate number of safe and clean shelters is so important. And why churches and synagogues, food banks, critical medical aid, and other key services are, too.

According to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, of the total homeless population, only about 20 percent are “chronically homeless.” These are persons who have lived “on the streets for more than a year, or four times in the past three years, and who have a ‘disabling condition’ that might include serious mental illness, an addiction or a physical disability or illness.”

Image-Bearers in Need

These are real people in various states of need. But they are also image-bearers of God, not helpless idiots who need perpetual care by the state.

The great majority of homeless persons don’t need permanent public housing or other public benefits. They need jobs – the very thing the head tax would have reduced. “Does everyone move up the ladder of economic success? Of course not, and a compassionate society allows for that,” conservative philosopher Bruce Frohnen has written.

But a society that simply demands economic security through bureaucratic mechanisms, while treating businesses like ornery cows to be milked for money … is not showing compassion. It is showing contempt for real people capable of real work, who have real souls, dreams, and moral calls on the rest of us to do better.

How do we help them? There are a number of creative solutions to consider. For example, Utah’s highly effective program (designed to create self-reliance instead of dependence on government) has reduced homelessness by 90 percent.

And we can learn from other countries’ innovative solutions, like one put forward by the young Brit Hugo Sugg, a Conservative who once was homeless. His idea? Have what he calls “low contract hours.” He explains: “With two or maybe five hours secure work a week or fortnight … people [could] build a routine and have a regular income, whilst maintaining flexibility.” He notes that “with the economy in a stronger place and businesses feeling more buoyant, companies want to build strong and competent workforces.”

In other words, start small. Build good habits. Employers will take notice, eventually bringing you on full-time.

Killing Jobs

There is nothing compassionate about killing jobs or hating the companies and risk-takers that create them. Victimizing the marketplace is foolish, ignorant, and plain cruel to the very people who most desperately need it.

A final note: Christians need to pray for Kshama Sawant, a troubled, angry woman about whom I have written previously. Imagine what a person of her passion could do if it were harnessed by the King.