Soaking the rich to pay for schools?

It’s called the Invest in Education Act, a call for Arizonans to invest more money in the schools.

Just not their own. Money, that is. Instead, the Arizona Education Association and others are hoping to nearly double the tax rate on the top 1 percent of taxpayers, putting all of the burden to boost school funding on the people who have the nerve to make more than $250,000 a year.

Apparently, “their fair share” of increasing funding for our schools is … all of it.

“Ninety-nine percent of Arizona will not see any kind of tax increase,” said David Lujan, director of the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, which is pushing to put the proposal on the November ballot.

The thus-far unannounced coalition of groups backing the proposal has until July 5 to collect the valid signatures of 150,642 voters. They’ll need 200,000 signatures to make it happen.

That’s going to take big money. Lujan is hoping that #RedforEd will get behind the plan. He expects a campaign that costs $5 million to $6 million.

From where that money will come, we don’t yet know. Lujan promised there would be no “dark money” funding the campaign.

It used to be — say, like about last month — that Democratic legislators were fine with sales taxes for schools. They even proposed raising the 0.6 percent sales tax for schools to a full 1 percent last year.

But that’s all changed in recent weeks, as Democratic voters have become more energized and the #RedforEd movement has teachers taking to the streets, understandably frustrated by a decade’s worth of neglect.

Thus comes the Invest in Education Act, which popped up on Friday.

Under the proposal, those who make $250,000 a year ($500,000 for a couple) would see their state incometax rate rise from 4.54 percent to 8 percent. Those who earn $500,000 or more ($1 million for a couple) would see their rate nearly double, to 9 percent.

Lujan says that it’s is all about balancing an out-of-whack tax structure that is too dependent on sales taxes — one that has left low-income Arizonans paying far more in taxes as a percentage of their income than the wealthy.

Indeed, 40 percent of Arizona taxpayers — those who earn an average of $28,300 a year or less — pay disproportionately more in taxes, according to a 2015 analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

But the thing I can’t figure out is why the rest of us — those who earn between, say, $50,000 and $250,000 — are not being called to Invest in Education.

I asked Lujan how they determined that the full load of increasing school funding should fall only on those who

earn more than 250,000 a year.

“We looked at different options and we felt like this was the one that’s going to have strong support by people in Arizona,” he replied. “And again, it’s about asking those who can most afford it to do it without (the poor) shouldering the burden.”

Me: Can’t people who earn $100,000 or $150,000 or $200,000 afford to help shoulder the burden?

Lujan: “We think this (proposal) is going to be a viable solution that voters are going to support.”

Me: In other words, voters will only support increased school funding if they don’t have to pay for it?

Lujan: “I think, yes. I think we’ve seen that if people are going to have their taxes raised, they’re less likely to support something.”

So, to recap, the only sure way to properly fund our schools is to soak the rich? To expect 1 percent of Arizona taxpayers to pony up an extra $690 million a year while the rest of us (me included) are off the hook?

I understand how we got here, with deep cuts to corporate taxes and far too many tax credits that suck up money before it ever reaches the state treasury. With state leaders more concerned with boosting private schools than in supporting the public schools attended by 95 percent of Arizona students.

But this plan seems like a bad idea on so many levels. I’ll touch on two. 1. It’s not fair.

If we all agree that Arizona’s schools are underfunded, then it seems like we all should be a part of the solution. At least, all of us fortunate enough to make a good living.

It may be fun to stick it to millionaires, but it isn’t right that they should have to pick up 100 percent of the tab to improve funding for the schools. 2. This proposal is a big risk.

Lujan says his polling shows that 60 percent of voters will jump on the idea of having somebody else pick up the increased tab for schools. I don’t doubt it.

But I wonder whether those numbers will hold after Gov. Doug Ducey and the business community launch an all-out assault on this plan.

Once they start talking about the impact on small businesses that are the backbone of this state. Once they describe the impact of having a top income-tax rate that approaches nearly twice the rate of any state anywhere near us (except California).

Thanks to our leaders’ leadership, Arizona’s schools desperately need a new source of funding. But engaging in class warfare to get it?

I’m predicting a bloodbath and in the end, who will likely be hurt?

Students, who will have lost their best chance in a decade of seeing a proper investment in their education.