2015

Support increased revenue to reduce climate disruption and provide for our poorest neighbors Please e-mail your legislators (two reps; one senator) today. Request they support a capital gains excise tax and carbon pollution market program to provide increased funding needed for education, needed to repair our shredded social safety net, and needed to address climate disruption that is destroying our planet's ability to keep us alive. Also, ask your legislators let you know how they intend to vote. Click FCWPP if you need assistance sending email to your legislators. Please feel free to use the information below (or from linked resources) to personalize your email correspondence. BACKGROUND Additional revenue is needed for the state to both fund basic education as required by the Supreme Court McCleary decision AND reduce poverty and homelessness by restoring social safety net funding cut during the now ended recession. Senate Republicans assert the state needs…

Send Legislators an email today One thing is clear as legislative budget negotiators continue their deliberations: our current regressive tax system (most regressive in the nation according to The Seattle Times) does not provide the revenue needed to fully fund education, repair our shredded social safety net, and maintain funding for programs that survived the recently ended recession. One unfunded proposal FCWPP lobbied for this session was to restore the 15 percent cut made in 2011 to grants for Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). This would have increased the current grant of $462/month for a family of three to $562/month. This has so far not appeared in any budget proposal. Five proposals address the issues of insufficient revenue and regressive taxation with capital gains taxes on gains in excess of $500,000/couple/year ($250,000/individual): The Governor’s proposed budget with a 7 percent capital gains tax The House's proposed budget with a…

Washington will have to spend $290 million on a new prison, if this one last criminal justice bill is not in the budget. SB 5755 (or its companion: HB1885) is necessary to implement the budget (NTIB) and required if we are to reduce the trend of a year after year increase in the number of people we incarcerate in our state. SB 5755 provides local law enforcement grants to reduce property crimes (Washington has the highest property rate in the nation) and reduce the number of people we put in prison. SB 5755 also reinstates community custody and supervision (aka “probation”) to support, encourage, or coerce treatment of alcohol and substance abuse, or mental illness, which are contributing problems for more than 80 percent of the people committing property crimes. This will reduce the number of people who commit additional property crimes in our state. Please send your representatives and…

Dear Friends of FCWPP, You are invited to participate in the spring meeting of the Steering Committee of Friends Committee on Washington Public Policy (FCWPP).  The meeting will be at 7 pm on Friday April 24 at Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting (PNQM), at Lazy F camp near Ellensburg.  We'll be meeting in the dining hall. So, if you are coming to worship and network with Friends at Quarterly Meeting, this is an opportunity to network about social justice issues important to Friends and review what happened in the legislative session -- what worked out well and what didn't.  We will discuss plans for future advocacy work and hear what members of Monthly Meetings and Worship Groups are doing relating to FCWPP. We are hoping to get more Friends involved in public policy efforts ... like, perhaps, you! If you can't make it to Quarterly Meeting and have input/feedback regarding FCWPP's work,…

Dear FCWPP Activist: The Environmental Stewardship and Peace Working Group asks your support for efforts to protect the public from oil transportation accidents by today contacting the two people who represent you in the state house and the one representing you in the state senate. Both the house and the senate have passed separate, and different, bills to address this issue. Each bill is now being amended and considered in the opposite chamber. Ask your two reps and senator to support HB 1449 as it was passed by the House. This bill protects the public, our environment, and property from injuries, damage, or death caused by accidents involving oil being transported by rail and water. Inform your legislators the increased risks to life and the environment allowed by SB 5057 as it passed the senate are unacceptable, and emphasize that you support the more comprehensive requirements for safety and culpability…