It’s a great end, but the tax was fucking regressive as hell with a low eligibility threshold ($1k in annual income pays the same as someone making 7 figures?!?) and was administered in a fucking stupid way. This was known during the runup.Could have been progressively structured and easily and automatically administered.

Instead arts admins bleated it was a false dilemma and if you weren’t with them you were against them. They must have picked up the “taxation and ballot proposals for dummies” kit from Office Depot when they submitted the proposal, and the public–including the kids that were supposed to be the beneficiaries of the benefit–continues to get limited benefit for maximum cost and pain.

I imagine it hasn’t been fixed because they know it has been so unpopular and the realities of the failure are still coming in years later they’re too cowardly to try to fix it with voters.

It’s a great example of why you can’t just rely on your party/group/alliances to know whether you should support a political cause of candidate. Lots of people trying to do “the right thing” did that with the arts tax and hopefully they’ve absorbed the lesson by now. Reject garbage, ask it be made better, then approve it.