Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 11, 2000)
Wednesday Editor in chief: Jack Clifford Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu EDITORIAL EDITOR^MICHAEL J. KLECKNERopededitor@journalist.com Oregonians would be wise to winterize One summer’s day, a grasshopper was hop ping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s content. An ant passed by, carry ing with great toil an ear of corn to its nest. “Why not play,” said the grasshopper, “instead of toiling and moiling in that way?” "I am laying up food for the win ter,” said the ant, “and recommend you do the same.” “Why bother about winter?” said the grasshopper. “We have plenty of food at present.” We all know the ending. When winter comes the grasshopper starves because of its short-sight edness. Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper reminds us of the tax measures on the November ballot. Measures 86,91,93 and 8 would all make unwise tax policy a part of the Oregon Constitution and threaten higher education fund ing. They treat our booming econ omy like the grasshopper: There’s plenty of money right now, so let’s cut taxes and limit the state’s abili ty to plan and invest wisely in the future. Well, guess what? As we saw from Monday’s heavy rain, winter is coming. And if we tie our hands now, state services will suffer through the dreary, wet winter — when it comes. Measure 86 enshrines the state’s “kicker” law in the Constitution. The kicker law says that when ac tual taxes collected exceed the state’s estimates, the extra taxes are returned to taxpayers. This can be a good thing: it acts as a check on the legislature so they don’t un derestimate and spend the extra money for special interest proj ects. But this is already the current law. If we write it into the state constitution, our legislators can’t react when the state needs extra funds. This is bad planning that takes our current boom for grant ed. Measure 91 is appealing. Cur rently, Oregonians can only deduct $3,000 of their federal tax liability from their state income taxes. Measure 91 would allow a deduction of the entire federal tax liability. Initially, this sounds fair. But this change cuts state rev enues , to the tune of $800 million a year, without offering any replace ment. And the majority of the sav ings goes to large businesses, which have already benefited greatly as a result of our strong economy — and plenty of tax cuts in the last 20 years. According to the state’s Legislative Revenue Of fice, in 1979, businesses shared sure 91 is poor fiscal policy. Measure 93 treats politics in credibly naively. Sponsored by Bill Sizemore, the same man re sponsible for Measure 91 and a grasshopper of the highest order, Measure 93 would make voters ap prove all “new or increased taxes, fees or charges proposed by state and local governments, unless ex empted.” There are few exemp tions. The vast majority of fee in creases — like hairdresser license fees and photocopy charges at the county courthouse—would need to be approved by voters. Ahh, grasshopper, this is why we elect lawmakers. If we’re that cynical about our representatives, then we had better vote for someone differ ent or completely change our form of government. This constitutional spending. It would limit the state’s two-year spending plans to 15 per cent of Oregonians’ total personal income in the prior two years. Ore gon currently spends about 18 per cent of our prior personal income. This change would cut funding by nearly $3 billion per year, some of which would have to come out of higher education. Given the cur rent summer of abundance in Ore gon, we should be thinking of in vesting some money in our future. If businesses operated on the same strict rule (this measure would also be written into our constitu tion, unchangeable by our law makers), major capital invest ments wouldn’t occur. Oregon deserves investment in its future. All of these measures treat tax payers as though their only con check. But most taxpayers aren’t so concerned with reducing taxes. Recent polls conducted by The Center on Policy Attitudes, The Washington Post and ABC News show that only 20 percent of Americans want to cut taxes. The rest of us want to use our com bined wealth to improve our coun try and save for later. Measures 86,91,93 and 8 threaten the future of higher edu cation and the future of our state. Vote no on these constitutional amendments that chirp and sing all summer long, without a thought for the cold, rainy winter ahead. