February 03, 2004
Measure 30 Joining Measure 28 On The Trash Heap
KATU is already calling the Measure 30 election as a resounding defeat. Funnily enough, KGW was sitting around waiting for word about Multnomah County results, when they had already been posted by the County on the Web. Bad, KGW.
Notice, for what it's worth, that even Multnomah County is defeating the measure.
Comments (15)
Jeff on 03 Feb 2004
Okay, those results were totally bizarre. Care to hazard an opinion as to the meaning?
The One True b!X on 03 Feb 2004
Other than taking a stab, at least in terms of Multnomah, at the possibility that local taxpayers didn't feel like voting for yet another tax -- after approving the failed 28, then adopting a local tax -- no, I wouldn't really want to hazard a guess on this one.
Scott on 03 Feb 2004
In talking to my parents, who both voted no, the key reason for them was the removal of the medical deductions for seniors. It would have cost them several thousands this year alone.
If it was strictly the income surcharge, they would have enthusatically voted yes, but since it had a bunch of other items, it was too much.
Jack Bog on 04 Feb 2004
It was designed to fail, and it did. It was an even bigger tax increase than last year's, which had failed miserably. The election was once again timed to coincide with post-holiday credit card bills. They threw in some stuff that hurt seniors -- a definite no-no.
Perhaps most importantly, Multnomah County voters sound to me like they're saying, "We've got ours now -- the rest of you anti-taxers in the 'burbs and downstate can knock yourselves out. We don't care."
Now the story continues. There'll be another special session on taxes, by early summer at the latest. But many of the experienced and moderate voices in the Legislature are quitting, leaving only more shrill types left to rehash what they couldn't get done last summer. And the beat goes on. Too bad.
One alternative at this point would be to actually cut some fat out of state and local government (gasp!), or at least make a show of it, and show the public how it was done. How about we start by cancelling the OHSU aerial tram and the RiverPlace streetcar? Or the U of O basketball palace? Don't hold your breath waiting for any of that.
Neil K on 04 Feb 2004
The strangest phenomenon over the past few years has been that Oregon's urban counties have supported tax increases while the more rural counties have opposed them. Why is that strange? It is strange because the Urban counties pay a much larger share of the state budget and the rural counties receive greater benefit.
B!x and jack have the right of it. P-town is paying up for schools and services... for P-town. The rest of the Beaver has gone agin taxes agin. So, it's forward to the past when local schoolboards raised the taxes and spent them at home. Well, why not?
p.s. Will someone please explain to Jack about Local Improvement Districts and how Portland Streetcar is funded primarily through property owners on and around the streetcar line!
Dave Lister on 04 Feb 2004
In my view, the reason for the resounding failure is crystalline.
How can the voters really be convinced the state needs more money when:
Goldschmidt gets over a million dollars from SAIF for a few undocumented phone calls.
Kulongoski gets a brand new town car, his security detail new SUV's and the legislators all get new computers and chairs.
Multnomah county spends a quarter million to landscape the roof of the admin building after approval of 26-48.
The Portland city council votes themselves and all non-represented city employees cost of living after retroactively raising business taxes for school funding.
The Hillsboro school superintendent retires at 121K per year and then is rehired as a consultant for nine months for a flat 91K.
It's a crisis in confidence. The voters have no trust in the leadership.
The One True b!X on 04 Feb 2004
Just to nitpick, since I previously, long ago, knocked Phil Stanford for jumping on this one:
"Multnomah county spends a quarter million to landscape the roof of the admin building after approval of 26-48."
This was one of those "colors of money" things. The money for this wasn't available for other things, such as, oh, schools, police, etc.
Now, that in and of itself may be annoying, but they didn't raid general fund dollars to put in that "green" roof. If there's an issue with how monies get divided into different "colors" in ways that make it impossible for them to be interchangeable or move from one matter to another, then the target of ire needs to be the system through which monies are gathered and assigned.
Dave Lister on 04 Feb 2004
You are right. Government does segregate their money by "color". But as far as taxpayers are concerned, money comes in one color. Green.
Multnomah county has no problem taking green money (property tax money) from the general fund through urban renewal schemes and doing pet development projects. The fact is their money will change color when they find it convenient. It won't change color when taxpayers question it.
David Parsons on 04 Feb 2004
"But as far as taxpayers are concerned, money comes in one color"
Which is, of course, an illusion the anti-tax welfare queens wish to foster so that they can use it as propaganda in their ongoing campaign to wreck Oregon. That's why I finally came off the fence and voted in favor of M30 -- after several weeks of leaning no (under the logic that if the anti-tax welfare queens want to commit suicide, why should I stop them?) the constant torrent of "government A spends their tax dollars in a way I disapprove of, so we should deny government C the funds needed to keep the state going" lies finally got to me.
