Dear Fellow Taxpayer:
Thanks to your months of hard work, persistence, and consistent financial support, on July 3, the Initiative 985 campaign submitted nearly 290,000 voter signatures to the Secretary of State’s office in Olympia – we needed 224,880. There’s no doubt that this guarantees I-985 will be on the November ballot. We couldn’t be happier. We really appreciate everyone’s extraordinary effort. We look forward to advocating for its approval by voters this fall.
I-985 the Reduce Traffic Congestion Initiative swift-kicks Olympia in the shins
Taxpayers are tapped out. We’re sick and tired of tax increases and we’re sick and tired of politicians refusing to fix public policy problems because they say we’re not paying enough. We’re already paying more than our fair share – the problem is politicians aren’t spending our tax dollars effectively. State Auditor Brian Sonntag’s performance audit on transportation exposed Olympia’s screw-ups and his audit recommendations form the basis for I-985’s policies. These common sense reforms will significantly improve transportation WITHOUT RAISING TAXES. I-985 will:
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illustrates the public's support for making reducing traffic congestion a top transportation priority
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opens up carpool lanes to everyone during non-peak hours
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requires local governments to synchronize traffic lights on heavily-traveled arterials and streets
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clears out accidents faster with expanded emergency roadside assistance
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uses a portion of vehicle sales tax revenue for these policies
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removes the profit motive for red light cameras
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replaces the percentage spent from transportation funds on public art to instead go toward reducing congestion
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institutes critical taxpayer protections on future tolls; and
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empowers the State Auditor to monitor the implementation of the initiative's policies to ensure compliance.
And maybe most important of all, I-985’s passage will tell politicians that voters demand that Olympia start implementing ALL of Auditor Sonntag’s performance audit recommendations under the authority that voters granted him with our 2005 initiative I-900. So far, he’s done 9 audit reports, made 434 recommendations, totaling $3.2 billion in POTENTIAL tax savings. How many of his recommendations has Olympia implemented? ZERO. ZIP. NADA. It’s a complete outrage. I-985 swift-kicks Olympia in the shins and says “if you won’t adopt the State Auditor’s common sense recommendations, the voters are gonna do it for ya!” In other words, I-985 is a no-new-taxes transportation proposal that also reinforces the power and effect of the 900 Pound Gorilla.
IT’S AN INCREDIBLY EFFECTIVE ONE-TWO PUNCH.
We’ve never been more effective at protecting the initiative process
Before the legislative session even started, we began writing columns, letters, and emails warning of the Legislature’s upcoming efforts to gut the initiative process. We made a concerted effort to organize and coordinate a citizen-led strategy to stop their legislative assault on the right to initiative. Passionate, well-informed testimony was provided by us and other citizens at every legislative hearing relating to every anti-initiative bill. Thanks to the hard work and enthusiasm of our supporters, we were ultimately successful. Numerous bills were pushed to severely limit the initiative process and when the dust settled, all of them were killed. Stopping Olympia again from damaging the people’s initiative was a tremendous victory.
We’ve been working hard for taxpayers for a long time
For the past ten years, Jack, Mike, and I have devoted an enormous amount of our time, effort, and hard work fighting for the taxpayers of Washington. We’ve worked together and built an incredibly effective team of leaders and identified and energized a broad network of supporters willing to take on the most powerful special interests in politics. And despite their best efforts to convince voters otherwise, the great majority of voters have repeatedly agreed with our common-sense ideas of increased accountability, greater transparency, and reasonable limits on governments’ power over us.
Our taxpayer protection initiatives have saved taxpayers over $11 billion so far. By working together, our efforts have resulted in dramatically lower vehicle tab fees, tighter limits on property tax increases, performance audits of state and local governments, better protection of the initiative process, limits on government affirmative action involving preferential treatment, and a smaller King County Council. We’ve fought against anti-taxpayer proposals in Olympia and at the ballot box and thanks especially to last year’s I-960, we’ve made it a whole lot tougher for politicians to raise taxes.
We continue to learn, adapt, and persevere. We win some, we lose some, but we never stop fighting. We always must – and we always will – stay on offense. In every way possible, we’re fighting for taxpayers.
Now we ask you to please help us
Jack, Mike, and I only receive compensation from voluntary donations. We rely on our thousands of supporters to contribute to Help Us Help Taxpayers, a stand-alone campaign account that compensates us for our effective political work. This is completely unique. In the political world, no one organizes things this way. Everyone else earns either a fixed salary or a percentage of the funds raised from the campaign. We don’t do that.
We don’t decide our worth, you do.
Like I said, this is unique. But frankly, we’re proud of it. We only receive what our supporters decide to give. And all of you are asked to contribute only AFTER the initiative’s signature drive is over, ensuring that 100% of your contributions to the signature drive get spent on the signature drive. To say the least, it’s an extremely risky way to be compensated because we must rely on everyone’s voluntary participation.
Our program is based on faith – your faith in us – and our faith in you.
So, if you appreciate our past and current efforts and want us to continue fighting for taxpayers, please send us your most generous contribution. You can use our menu above to contribute by PayPal or VISA or MasterCard (www.VotersWantMoreChoices).
Either way, please send in your most generous donation RIGHT NOW. And please consider a monthly pledge through the end of December for our fund. We ask you to please help us help taxpayers.
Congratulations on getting I-985 on the ballot – we look forward to working with all of you to get it approved by voters. As for our compensation fund, we would be extremely grateful for any financial assistance you can offer. Thanks.
Best Regards, Tim Eyman, Jack Fagan, & Mike Fagan, Fighting for Taxpayers for Ten Years
P.S. There are thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and special interest groups working each and every day to raise your taxes. Shouldn’t there be at least one person, one team, one organization that fights to lower your taxes? Please help us so we can continue our successful efforts on behalf of taxpayers.
