More than 30 business groups, including Associated Oregon Industries and Associated General Contractors, are opposing myriad tax hike proposals that Oregon lawmakers will consider this month.
The Alliance of Oregon Business Associations said it opposes changes to the corporate minimum tax, a new corporate income tax and a new personal income tax. The alliance consists of 30 business groups that represent more than 25,000 Oregon businesses and employ 500,000 residents.
Raising the taxes could cause the state to lose 6,000 jobs, according to state revenue office estimates.
"These proposals ignore the stark realities of our current recession," the group said in a news release sent by J.L. Wilson, a lobbyist with Associated Oregon Industries. "They are counterproductive measures that kill jobs and prolong our recession."
Oregon workers no doubt appreciate the sympathy of the Oregon Association of Industries for their plight during this recession, but it turns out the stark reality is that only North Carolina taxes businesses less than Oregon does (we're actually tied with Connecticut, at 3.7%, compared to the nationwide average of 4.9%).
A new study funded by big corporations found that Oregon has the second lowest state and local business taxes among all states and the District of Columbia and that businesses get a better deal for the taxes they pay in Oregon than just about anywhere else in the country.
The study's data suggest that Oregon's state and local business taxes are so low that the state could raise business taxes by $1.6 billion annually and still be in line with state and local business taxes nationwide, according to OCPP executive director Charles Sheketoff. [...]
"The big business lobby says that Oregon is one of the cheapest states in the nation when it comes to taxes," said Sheketoff.
David Sarasohn is right to say it's time for Oregon corporations to man up; the days of the corporation doing $30 million in business in Oregon while paying the $10 minimum corporate tax have run their course:
It's just possible, after all, that a company doing $30 million in business in Oregon is getting $45,000 in services from the state, which pays for about 70 percent of Oregon public schools, a diminishing but still noticeable part of the higher education budget, the entire corrections system and the state's human services safety net. [...]
Over the past two decades, in fact, business's piece of the Oregon tax burden has been shrinking steadily. That's been a national pattern, but Oregon has been out a little bit ahead of it. In 1971-73, corporate taxes totaled 10.9 percent of Oregon revenues; now they're just 5.8 percent.
As state Legislative Revenue Officer Paul Warner points out, Oregon's basic tax structure helps businesses; nationally, corporations pay about 25 percent of sales taxes, and less than 10 percent of income taxes.
Business has also gotten a huge property tax break from Measure 5, transferring most of the cost of schools from local property taxes, almost half paid by businesses, to state income taxes, overwhelmingly paid by individuals. For more than 15 years after Measure 5, residential property values went up faster than commercial values, shifting the balance further.
Ginny Burdick, D-Portland and Senate Revenue Committee Chair, also points out the considerable cost of the state business energy tax credit, which in some cases leads businesses to claim a tax credit bigger than the size of their project.
Oregon deer, elk, antelope, bighorn sheep and Rocky Mountain goats got a stay--or a head-start, depending on how you look at it--when a computer glitch at the OR Dept. of Fish & Wildlife pushed back the deadline for controlled hunt tag applications. As a result, lucky hunters will be mailed their tags starting July 1st, rather than the usual June 20th.
So, to the big game of Oregon: Pack light, clean out the ATM, dye your hair, shave your beard, and hit the road. You've got three weeks. If Dr. Richard Kimball can do it, so can you.
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Oregon is one step away from joining Minnesota, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Washington in blocking implementation of the "Real ID" program created during the Bush Administration.
Lawmakers in Oregon's House of Representatives approved a bill on Friday [5/29/09] that would prohibit agencies from spending state money to implement the requirements of the Real ID Act unless the federal government reimburses them the money.
The bill, which now heads to the governor for his signature, would also prevent the state Department of Transportation from implementing requirements of the Real ID Act unless it can demonstrate specific security controls for protecting driver's license data. The bill passed the Senate in April.
I'd prefer that "Real ID" lose on its civil libertarian merits (or lack of same)--it amounts to an national identity card, and it will promote the aggregation of private information in notoriously insecure databases. But if it has to lose on the grounds that it's an unfounded federal mandate--ironically, a favorite objection of law 'n' order conservatives, but a reasonable objection when states are struggling to make ends meet anyway--so be it.
Another interesting demonstration that elections matter:
The growing number of states blocking Real ID is sure to increase the pressure on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is responsible for overseeing the standard, to either drop the initiative or somehow make it more acceptable to states. It's a particularly tricky balancing act for the Obama administration because DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano was among the first to reject Real ID as former governor of Arizona.