I guess the state could spend the money to hold public forums to explain that it isn't one big pot because that's not how the USA is made, but the anti-tax welfare queens would have kittens.
The One True b!X on 04 Feb 2004
"The fact is their money will change color when they find it convenient. It won't change color when taxpayers question it."
It doesn't change color. Certain money is allocated from certain sources for certain types of expenditures and unless allocated for those types of expenditures that money would not be allocated for anything at all. That's how the money system works in government.
That's not a defense, necessarily, just the reality. My point is that if this is not how people want it to be, then they need to organize to change the ways in which money is allocated in local government.
That "green roof" money could not have gone to any of the services being rescued and funded by the local tax initiative. If you or others think that type of money should be available for such things, then you need to make them change how the processes within the system through which money is obtained and allocated.
But it's not as simple, as presently constructued, for, say, the County to go "let's take that 'green roof' money and spend it on the jails."
Jack Bog on 05 Feb 2004
Bix, you are right. But maybe we ought to start revamping the budgetary process so that the money is all one color again. Except in the world of Bureaucrathink, there simply are no "types of money." And even if there were, The People don't see it that way. To the voters, all the smoke and mirrors of urban renewal pots, tax increment financing and the like is all a bunch of accounting hooey.
Oh, and Neil, as I understood it, most of the Big Shots building and owning in the Pearl don't pay their fair share of property taxes, and won't for quite a few more years. We bribed them to erect their luxury ghettos. Now we'll do the same in South Waterfront.
David, calling people "anti-tax welfare queens" and their opinions "lies" isn't going to help you pick up any of the 18 percentage points you're going to need to install your version of Utopia in Oregon. You'll have to be smarter and more civil than that.
Dave Lister on 05 Feb 2004
If I read it correctly I am being lumped into a group which David refers to as "anti-tax welfare queens". I'm not exactly sure what that means, but let me share something.
I am the co owner of a small technology company. Our endeavors last year allowed me to earn a high five figure salary, but not a six figure one.
When I add up the personal taxes I actually paid along with my 50% share of our corporate taxes paid, my contribution to the common good for the year was $33,782.00.
Based on that I don't think I should be referred to as "anti-tax". I would like to be referred to as "pro-accountability".
By the way, all of that thirty four thousand was colored green.
The One True b!X on 05 Feb 2004
Jack said, "Bix, you are right. But maybe we ought to start revamping the budgetary process so that the money is all one color again. Except in the world of Bureaucrathink, there simply are no 'types of money.'"
Which has really been my only point every time this comes up. I don't have a problem with people recoiling when, say, the County installs a green roof in the midst of a budget problem and tax vote.
I have a problem with misrepresenting what the situation is, and simply using that cringy reaction from people to whip up anti-government attitudes (or, in the case of Phil Stanford and his column, simply scoring cheap commentator points at the expanse of the truth) instead of educating people about how the governmental money system works, so they can work to change it if they think it works poorly.
That's kind of all I'm saying.
David Parsons on 05 Feb 2004
Jack: I don't know what else to call the Sizemores, Grover Norquists, Mannixes, and their ilk; they drive the anti-tax brigades by lying nonstop (except for when they say that they're going to lower taxes, which they only lie about some of the time). I'm not exactly sure what's to be gained by being civil to the fundamentalists on the right, except to make them think that I'm just another liberal frog to be slowly boiled to death.
Dave Lister: I don't recognise your name as one of the movers behind the nonstop stream of anti-tax proposals, so you're probably nothing more than uninformed. It's a bummer about your taxes (when I last ran my own company, I pulled in about twice as much a year and only paid a little more than what you paid : ~40k, I think, to Tri-Met, State, Federal, SS, Medicare, and California -- the sheer annoyance factor of filling out all the dinky little forms twice a month for everything except the Tri-Met tax ended up driving me back into wage-slavery. It's possible that your tax attorney wasn't completely up on the tax code and you got screwed because of that.)
Dave Lister on 06 Feb 2004
Actually, I think our tax advisors know their stuff. We have been in business and incorporated in Oregon for nineteen years.
The numbers I gave you, by the way, did not include the employer side of FICA and Medicare, SDI, FUTA... etc. If I added up all those I would probably become ill.
My point is that tax levels, particularly for small businesses, are onerous, especially if you are in the Portland city limits. Our business income tax for Portland/Multnomah last year was $5100.00. If we moved to Washington or Clackamas county that portion would go away (do we really wonder why Portland has a problem with business retention?)