Blame it on what you want – populism, unionism, patriotism – but Oregon voters, for the first time in 80 years, voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Both measures passed at roughly 54 percent to 46 percent.
As tax measures go, this was a blowout.
This election sends a powerful message to the rest of the nation as it suffers during this Great Recession: freedom isn’t free. You want something, you gotta pay for it.
Oregonians said two main things with this election: 1) that they care about their state and the vital services they receive, and 2) they affirmed the role of the Legislature to enact laws. If you don’t like the legislators, vote for different ones next time.
Unfortunately, we just wasted millions that the state doesn’t have on an election brought about by out-of-state anti-tax groups who bought signatures to place the measures on the ballot. Deschutes County just flushed away nearly $90,000 to fund an election that should never have taken place at all. The anti-tax crowd just showed how they love to waste taxpayers’ money.
Measure 66 raises income taxes on individuals making more than $125,000 per year and families making more than $250,000 per year. This affects less than 3 percent of Oregon’s population.
Measure 67 raises the corporate minimum tax from $10 to $150. The tax hasn’t been raised since 1931.
Yes, Deschutes County voters, like most rural and less populated areas, defeated the measures by 41 percent to 59 percent. But this hardly matters. News flash: Juniper trees don’t vote, people do. And, the vast majority of the most-educated, best-informed citizens live in the Portland area and down the I-5 corridor.
Yes, Oregon’s income tax is one of highest in the nation, but the overall tax burden is one of the lowest in the country and the state consistently ranks in the top 10 as being favorable to business, according to the Tax Foundation. That fact has not brought Fortune 500 companies to the state. In fact, having an overall tax burden that favors business has kept companies away. The reason: Oregon, because of its aversion to high taxes, (it has voted nine times against a sales tax) has not invested in the necessary infrastructure – mainly higher education – that would attract a major corporation.
Ironically, because the electorate voted for their best interests, the state’s bond rating will improve. This will allow the state to borrow more money at favorable rates to fund massive infrastructure projects, which will create numerous jobs and make the state more attractive to major corporations.
One of the biggest losers in this election was corporate media that overwhelmingly opposed both measures and used their bully pulpits relentlessly to slant their coverage. Extra! Extra! Few care what newspapers think! That has got to hurt. In fact, this election shows how irrelevant newspapers have become.
Oregon, as it has done with the bottle bill, land-use laws and assisted suicide, leads the nation in a time when leadership is needed. Now is the time to enact new taxes on banks and brokerages. In fact, a 5-cent surcharge on each stock transaction would solve our deficit rather quickly since more than a billion transactions occur daily. This would also put a damper on speculators who caused our current financial disaster.
Some call this "class warfare." But the rich won that battle long ago as billionaire Warren Buffett has noted.
Yes, unions did outspend their anti-tax counterparts in Tuesday’s election, but it was the message that resonated with voters.
The majority of voters, most of whom are non-union workers, realized that they’ve been screwed over by the companies they work for. A recent study from the Oregon Employment Dept. showed the gap widening between the wealthy and the middle class, according to the Associated Press. Annual wages for the top 2 percent increased 29.5 percent from 1990 to 2008, after adjusting for inflation. Workers at the 50th percentile, meanwhile, saw an increase of just 2.4 percent during that span after adjusting for inflation. And earnings from investments weren’t even used in the calculations.
As Bryce Ward, a senior economist for the Portland-based consulting firm ECONorthwest told The Oregonian, “There’s been no growth in a decade for the middle.”
And the “middle,” with raised middle fingers, just told their bosses what they think with Tuesday’s vote.
It’s what the middle class needs to say all across this land. You want to move your plant to Mexico? Fine. You want to cut wages while increasing yours? Fine. Bailed-out banks dole out billions in bonuses? Fine. But, we’re going to tax you to hell for doing so.
The blogosphere is filled with bogus statements on how the rich are now going to race across the Columbia River to Vancouver, Wash, where there is no state income tax. The response of many on the blogs sums it up succinctly: Don’t let the door hit your ass as you flee the state. In other words: Good riddance.
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