Project 42: It is an income tax, not a millionaire’s tax

Dann Mead Smith, a co-founder of Project 42, and Leslie Lewallen, director of the Clark County Chapter of Future 42, discussed ways for citizens to challenge the state’s new income tax law during a gathering Monday night in Battle Ground. Photo by Paul Valencia

Dann Mead Smith, one of the founders of Project 42, was in Clark County on Monday to rally folks into supporting ways to challenge the state’s new income tax law, and one way is to remind citizens that it is a fallacy to say the new tax will only affect millionaires

Paul Valencia
Clark County Today

It is not a millionaire’s tax.

It is an income tax.

That is the message that one of the founders of Project 42 gave during his presentation Monday in Battle Ground at an event hosted by the Clark County Chapter of Future 42.

Dann Mead Smith is advising folks to stop referring to the new tax, which was signed by Washington governor Bob Ferguson on Monday, as a tax that will only affect millionaires. It is an income tax that starts with a standard deduction of $1 million but that can easily become a lower number with just a simple vote by the legislature.

Critics of the new law predict that if the new tax survives legal challenges, the standard will be lowered and lowered, and before too long, it will become an income tax for just about all Washington residents.

“This is the most important issue our state has seen for years,” Mead Smith said at a happy hour presentation held at Tukes Taphouse in Battle Ground. “It will completely reshape Washington State, our state economy, businesses, and people in this room. We want to take this very, very seriously.”

Mead Smith highlighted a strategy to fight the new law.

He announced a lawsuit that will soon be filed by the Citizens Action Defense Fund.
Project 42 will support, through recruitment and training, Supreme Court candidates with constitutional values. (Many who are against the income tax say that an income tax is against the state’s constitution.)
Let’s Go Washington might battle the income tax with the ballot initiative process.
A focus on key legislative races.

The mission is to get information to voters, and not just to the conservative base.

“Our focus of Project 42 a lot of times is on the independent voters, the persuadable center,” Mead Smith said. “They’re the ones who decide elections.”

There are plenty in the center, he said, who are disappointed in the new income tax. He has the numbers to prove it.

He noted that there is an opportunity for the public to weigh in on every single bill that comes up in the state house and senate. Some bills don’t even get 100 online comments. Some might get 1,000.

This year, there were more than 160,000 who went online to voice their displeasure with the house and senate bills.

Leslie Lewallen, director of the Clark County Chapter of Future 42, described it as “historic participation.”

Now, it is time for Project 42, and its branches such as Future 42, to get the word out that there are ways to fight the new law. There will be a new Supreme Court that will help decide the issue, Mead Smith said, for example. The new law does not take effect until 2028.

Lewellan noted that Seattle and Portland did not become what Seattle and Portland are today overnight. It took a concerted effort from progressives.

Project 42 wants conservatives and independents in Washington to unite, to turn the state around from liberal policies that hurt the economy and its citizens.

“That is what Project 42 is working so hard at doing, creating an infrastructure so we can build on that, and we can win and we can return to common sense,” Lewallen said.

For more information on Clark County Future 42 or Project 42, contact Lewallen at leslie@pfortytwo.com.

Or go to:

Future42.org