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. Responses can be sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu LJLAO LCLA. UU1 LICil Willi iilUl V 1U Udl5 111 Oregon equally. By 1998, busi nesses were only paying 39 per cent of the state’s bills. It isn’t fair to hand successful corporations a big tax break at the expense of the state—especially at the expense of education. A good school sys tem is crucial to our economy. Mea amenumeni is ioonsn, ana wouia tie the hands of government agen cies to levy taxes and collect fees for the services they provide. Measure 8 poses a real danger, by arbitrarily reducing cern is simple greed about the size of their pay Giovanni Salimena Emerald OCA condemns ‘liberal dogma’in schools Guest Commentary Barry Dean _Williams The Oregon Daily Emerald (10/9) accused the Oregon Citizens Alliance of trying to rip Oregon apart again and said the previous Measure 9 subjected homosexuals to harass ment, death threats and physical abuse. The biggest news story of that period, claiming harassment, death threats and physical abuse to a homosexual was proven to be false. The facts are that the Mahons’ home was shot into, OCA members had their cars vandalized, pink triangles painted on their garage doors and yard signs stolen or van dalized. Recently in California, homosexual ac tivists destroyed more than 1,000 yard signs during the vote to defend traditional mar riage. The "tolerance/diversity" crowd has cost the Boy Scouts of America $3 million as it defended its right to have God in its oath and to set moral standards for its organiza tion. Conservative speakers have been pre vented from speaking at some universities. Attempts were made to censor a Jewish woman, defending biblical morality, from radio and TV. Liberals/homosexuals seek to create revo lutionary changes in our society and if you dare oppose them, they will demonize you as hateful, intolerant, narrow-minded, igno rant, divisive and diseased (homophobia). The only way to avoid these labels is to blindly submit to their dogma. This is not valuing tolerance and diversity. It is tyranny enforcing liberal dogma. My dogma is already banned from the public schools. Measure 9 simply removes the promotion, encouragement and sanc tioning of liberal dogma on homosexuality from the public schools. If you want to con tinue to have public schools, they will only survive if they focus their mission on those objectives on which there is broad consen sus. If we really value tolerance and diversity, then we should direct the full per-student share of the educational budget to parents through vouchers, paying for their choice of home-schooling, private, public or some combination, as long as their child scores appropriately each year on standardized testing, as home-schooled students already do. Why not let the anarchists have their own educational approach as well as the liberal, conservative, homosexual, heterosexual, Amish, Christian, humanist, etc.? Liberals won’t accept this, because they want mas sive public institutions to turn us all into lib erals, just like themselves. The Emerald sug gested we err on the side of tolerance. Well, that is what it would look like and I am ready for it. Measure 9 does not prevent HIV/AIDS ed ucation. Just teach objective facts. Teach that condoms don't work. Abortion is Planned Parenthood's backup plan and we have had to use the backup plan 30 million times. One-third of the siblings of University stu dents are missing, murdered in the womb. Condoms are even less reliable for prevent ing disease and the backup plan is death. Thirty percent of HIV-free individuals using condoms with HIV-positive individuals will get HIV/AIDS (and die). The sexual revolu tion is over. Liberal sexuality will kill you. The baby boomers were wrong. Sex isn't free. The price of free sex was to send di vorce and sexually transmitted disease rates off the chart and to abort 30 million chil dren. See the evidence at www.ocayeson9.com. Protect our children from dangerous and failed liberal dogma. Vote yes on Measure 9. Barry Dean Williams is the Lane County director of the Oregon Citizens Alliance. Letters to the editor Vote yes on Measures 20-38,20-39 On July 5, 2000, the Lane County Do mestic Violence Council voted to sup port Measure 20-38, the Work Camps, Jails and Services Levy, and Measure 20-39, the Jail Improvements Bond. The Council urges voters to vote yes on these measures because they will help keep victims of domestic violence and their children safe from batterers and stalkers. The measures will do this by: • Increasing the number of slots at the Forest Work Camp and the jail’s in take center, making more space avail able for abusers. This will mean that when domestic violence offenders are arrested, they can be held longer in the jail. • Funding services for juveniles, many of whom grew up in violent homes. Studies show that without in tervention, some of these youth will be come batterers or victims themselves. • Maintaining funding of existing public services, so that resources al ready in place will not have to be cut. Please vote yes on Measures 20-38 and 20-39. Emily Heilbrun coordinator Lane County Domestic Violence Council
