King County Elections - Steve Rubenstein - Governor Candidacy Statement lyrics

Elected Experience: I have not previously run for office. Other Professional Experience: Founded first company in college to develop CRM and later auction software. Sold it in 2001. Cofounded second company in 2000. Like LendingTree, but for business and commercial real-estate loans. Focused on consulting recently to spend time with my children. Education: Graduated from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with dual concentrations in Entrepreneurial Management and Information Systems, 1996. Community Service: Coached startups and nonprofits for competition for socially-oriented companies. Volunteered with Sierra Club for coal export terminal hearings. Six years as President of neighborhood HOA. PTA Dad! Statement: I am running for Governor because I no longer have any faith that the other candidates (or the parties themselves) have both the courage and the heart to truly solve the challenges faced by this State. Washington has the most regressive tax structure in the nation, which disproportionately hurts low-income residents and causes State revenue to plummet during a recession. Education and mental health are woefully underfunded. The current education funding method creates significant differences in school quality, leading to continued income disparity. Neither candidate has a plan to address these issues, nor has an attempt even been made by either party! To fully fund education and other programs, we need an income tax and capital gains tax on upper-income residents. This will provide more stable revenue and enable us to lower the sales tax to help low-income residents. We also need to raise the minimum wage. No one who works full-time should be unable to meet their basic needs. I am a treehugger. But instead of getting distracted by an idealistic carbon tax, I will focus on issues that directly impact residents, such as poisoning of our air, land and waterways. Despite our environmental image, the federal EPA actually admonished the State for not setting a reasonable standard for polluting salmon-bearing streams! Other priorities include providing free access to (taxpayer-owned) State Parks and reforming drug laws to treat d** as a public health issue, not a criminal issue -- which only leads to violence and racially-disproportionate ma** incarceration. To ensure proper representation for all citizens, particularly minorities, local governments should move away from at-large voting to geographically-defined districts. I live in Snohomish County in Bothell with my wife, two dogs and two children. I respectfully ask for your support.