Ben Shapiro calls Seattle ‘a horribly-run city’
May 23, 2018, 2:13 PM | Updated: 8:30 pm
(File)
Political commentator and writer Ben Shapiro, who hosts a talk show on 770 KTTH, (6-7pm) Seattle, gave KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson his two cents on city leadership in the wake of the head tax passage.
RELATED: Dori’s listeners weigh in on head tax
Shapiro recently penned a Daily Wire op-ed outlining how to destroy a major city.
“The incredible amount of homelessness, the wasting of money, the growth in traffic … it’s an increasingly horribly-run city,” he told Dori.
Shapiro called the Seattle City Council a group of radical politicians who have no concept of reality.
“You’re blowing enormous amounts of human capital and cash on stupid social justice welfare schemes that are not going to pay off in any serious way,” he said.
Everyone — not just high-power CEOs — is hurt by the council’s policies, Shapiro argued. The $15 per hour minimum wage hurt the small businesses, Shapiro said, and now the head tax will harm the larger businesses. With property taxes increasing 17 percent last year, homeowners have been hurt, and with the reluctance on the city’s part to give building permits, renters see their costs skyrocket because of supply and demand.
“It’s a way to really force businesses out of the area — there’s a reason that Boeing started looking at other states,” he said.
Shapiro pointed out that the tech industry — the bulk of Seattle’s top companies — are a lot easier to move to a new location than car factories, as in the case of Detroit’s collapse.
“It wasn’t the City of Seattle that built Amazon — it was Amazon that helped build the City of Seattle up to what it is,” he said.