Why I'm voting for Satpal Sidhu

"...50,000 people fall into poverty every year in our state. This is what income inequality looks like. The top 10 percent are getting the economic recovery. 90% are falling behind...People working 60 or 70 hours a week can not make it. It's not the policy, it's income inequality."  Satpal Sidhu  from 2014 Human Services Debate from COB Youtube 

How often do you get the chance to vote for a Fullbright Scholar in Whatcom County? How often do you get the chance to vote for a Fullbright Scholar in any event? But Satpal Sidhu is far more than this. He is an engineer, businessman, educator, and long time Whatcom County resident. What I like most about him is the way he combines discussions of social equality with business growth and the promotion of education.  It's a troika of issues that are less and less promoted together as important policy objectives as national politics have become more polarized.
Wealth and income equality are not taboo subjects for Satpal Sidhu.  Instead, he sees these problems as issues that can be solved with greater commitment to education and community. Satpal reminds me of those classic post New Deal Democrats I grew up with in the S.F. Bay Area like Phil Burton, Willie Brown and Jerry Brown. These were politicians who were unafraid to promote both business growth and government as solutions to inequality.

"We should understand that our population in WA state is growing.. asking for more service because of the increase in population. The biggest thing we need to do is reform our sales tax. It's regressive, unfair to low income families. The same as B&O taxes. We have [approximately] 40 types of B&O taxes... We should have a ten year sunset on [tax breaks]... If they are simple..otherwise we should review." Satpal Sidhu  from 2014 Human Services Debate from COB Youtube 

Historically, most of the vast wealth and growth of the West Coast has been built by combining a  liberal and imaginative political class with the creativity of an entrepreneurial mindset. It's never perfect, but when it works it creates Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Apple, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Steve Jobs, Andy Grove, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. And Skunk Works, Boeing, Bank of America, Chevron and many, many others.  This combination of energy and intellect is very familiar to both the residents of San Jose, San Francisco, and Seattle and is the main reason those cities have the lowest unemployment rates of any major urban areas in America (with the possible exception of Washington, D.C.). The educational drivers of those high energy intellects have names like UCLA, Berkeley, Stanford, UW and many other private, state and community colleges.

Marxists like myself can hardly deny the power of these achievements or the profound intellectual environments the modern capitalist state has created here on the West Coast. Without leaders like Satpal Sidhu to nourish, maintain and apply the benefits of this high energy intellectual achievement fairly and justly, even the most profitable economies will collapse under the weight of their own lopsided accumulation of wealth.  Vote Satpal Sidhu for the 42nd District. Please remember to Vote!