Re: “Cut the state sales tax for a brighter 2022 for all” [Jan. 9, Opinion]:
Who are the “all” who are going to find Paul Guppy’s “brighter 2022” if the Legislature uses the fiscal surplus to cut Washington sales tax this year? Will it be the more than 20,000 homeless people camping out in our communities? Will it be those who regularly travel, with trepidation, on one of Washington’s unstable 416 bridges — or those making much longer commutes around already broken bridges? What about the taxpayers who repeatedly take their cars into the shop because they have dived into craterlike potholes on streets and highways?
Or is it our children, especially those in poorer economic areas, who get a very different education in comparison with those in wealthy school districts where parents can supplement state support with auctions and donations? How about those students from all socio-economic strata who face many of the immense social and emotional problems of today? Washington state has an appalling lack of counselors, nurses and psychologists in the schools. Why are we not surprised by the epidemic of adolescent suicides?
Washington state is considered a regressive tax state because almost all of the other states have an income tax which spreads the burden of taxation more fairly over the population.
Janet Tufts, Seattle