In January, Oregonians will get to vote on $733 million in new taxes referred to the voters by Measure 66 and Measure 67.  This is only a fraction of $1.6 billion dollars in new taxes and fees that the Oregon Legislature passed in 2009.  This comes to about $435 per Oregonian.  Lane County’s share of these new taxes is $150 million.

As the election gets closer, Lane County will be bombarded with two messages.  First, Measure 66 and 67 will kill jobs.  Second, Measure 66 and 67 will protect essential state services.  The choice  being presented is either jobs or state services.  These tax measures will kill jobs. More importantly, these measures don’t protect essential services in the long term. The tax increases were designed to raise money that the legislature wanted to spend, but not that it needed to spend.  It is as though our state has lost its job, and the legislature wants to continue to live the same lifestyle on a credit card instead of addressing the fundamental problem.

The state is addicted to spending.  The 2009-2011 budget was $53 billion, which is 9% higher than the previous budget.  The last year that the state decreased spending was the 1981-1983 budget.  I know our local school districts are struggling with budget cuts. My question to the state legislature: Why wasn’t some of the $5 billion in additional money spent in schools? Just to put this in perspective, the total K-12 budget is around $6 billion.

Measure 66 and 67 are presented as a response to the economic situation.  The democratic leadership in Salem didn’t want to waste a good crisis.  For years, the Democrats have wanted to reform the corporate tax structure.  The current crisis gave them the opportunity and the political capital to do it.  If the tax measures were actually a response to the economic situation, they would be temporary.  I recognize that they do have temporary components, but they never expire.  We will always be paying these taxes even after the economy recovers.

Rep. Phil Barnhart (D- Eugene), the chair of the committee that sponsored the bill, supports removing the kicker, corporate tax increases, and a sales tax.  As Lane County Citizens, we want our schools, state police, and roads to have proper funding.  So imagine that we gave Rep. Barnhart and the Democratic leadership every tax increases that they want.  Do you think your local High School would have enough money to hire the right amount of teachers the next year? What about the year after that?

How long would it be before House Democrats came back for more money?

The state understands that people will pay more taxes to protect essential services.  That is why the state presented Measure 66 and 67 as funding for essential services.  We didn’t get to vote when a $122k per year job is created for Sen. Margret Carter in the Department of Human Services.  By the way, DHS just hired her without a proper job search.  We don’t get to vote when a $96k per year job was created on the Parole Board for Sen. Vicki Walker.  The job fell through, but the Governor found her a temporary job at $86k/year.  In 2008 while Oregon was sinking into a recession, the Governor gave raises of close to 30% to some department heads. Those raises were never on a ballot.  DHS has an administrative budget of $200 million.  The state spent $500k to recognize employees last year with trinkets and coffee cups. In a recession, the state legislature wasn’t responsible enough to balance the budget by holding the line on spending where they could.  Our state legislators need to be honest with us about these measures.  We are being asked to save funding for schools because they didn’t make schools a priority in the legislative session.

This recession has been hard for Oregon. It has been hard for families and small business in Lane County.  The job picture in Lane County hasn’t gotten better, and isn’t forecasted to get better for months.  While local schools and governments are working hard to deal with the recession, consider what the State Legislature has done. When they increased the budget by 9%, have they done their job during a recession? Have they questioned every expense in the budget or was it easier to pass new taxes?  Have they used our rainy day fund, the fund that was intended to be our safety net against recessions, responsibly?  Is Measure 66 and 67 going to fund your children’s education or six figure jobs for retired State Senators?  Vote “no” on Measure 66 and 67, and ask the legislature to be responsible with our money and make education a real priority.