165,000 signatures gathered to repeal WA’s millionaire’s tax, Let’s Go Washington aims for 700,000

More than 165,000 signatures have been gathered in an effort to put Washington’s new millionaire’s tax before voters for possible repeal.

The effort, spearheaded by Let’s Go Washington, aims to repeal the newly enacted law that will tax households with incomes above $1 million at a rate of 9.9%.

“What’s been interesting is we’ve had another 17,000 people request signup sheets on our website, which blows away anything else we’ve ever seen,” Brian Heywood, the founder of Let’s Go Washington, told “The John Curley Show.” “Last year, when we did the stopping natural gas ban, for the whole four months, we had about 3,500 people. This year, we’ve already got 17,000, pushing 18,000 right now.”

Heywood has previously argued that the decision not to put Senate Bill 6346, the millionaire’s tax, to a vote is taking away the people’s power to vote on taxes, a right he said the state’s founders went out of their way to protect.

July 2 is the deadline to turn in 308,911 valid signatures from registered voters to place Senate Bill 6346 on the ballot, but state election officials suggest submitting at least 390,000 to account for invalid signatures.

“Are you afraid that when people hear that number, 165,000 something, that they’re going to say, ‘Oh, they don’t need my signature,'” KIRO host John Curley asked.

“I think Bob Ferguson was trying to do that to discourage people and say, ‘Oh, it’s already going to qualify.’ We actually had people calling in saying, ‘I heard you already had enough signatures. Do you still need mine?’ And my response is, ‘We’re not done,'” Heywood said. “The record for the state is 700,000 signatures. 699,000 is the record. I’m shooting for 700,000 signatures. So we need everybody to help us break this record and show them that you don’t have to be a millionaire. Everybody knows this income tax is coming for them.”

The slippery slope of the millionaire’s tax

Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen previously told “The Gee and Ursula Show” that the current legislature has no intention of expanding the millionaires’ tax to the masses. But Washington State Representative April Berg cast doubt on that statement during a leaked Zoom meeting obtained by Future 42.

“They say that the income will slide down to other lower taxpayers. Do you think that will happen? How do we fight that idea?” Berg asked in the leaked Zoom meeting.

“‘How do we fight that idea?'” KIRO host John Curley reiterated on his show in late April. “Not, ‘how do we not have it happen?’ ‘How do we fight the idea?'”

Ferguson stated that, as long as he’s governor, he’ll veto any effort to lower the income threshold or raise the tax rate.

“But why didn’t they put those protections directly into the law?” Curley asked Heywood.

“The two amendments were proposed to do exactly that, right? The Republicans proposed amendments that would cap it, wouldn’t let them lower it, and the response was, “Wow, we don’t want to tie the hands of anybody in the future, and that’s one. And then the second was, he had every, like, he keeps saying, “I can’t, I can’t, I’m excited for the people to have a vote. No, you’re not. You stopped the referendum. Yeah, right. And, and I think it’s just really, it’s so cynical, and I, and he’s not a very good chess player, even he’s, you know, he’s famous for playing chess in his own mind, but he doesn’t seem to be a very good one.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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