Many critical support systems for kids in our state faced potentially devastating cuts when the 2010 legislative session started. We knew that protecting vital services for children and families was not going to be easy.

But we’ve never been ones to shy away from a challenge.

Day in and day out, we worked to make sure that lawmakers did right by kids. In the end, the Children’s Alliance played a pivotal role in the successful push for:

• Nearly $800 million in new state revenue.
• Full protection of Apple Health for Kids.
• A stronger commitment to early learning for infants and toddlers and a path toward preschool for all.
• Meals for kids in child care, schools and during summertime.
• Continued support for the work of a committee studying how to remedy racial disproportionality in the state’s child welfare system.

Read our 2010 Legislative Session Review for an in-depth look at all we accomplished for kids, setbacks we fought hard to prevent, and the next steps we’re taking to keep children and families at the top of our lawmakers’ priority lists.

– Liz Gillespie

In this minute-long audio slideshow aimed at our state’s lawmakers, Seattle high schooler Daniel Perlmutter makes a common-sense plea for taxing candy and soda to pay for kids' health care. It’s simple, he says.

“Candy … it’s fun, but it’s not food. Yet our tax laws treat candy like bananas, bread and milk. That’s preposterous!”

Candy is not food. So Washington’s tax law shouldn’t treat it like it is. Soda is loaded with calories and has zero nutritional value. A penny-per-ounce tax could raise substantial revenues to protect vital medical and dental care programs for children and families across our state.