Support a State Budget that preserves social services and raises needed revenue

Friends,

 

Please send an email or make a phone call today to ask your representatives in the state legislature to support a state budget that maintains crucial social services and protection of our most vulnerable citizens while making sure the state has the revenue needed to fund these services.

 

The current House and Senate budgets present two different visions of our common responsibility to our disadvantaged neighbors and to our environment, and two different visions of our state. The people representing you in Olympia need to know which vision you support!

 

FCWPP endorses the House budget as the vehicle that best balances our state’s educational, social service, and environmental needs, while raising the revenue needed to support these programs. 

 

The House Budget:

 

1.            Funds education as required by recent Supreme Court rulings

2.            Maintains support for early education and other support programs needed by economically challenged Washingtonians so all get the full value of the investment we make in their children’s K-12 education when they get to school

3.            Protects what remains of our social safety net after three years of cuts, putting $237 million more into human services than the Senate proposal. The House Budget also devotes $71 million to housing, including $56 million for the Housing Trust Fund in the Capital Budget.

 

Unlike the House budget, the Senate Budget:

 

1.     Cuts much of what remains of the “disability lifeline” our state once extended to aged, blind, and disabled Washingtonians by taking away $197/month that 22,000 people currently rely on for basics like toothbrushes or fix-a-dent, toilet paper, and quarters for the laundromat.

2.     Cuts $72 million from vocational education

3.     Cuts $19 million from college financial aid

4.     Cuts $17 million from community job training

5.     Transfers funding out of the Housing Trust Fund

6.     Seriously underfunds parks, so that many would have to close

7.     Maintains existing tax loopholes, and creates 13 new ones, instead of creating new revenue sources needed to comply with court mandates to increase state funding of education without eliminating additional social services.

 

We want legislators to hear a groundswell of support from their constituents to support those of us who have less.

 

Thanks for all you do.

 

Sincerely,

The FCWPP Legislative Committee

 

Contacting your legislators:

Legislators’ email addresses are in the form:  , so, for example, Sen. Rodney Tom is  Rodney.Tom@leg.wa.gov.  Or you can leave a phone message for your Senator, using the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000.  To find the names of your current legislators (several are new following the elections last November and you may be in a new legislative district due to redistricting), go to the leg.wa.gov website (http://www.leg.wa.gov/pages/home.aspx), select Find Your Legislator, and enter your street address.

 

Sample email (modify and add personal stories if you can):

Dear               ,

As a member of the Religious Society of Friends, I support the House budget as the vehicle that best balances our state’s educational needs, the health, housing, and economic needs of neighbors who are disabled or otherwise challenged, and programs to protect our environment and adequately fund state parks.

We support raising the revenue needed to support these programs, particularly the social service programs for disadvantaged Washingtonians.  The recently passed House Budget raises required revenue by closing tax exemptions and by extending the 0.3 percentage point tax on service businesses’ gross revenues.

The House Budget:

 

1.     Funds education as required by recent Supreme Court rulings

2.     Maintains support for early education and other support programs needed by economically challenged Washingtonians so all get the full value of the investment we make in their children’s K-12 education when they get to school

3.     Protects what remains of our social safety net after three years of cuts, putting $237 million more into human services than the Senate proposal. The House Budget also devotes $71 million to housing, including $56 million for the Housing Trust Fund in the Capital Budget.

The House Budget, while fiscally prudent, avoids many of the cuts in the Senate budget and makes the necessary investments for Washington’s future. I urge you to support the House budget in future legislative deliberations.

Sincerely,