All taxes should require 70 percent

As a taxpayer and a full supporter of fully funding education, I will be voting against the measure and ask everyone else to do the same. Why? Because I agree that it is idiotic to require a supermajority to fund something that should be plainly considered critical (such as education) where we do not require a majority to fund other items.

While I hold this belief, I also believe that we should require at least a 70 percent majority to take any money from any citizen … that is, a supermajority of at least 70 percent should be required to raise or create any tax … other than education. Yes, that means that I am voting against this measure for one reason only — that the system is backwards! We should only require a simple majority for education yet should require at least 70 percent for everything else.

Approving this measure will remove our only defense against automatic tax increases (yes, simple majorities are “automatic”). Please join me in defeating this measure. Once it has failed, we need to get initiatives in place that require super majorities for all taxes. At that time another initiative to reduce that requirement for Education funding would be in order.

Brad Ashforth

Snohomish