Westneat: Inslee must focus on state economy

There’s one huge difference with last spring: This time we knew it was coming. We had months to get ready. Instead, thousands of local businesses now are twisting in the pandemic wind.

Inslee deserves an “A” grade for his handling of the public health side of this contagion. As he has noted, we have managed the disease spread better than all but five much smaller states (only Oregon, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont have lower case rates).

On the economic-relief side, though, it’s been mostly caution and hand-waving plus the embarrassment of the Nigerian scam ring bilking the state unemployment system out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The governor sought to explain this predicament in a news conference. First, he said he hopes to roll out a $50 million grant and loan program for small businesses; Friday he increased that to $150 million. That’s something, but with more than 15,500 food and drink establishments in the state, it’s not much. That will help a little for about a week.

Two, Inslee insisted his hands are tied waiting for another financial bailout package from Congress. “The difficulty is the persistent lack of action by the federal government,” he said.

It’s true the feds seem to be in a sort of postelection torpor. But that didn’t discourage the Democratic governor of Colorado from announcing his own $1.3 billion COVID-19 relief recovery plan this week, with direct payments to residents as well as businesses.

There’s no reason our state couldn’t provide aid to shuttered businesses now, when they desperately need it, and then recoup the money later, either with a federal bailout if it comes, or with our own revenue plan (another word for which is “taxes”).

There is one group that stepped up to do exactly that. Everybody loves to dunk on the Seattle City Council, including me. But when everyone was fiddling around waiting for somebody else to do some COVID-19 relief, Seattle acted. Last summer the council passed a payroll tax on high earners at big businesses, such as Amazon, set to start in 2021.

Since the “Jumpstart Seattle” tax passed, Amazon revealed that the pandemic has produced by far the two richest quarters in company history, with $11.57 billion in profits. Even if Amazon alone had to pay all $200 million of Seattle’s new tax, which it doesn’t, that would shave down two quarters of its profits to … $11.37 billion. Less than 2 percent.

The point of all this is that economic stimulus is the most unsung tool for beating this virus. Want people and businesses to do the right thing on virus control? Then make it so they aren’t also fighting for their economic lives.

Inslee just got reelected to a third term in a landslide. That’s a mandate, and it’s time to use it. Or here’s another prediction: This winter, coming before our hoped-for “vaccine spring,” will be needlessly dark for a heck of a lot of our own.