Molly Munger isn't backing down in her effort to qualify a ballot measure that would hike taxes to provide more money to schools and early education programs.
The wealthy civil rights attorney and education advocate, who has already put $800,000 of her own cash into a campaign committee for the initiative, said today that she's willing to bankroll the qualification campaign, an effort that can cost upwards of $2 million.
"We're going to get this on the ballot and we're going to win," she told reporters.
Munger outlined her proposal, which would raise an estimated $10 billion annually by increasing state income tax rates for most Californians, in a noon address to attendees of the Parent Teacher Association's legislative conference in Sacramento.
She framed her tax proposal, which would sunset after 12 years without reauthorization by voters, as the best way to make sure schools and other early education programs receive the funding they need to serve children throughout the state. The bulk of the tax dollars raised under her proposal would go directly to school districts and early childhood development programs, creating a revenue stream that would come on top of school funding levels dictated by Proposition 98. One version of the initiative language, which she said she is leaning toward pursuing, would use some of those revenues to repay bond debt for the first several years.
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