Though Prop 1 closed its initial gap from 10 points to just two points with today's ballot drop, a spokesman for the measure conceded victory today.

The small sales tax of .1 percent would have radically transformed King County in terms of access to arts, science, and cultural heritage education, but a few backdoor virgins in sensible shoes reframed the bill as a money grab for large arts institutions, and the measure ultimately sank by approximately 9,000+ votes.

In the press release, the Prop 1 spokesman says the coalition will return, "whatever that might look like":

We always knew it would be tough, and the complexities of this year’s election didn’t favor us. But we’ll be back, and we’ll keep fighting until every student in King County has access to life-changing arts, science and heritage education. As I’ve said, we didn’t give up in Olympia, we didn’t give up in the King County Council, and we’re not giving up today.

Some mustachioed cranks will likely point to this rejection as evidence that King County is FINALLY tired of passing regressive taxes on itself. That may be.

But more likely it's evidence that people don't like voting for prevention. Prevention's not sexy. People want to give money to organizations who are fighting homelessness on a mass scale now, not give money to prevent—albeit in silent and hard-to-measure ways—kids from becoming insecurely housed in the first place, as the superintendent of Kent, Calvin J. Watts, argued in the Seattle Times.

Speaking of the Seattle Times: Though the paper did do some fine reporting on the proposition, the editorial board phoned in some bullshit and repeatedly misrepresented the bill and what it would mean for King County's 280,000 students. They should be ashamed at the laziness of their arguments, as should any well-off asshole who wouldn't vote for the bill on behalf of poor people who stood up in county council meetings and said they wanted it.

Passing regressive taxes for stuff we want—stuff that we need to build the society we want to live in—is supposed to hurt. That's the whole point of Republicans making and keeping Washington's tax code as regressive as possible: It's supposed to make us hate ourselves for taxing ourselves. If we hate ourselves enough, we won't tax ourselves anymore, and soon enough, as the Times suggested in their rejection, we'll all just rely on "those who can afford to give their money freely" to give their money freely. If you were one of the "tax fatigued" who fell for that argument, take a nap and get ready to fight for the movement to institute a state income tax, or else you're going stay tired.