SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Chances are California voters will be voting on raising taxes when they go to the polls this November. Proponents of the "Millionaires Tax" have begun collecting signatures for the initiative that seeks to raise income taxes on those making more than $1 million a year.



Joshua Pechthalt, president of the California Federation of Teachers, says polls have found most voters support their initiative.



"We think that it's a pretty straightforward, easy-to-understand initiative. We think the fact that people making under a million dollars won't be paying one penny more in terms of taxes for this is certainly a selling point."



Although the idea for a millionaires tax came up before the Occupy Wall Street movement, Pechthalt says the two share similar goals.



"The Occupy movement really spoke to the concerns we'd been thinking about and talking about in the planning of our initiative, so we feel that Occupy is very much in sync with the concerns that are expressed in our initiative."



The proposed "Millionaires Tax Act" is expected to raise an estimated $6 billion a year to help restore funding for schools, senior and disabled services, public safety and rebuilding roads and bridges.



As part of the campaign kickoff on Monday, supporters including high school teacher Joel Flores held banners over freeway overpasses up and down the state. Flores says that during his 16 years of teaching he's seen California go from first to worst.



"Now, it's all focused on test scores for math and for reading. And so we've seen this incredible narrowing of the curriculum that has affected the quality of our education, and a lot of layoffs throughout the state."



Governor Jerry Brown is pushing his own tax initiative to temporarily raise income taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year, as well as increase the state sales tax by half a cent.



More information is at www.cft.org



