July 8th, 2025
In this issue:
- Campaign to repeal WA ‘millionaires tax’ submits over 500,000 signatures
- Could initiative to kill WA ‘millionaires tax’ also kill capital gains tax?
- WA’s rich are leaving? Another tax on wealth smashes records
- Wages are falling. Wealth is surging. No wonder Americans are unhappy
- LETTER: Tax disparity
- Gavin Newsom: It’s time for a national billionaires’ tax and a new social compact
“Can you imagine being so greedy that you want more kids to go hungry so that you can have $11 million a year instead of $10 million a year? That’s exactly what Initiative 645 would do.” That’s what teacher Larry Delaney says in a video statement.
Mega-millionaire Brian Heywood just submitted the signatures he bought to place Initiative 645 on our ballots this November, and community leaders are sounding the alarm about just how destructive this initiative would be.
“Our schools are already struggling with overcrowded classrooms and middle class families are feeling the impacts of the affordability crisis. I-645 would take money from our schools and send housing and healthcare costs skyrocketing,” continued Delaney.
Rian Watt, Executive Director of the Economic Opportunity Institute, told the Seattle Times, “The fundamental issue at stake here is that Brian Heywood and a group of his millionaire friends are trying to give themselves a tax cut at the expense of working people.”
The backers of this initiative claim that taxes on the super-rich drive people away. But the Seattle Times reported the capital gains tax on stock market profits “smashed records” by funding $1.5 billion for education, childcare and other programs this year, three times what it raised in 2025, suggesting that the capital gains tax didn’t change much for mega-millionaires and billionaires living in Washington, and neither will the Millionaires Tax.
Analysis shows that I-645 would blow a massive $16.6 billion hole in our state budget, resulting in devastating cuts to K-12 education, healthcare, human services, and higher education. This would set us back decades. There’s no question about it: We can’t let I-645 pass.
Sign here to pledge to vote NO on I-645.
In solidarity,
Ben, Invest in WA Now
CAMPAIGN TO REPEAL WA ‘MILLIONAIRES TAX’ SUBMITS OVER 500,000 SIGNATURES
“The fundamental issue at stake here is that Brian Heywood and a group of his millionaire friends are trying to give themselves a tax cut at the expense of working people,” said Rian Watt, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute, a progressive nonprofit group.
Washington is one of nine states without a personal income tax, leaving it reliant on sales taxes that are comparatively hard on poorer residents.
More – Jim Brunner and Joseph O’Sullivan, The Seattle Times
COULD INITIATIVE TO KILL WA ‘MILLIONAIRES TAX’ ALSO KILL CAPITAL GAINS TAX?
Initiative 645, likely headed for a vote this fall, explicitly aims to repeal the so-called “millionaires tax” signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson this year.
But foes of the initiative are citing a new legal analysis that says the proposal’s broad wording — banning any taxes “measured by” income — may have far more sweeping and financially disastrous consequences for the state.
Erik Houser, a spokesperson for the anti-I-645 campaign, Millionaires Tax for Washington, accused Heywood in a statement of “either not understanding” or being “deliberately deceptive” about “the potentially catastrophic impacts” of the measure.
More – Jim Brunner, The Seattle Times
WA’S RICH ARE LEAVING? ANOTHER TAX ON WEALTH SMASHES RECORDS.
Initiative 645, likely headed for a vote this fall, explicitly aims to repeal the so-called “millionaires tax” signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson this year.
But foes of the initiative are citing a new legal analysis that says the proposal’s broad wording — banning any taxes “measured by” income — may have far more sweeping and financially disastrous consequences for the state.
Erik Houser, a spokesperson for the anti-I-645 campaign, Millionaires Tax for Washington, accused Heywood in a statement of “either not understanding” or being “deliberately deceptive” about “the potentially catastrophic impacts” of the measure.
More – Danny Westneat, The Seattle Times
WAGES ARE FALLING. WEALTH IS SURGING. NO WONDER AMERICANS ARE UNHAPPY.
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the surge in energy prices had wiped out a year and a half of wage gains for the average American worker. On Friday, the public-markets debut of SpaceX made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
More – Ben Casselman, The New York Times
LETTER: TAX DISPARITY
Taxes are complicated, and I’m no mathematician. I have it boiled down to two statements of fact that I use as a guide.
First, if we don’t pay taxes, our roads and bridges don’t get fixed, and our teachers, firefighters and police don’t get paid.
Second, people in the lowest 20 percent income bracket pay roughly 14 percent of their income in taxes, while people in the highest 1 percent income bracket pay roughly 4 percent of their income in taxes.
More – Linda Benson, Peninsula Daily News
IT’S TIME FOR A NATIONAL BILLIONAIRES’ TAX AND A NEW SOCIAL COMPACT
There is a working coalition in this country of blue-collar and white-collar, urban and rural, the people who built this country and the people who are trying to find their place in it. They did everything right, and the system still has nothing for them. They are asking for the basics of a decent life, a home in a safe neighborhood, and a doctor they can see without dread. They need child care, an affordable college education, and something left over at the end of the month. What stands in their way is the federal tax code, a corporate code, and an inheritance code written for a different set of Americans. We can rewrite all three together at the federal level with a new social compact. It’s time for an economic reset for America.
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