These three initiatives on the November ballot threaten investments in education, childcare, sustainable environments, healthy communities, long-term care and more.
Our recommendation to Vote NO on all three initiatives is grounded in our values, which include: Belonging, Justice & Equity, Interconnectedness, Collaboration, and Pluralism. These emerge from the heart of our diverse spiritual traditions, texts, and practices that call us to love and care for our neighbors and the earth.
For these initiatives, we especially draw on our commitment to seek Justice and Equity, enabling all people and communities to have the resources and opportunities to live a full and meaningful life. We also are called to Interconnectedness, cherishing and respecting the interdependent web of all existence, and supporting actions and policies that promote resilience, sustainability and environmental justice. These initiatives are anti-thetical to our values and threaten to reverse decades of our work to make Washington more equitable and balance our upside-down tax code.
Here are the facts on why we’re voting no:
Initiative 2109 would repeal Washington's capital gains excise tax on individuals' stock market annual profits over $250,000. Revenue goes to the Education Legacy Trust Account. If passed it would:
- Take away nearly $900 million every year from childcare, early learning, K-12 education, special education, technical and community colleges, and school construction.
- Repeal a modest 7% capital gains tax on only the wealthiest Washingtonians for profits over $250,000 on stocks and bonds. Prior to this tax, millionaires paid nothing in state taxes toward the common good when reaping huge profits from such assets.
- Put more pressure on the rest of us to make up for the difference through property and sales taxes.
- Worsen childcare shortages and issues for working families and small businesses (who already lose over $2 billion each year due to employees' issues with childcare) by cutting billions from affordable childcare.
Initiative 2117 would repeal the 2021 Climate Commitment Act and prohibit all state agencies, counties, and cities from implementing any type of carbon tax credit trading. If passed it would:
- Devastate billions in funding that protects our water, farmlands and forests, air quality, fish, clean transportation and school health improvements for us and our children.
- Cancel investments in energy efficiency and projects to mitigate the impact of climate change and pollution on highly impacted, low-income households and communities.
- Shift the burden of paying for the impacts of pollution from big industries responsible for carbon emissions onto communities, workers, and families.
- Take away a significant tool for slowing life-threatening climate change and ending pollution
Initiative 2124 would allow all employees and self-employed individuals to opt out of paying the tax and receiving benefits under WA Cares, the state's public long-term health care program. If passed it would:
- Worsen the care crisis that’s causing huge financial stress for women, who provide the vast majority of unpaid caregiving duties for loved ones without long-term care coverage. Women are 73% more likely to permanently leave jobs and five times more likely to work only part-time due to caregiving demands.
- Send more people into debt when faced with expensive long-term care bills and private insurance premiums they can't afford. Especially, middle- and low-income families who are least able to afford private long term care insurance or to pay thousands out of pocket for care.
- Will throw us back into the expensive private insurance market which routinely jacks up premiums by 50%, 100%, even 300% without warning, and delays and denies claims, harming people with pre-existing conditions like cancer and diabetes because they cannot get private insurance, even if they can afford the expensive premiums.
Join us in voting NO on these three harmful initiatives this fall. You can read more on our initiatives page which we will be updating throughout the summer and fall.
Are you interested in taking action on these initiatives before November? One way to get involved is to write a Letter to the Editor by sharing your story on why you are voting NO on one or all these initiatives in your local newspaper. Please let us know if you are interested in writing a letter, letter writers are especially needed in Eastern Washington.
Volunteers are also needed for field organizing for No on 2117. Kick Off event on Tuesday July 16 from 5:30-7:00 p.m. to learn how to get involved and build grassroots momentum to defeat I-2117! Please register here. | 
