A number of people (including me, last week, at around 25:00) have pointed out that it's not going to be enough to just raise the minimum wage in Seattle.

We need to raise taxes, too. So here's the tax I think we should be looking at: a Seattle income tax.

Yes, we'd need permission from the legislature to do this. But, as Mayor (and former State Senator) Ed Murray pointed out in his State of the City address:

Every year since 2000, the top 20 percent of income earners in Seattle have brought home more than the bottom 80 percent combined.

Murray used this inequality to argue for increasing the minimum wage in Seattle to $15 an hour, but it's also a strong argument for instituting an income tax here.

So: If the mayor is concerned about income inequality, and if he also shares Danny Westneat's concern about keeping social services running amid a minimum wage increase, then he should be campaigning for a minimum wage increase while at the same time lobbying Olympia to let us have an income tax. (Like, oh, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Philadelphia...)

Candidate Murray promised he'd be a great mayor because his legislative experience would help him get Olympia to do what's right for Seattle. Here's one way he could come through on that promise.