Our state revenues have never kept up with our needs, and now, our recovery from covid-19 demands even more to take care of our working families and small businesses, the foundations of our society. That’s because Washington’s upside-down tax code is working exactly as it was designed by our shortsighted populist forefathers: our lowest-income neighbors pay 17 percent of their income into state and local taxes while the wealthy few pay just 3 percent.
This disparity has caused most of the societal issues we are facing in Washington state today: lack of affordable housing, lack of family-wage jobs, disappearing jobs market for our graduating youth (with or without a college degree) and the rapidly widening gap between the haves and have-nots.
Although there have been more progressive revenue solutions pushed forward this legislative session than in any recent memory, we want to ensure that this isn’t just a one-time math problem solution in our budget but about righting the wrongs in our tax code.
Please! Notify your legislators that it’s time to live up to the promises they made with voters: to put people first, and ensure that all Washingtonians have what they need to live healthy, happy lives.
Jim Bloss
Monroe
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