It’s official! Initiative 1098 will be on the November ballot thanks to 384,382 Washington voters who signed the initiative petitions. Bill Gates Sr. sent out a message thanking all of the volunteers for their hard work. Here’s an excerpt:
Thank you for everything you have done. I have had the pleasure to meet many of the volunteers that worked on 1098, and I have to say I was continually impressed with the dedication and passion that I saw from Washingtonians who are ready for change. Our State has been penalized by an unfair and inadequate tax system for years. Initiative 1098 will change that.
We currently rank 46th out of the 50 states in the the amount of our economy we invest in education, and we rank dead last — 50th out of the 50 states — in the basic fairness of our tax code. Middle class families in Washington State pay four times the tax rate of the very wealthy, while our reliance on the B&O tax penalizes small businesses that are struggling in the current economic downturn. That is scandalous. And it is wrong.
LEV has endorsed I-1098 because it will support Washington’s students by raising $1 billion a year for public education and health care. It will also cut taxes for families and small businesses.
