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Which Would You Choose?

Click below to sign this petition

To Governor Gregoire, Speaker Chopp, Majority Leader Brown, and the Washington State Legislature:

We urge you to:

* Protect our economic future by preventing further erosion of the things that residents value so much about our state: quality schools, affordable health care, a safety net for the most vulnerable, affordable housing, public safety, and a clean environment.

* Adopt a balanced approach to closing the current budget shortfall that includes closing unfair tax loopholes and identifying new revenue sources to stabilize the funding for these programs in the short and long term.

What would you choose?

1. Limit kids in low-income communities to a half day of kindergarten, and
2. Kick 100,000 people off health care, and
3. Reduce transit services and delay toxic cleanups

OR

4. Close unjustified tax loopholes and find new revenue sources to prevent devastating cuts to these critical services.

This is the stark choice legislators face when they return to Olympia to decide how to close the $2.6 billion deficit the state faces due to the recession.

They are under tremendous pressure to cave into "Eymanomics" - to slash funding for critical services, hurt millions of people and put our economic future at risk. We must show them there is strong support for progressive leadership -- that voters expect them to stand up for our kids, our jobs, the vulnerable, and our environment.

That is why we are joining organizations across the state to deliver thousands of petitions to the Capitol on the first day of session urging our leaders to "help families weather the storm" and take a balanced approach to the state's financial problems. Please click on the link below to sign the petition, and forward this email to your friends and family:

http://www.fusewashington.org/page/s/2010budget

Last year the legislature cut $3.6 billion from the state budget for 2009 -2011. These substantial spending reductions have cut into the core of our education and healthcare systems, programs that support kids, the elderly and disabled, and projects that clean up toxic waste sites and protect clean air and water. An additional $2.6 billion in cuts would be devastating and include the following impacts:

100,000 additional Washington State citizens would lose their health insurance - including 16,000 children - and the total number of uninsured in our state will top one million;
Class sizes would swell, early learning programs for children under 5 will be cut, school districts across the state will lose funding and more than 10,000 students will be priced out of a college education;
85,000 seniors would lose the assistance that makes their medication affordable;
50,000 pregnant mothers would lose critical prenatal support;
The state would abandon programs to protect clean water and clean up toxic pollution;
Working parents across the state would lose access to childcare, threatening their ability to work

Fortunately there is a better way forward! We can take a more balanced approach by closing unjustified tax loopholes and raise other sources of revenue to fund these programs.

To prevent these devastating cuts the Governor and Legislature need to hear from you! Our goal is to generate 3,000 signatures by Sunday.

Take action by clicking on the link below:

http://www.fusewashington.org/page/s/2010budget