Driven at least partly by the continued climb in crude oil prices, Oregon gas prices jumped almost 15¢/gal this week, to $2,715/gal. That's over 40¢/gal more than we were paying a month ago.
(AAA of Oregon/Idaho, where the tank is always half full rather than half empty, charts a similar jump, although they peg the average pump price this week at $2.53/gal.)
Cheapest pump price: $2.49/gal at the Arco, 3521 Gateway St & Beltline Rd., in Springfield.
Highest pump price: $2.89/gal from those curve-breakers at HP Car Wash, 1796 Willamette St & W 18th Ave, in Eugene.
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Before we start smugly asking "what's wrong with Kansas?", remember: The story of the political assassination this week of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita has an Oregon connection, specifically to one former Grants Pass resident:
Shelley Shannon is a Christian anti-abortion activist. She shot George Tiller outside his church in 1993. He was hit in both arms but survived.
At the time, Shannon had written letters of support for Michael Griffin, another anti-abortion activist who murdered Dr. David Gunn in Florida in 1993.
She called Griffin "The awesomest (sic.,) greatest hero of our time."
At her trial for attempted murder, Shannon said there was nothing immoral about trying to kill Tiller.
In 1995, she also pleaded guilty to setting fires at several abortion clinics in Oregon, California and Nevada.
Oregon ranked No. 32 among all states in foreclosures during the first quarter of 2009, according to a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Of the state's 636,000 mortgages, 2.21 percent are in foreclosure, the highest rate since the late 1980s.
The state's percentage of seriously delinquent loans - those more than 90 days past due - rose from 3.17 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 to 4.21 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Foreclosure starts increased from 0.77 percent to 0.90 percent.
Nationwide, the rate of foreclosures hit a record high, a fact the Mortgage Bankers Association said is "sobering, but not unexpected."
Foreclosure actions were initiated on 1.37 percent of first mortgages during the first quarter, while the delinquency rate jumped to a seasonally adjusted 9.12 percent, up from 7.88 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, according to the industry group.
"Sobering, but not unexpected." That's comforting, I suppose.
When times are tight and people are hungry, any kind of waste - even the deep-sixing of a truck load of junk food - is taboo.
That may explain why no one seems to want to take the blame for sending what were 2,000 cases of perfectly good snack cakes to the landfill after a Little Debbie truck overturned on Oregon 217 late Monday.
McKee Foods, the Tennessee manufacturer of the sugary snacks, accuses the Oregon Department of Transportation of destroying the high-calorie cargo in its rush to reopen the "flyover" exit ramp crossing Interstate 5.
ODOT, however, said the company told its late-night crash-response crew that its snack rolls were toast once the truck's trailer, with its grinning, country-girl Debbie logo, flipped on its side.
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Since moving to Oregon years ago from the Midwest years ago, one thing I miss is a good old spring thunderstorm with lightening. Well, I certainly got a chance to get that out of my system this week:
While many of Oregon's forest protection districts have not formally entered wildfire season, Nature made an unofficial declaration of its own during the past week. A barrage of more than 24,000 lightning strikes ignited fires across the central and southwestern regions of the state. The Oregon Department of Forestry's firefighters and private forest landowner resources have been busy extinguishing the fires.
In the Oregon Department of Forestry's (ODF) Southwest Oregon District, 32 lightning-caused fires have been reported, with the largest about five acres.
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Food--friend or foe? Part 3 Yowch. When China, the world capital of lethal consumer products, is the one to point this out, it's an especially bad sign:
SAN FRANCISCO, June 3 (Xinhua) -- A company in the U.S. state of Oregon is recalling nearly 40,000 pounds of ground beef products over fears they are contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, a potentially deadly bacterium, The Oregonian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
SP Provisions, a family-owned company in Portland, said the 39,973 pounds of beef products subject to recall were sold under the Cascade Natural Beef and SP Provisions brands before May 29.
The suspect beef products were produced on various dates between April 8 and May 28, and were distributed to retail stores as well as hotels, restaurants and institutions in Oregon and Washington states.
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Tune in to the (Thom Hartmann Show on KPOJ AM620 tomorrow morning between 7am and 8am to hear Carl, Christine,and Paul match wits with TJ on the weekly Spanning the State Limerick Challenge!
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