- Leaked!
Mark Funk, spokesman for Defeat 1098, says the leaked anti-income-tax-initiative script that I posted yesterday morning provides a solid critique of Bill Gates Sr.'s plan to tax the filthy rich.
“It’s factual," Funk told me by phone late yesterday afternoon. "And, contrast that to the Yes on 1098 campaign commercial that doesn’t even mention that it’s an income tax proposal—ours is factual.”
Will the ad be airing? "Dunno," Funk said. But he was eager to swing back at Yes on 1098 spokesman Sandeep Kaushik's attempted takedown of the ad script.
Kaushik told me the ad, which talks about 1098 imposing "an income tax on the people who are creating the jobs in Washington," was an example of "discredited" trickle-down economic theory.
Funk said Kaushik was engaging in "“tired old Reaganeer rhetoric," and he pointed to a survey by the Association of Washington Businesses that said 1098 would hurt job growth. "We have voted on income taxes before in Washington State," Funk said. "There hasn’t been a lot of popular sentiment for them. I think you’re going to find even less popular sentiment for this one the more people learn about it.”
UPDATE: Kaushik responds:
I don't know what "Reaganeer" means.
The Defeat 1098 campaign is being run by an organization that represents some of the state's wealthiest executives and venture capitalists. It's not a surprise that those individuals don't want to pay more in taxes. But they don't speak for small businesses, which will be exempted from paying the B&O tax if 1098 is approved by the voters. The measure will newly exempt 118,000 small businesses across the state from the B&O, and cut taxes for an additional 39,000. That is going to boost our economy and create jobs.
