From the
Washington Post (emphasis added):
The business establishment here, with Starbucks pitching in about $50,000, paid for a campaign called Joined in Opposition to the Latte Tax. JOLT poked fun at the tax, even as it praised the idea of spending more on low-income, preschool children.
"Child care is too important an issue to be funded by a single group of people," said Andrea Lehwalder, a spokeswoman for JOLT. "This vote means that Seattle voters care about kids, but they agree that this is no way to fund child care."
That is not what Tuesday's vote means, according to John Burbank, who came up with the idea of the latte tax and is executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute, a local public policy group.
"This was a test of the willingness of Seattle voters to tax themselves for an important public good," he said. "I think that test was failed."
Burbank complained that the Seattle City Council, after heavy lobbying by the Chamber of Commerce and companies such as Starbucks, intentionally sabotaged the tax by putting it on the ballot in an off-year primary, when turnout is low and voters are generally more conservative.
"This was a tax that was purposefully designed to fall on upper-income people," he said. "If people had objectively looked at this tax, they would have seen it as a well-thought-out form of revenue in a state that doesn't have an income tax."
So liberals aren't required to vote in off year elections?
