As a voter in the 44th Legislative District, I read with great interest your front-page article regarding higher education funding and the comments of my three legislators, Rep. Hans Dunshee, Rep. John Lovick and Sen. Dave Schmidt (“Democrats, Republicans differ on spending in budget plans,” Feb. 24).
Republicans want $52.4 million to go to high-tech, saying that if we don’t give the dollars to that industry, the jobs will go out of state. Democrats want to give $30 million to higher education as enrollment is rapidly rising.
It seems to me that if we don’t first train the people to hold the high tech jobs, then who will fill them? The trend now is to outsource or bring in the well-educated from countries such as India. Jobs are being lost because of this.
Additionally, how do we know that these jobs will be created as corporations are not currently being held accountable for these large tax credits? Let’s see the proof that these tax dollars coming from the pockets of the middle-income citizens are, in fact, creating much-needed jobs (including benefits).
As Rep. Lovick says “The state budget isn’t really about numbers – it’s about real people.”
Bothell
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