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Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
July 8, 2016
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
not necessarily this newspaper.
Opinion
Editorial Board
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Editor
Managing Editor
Mike O’Brien
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion
O ur V iew
Oregonians, not corporations, will pay IP 28 tax
O
regon voters in November
must reject Initiative
Petition 28, the gross
receipts tax measure on the ballot.
The measure — pushed
by public employee unions,
education and healthcare
advocates and other liberal
interests — proposes Oregon’s
largest tax hike ever. It would
impose on “C” corporations an
additional 2.5 percent tax on
gross sales in Oregon exceeding
$25 million.
IP 28 would raise as much as
$3 billion a year for the state’s
general fund, and is touted as a
panacea for unspeciied spending
priorities in search of a funding
stream.
Oregonians are fond of raising
taxes that they themselves won’t
pay, particularly if in the process
they can stick it to big, out-of-
state companies that they say
aren’t paying their fair share.
Supporters of IP 28 fondly
point out that 70 percent of the
companies that would directly
pay the tax are not domiciled in
Oregon, and include big retailers,
big banks, big oil, big pharm —
big, greedy companies carrying
away Beaver State boodle to
Arkansas, Wall Street and
Moline. No downside here.
A compelling argument, if
only it were true.
Enter Doug Hoffman,
president of farmer-owned
Wilco — one of the big Oregon
companies that will pay the tax.
Wilco is a cooperative set
up to sell merchandise and
services at a discount to
its 3,000 farmer members.
Separately it also operates 12
retail stores in Oregon, mostly
in the Willamette Valley, selling
all comers a wide variety of
products with a decidedly farm
and ranch bent.
Without any of the bluster
one expects from the robber
barons IP 28 means to punish,
Hoffman lays out the company’s
inances. Under Oregon law, the
$100 million in direct sales of
products and services to members
are exempt. The $100 million in
sales at the retail stores are not. A
portion of any proit is returned to
the members.
In a good year the retail
operation has a net proit of
as much as $2.5 million. That,
coincidently, is the amount
Hoffman says Wilco will pay in
corporate income taxes if IP 28
passes.
Because IP 28 taxes gross
receipts, not net proits, Wilco
and other businesses with the
requisite sales will pay whether
they make money or not.
Hoffman says there have been
years when sales have been high,
but the retail business has run at a
loss. In that case, the tax bill will
come out of reserves.
Hoffman and others say the
biggest myth of this, and every
corporate tax increase, is that
regular Oregonians won’t pay the
tab. They will.
Businesses will increase prices
to cover the extra taxes they owe
and to pay prices increased by
suppliers burdened by their own
higher taxes. They’ll cut back on
employees to reduce operating
expenses. They won’t invest in
expansions.
To facilitate its passage, IP 28
supporters have picked a small
segment of the business to paint
as unsympathetic targets of their
tax. But if passed, Oregonians
and many of the state’s iconic
brands will fall victim.
Doing good for Klamath
Basin agriculture
By SCOTT WHITE
For the Capital Press
A
O ur V iew
Rik Dalvit/For the Capital Press
Best management practices for the EPA
he U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency recently
ordered the Washington
Department of Ecology to write
a manual of “best management
practices” for the state’s farmers
and ranchers.
In the EPA’s usual not-so-
subtle manner, that word was
accompanied by a threat that the
state would lose federal funding for
water-quality projects if it didn’t
comply.
We’ve said a lot about the EPA
bullying farmers and ranchers, but
we’re a bit taken aback that the
agency is now bullying the state of
Washington.
It seems to us a governor worth
his salt would get the D.C. bigwigs
on the phone and give them a piece
of his mind.
However, Gov. Jay Inslee seems
most interested in pleasing his
overlords, not crossing them.
Be that as it may, the
Department of Ecology is now in
the business of telling farmers how
to farm. We can’t wait to read this
opus.
We have an idea. How about
farmers writing a manual of best
management practices for the EPA?
It only seems fair that the EPA gets
the guidance it needs to correct its
many shortcomings.
We hereby offer a first draft
of the upcoming bestseller, “Best
Management Practices for the
EPA,” also known as “How to Run
a Government Agency without
T
Letters policy
Write to us: Capital Press welcomes
letters to the editor on issues of
interest to farmers, ranchers and the
agribusiness community.
Letters policy: Please limit letters to
300 words and include your home
Acting like a Tyrant.”
Section 1: Mine waste. Last
year an EPA contractor decided to
poke a hole in an old mine near
Silverton, Colo. The result was 3
million gallons of toxic mine waste
flowing all the way to the Colorado
River. BMP: If you want to find
polluters, sometimes all you need
to do is look in the mirror, accept
responsibility and skip the self-
righteousness.
Section 2: Personnel
management. When a
$100,000-a-year employee tells
you he’s missed 2 1/2 years of
work because he’s a spy, don’t
believe him. BMP: Ask his
supervisor what he — or she —
was doing, too, because managing
wasn’t on the list.
Section 3: All emails must be on
official agency servers. As Hillary
Clinton has discovered, using
unauthorized email servers will get
you in a lot of hot water. BMP: Use
Uncle Sam’s email system only, not
a side channel to chat with friends
in environmental groups.
Section 4: Be nice, and
professional. When the Texas
division leader of the EPA told
a roomful of people that he was
going to treat everyone in his
area the way the Romans treated
villages they conquered by
crucifying the first three people
he saw, he showed what the EPA
is really all about — bullying the
public. BMP: Don’t be a jerk.
Section 5: Don’t waste public
money. The EPA wasted hundreds
of thousands of dollars on a
single gambit aimed at lobbying
Washington state legislators to
require 100-foot buffer zones
along all farmland fronting rivers
and streams. Why? Because the
agency’s leaders think it’s a good
idea.
They went through all of the
trouble of smearing farmers,
buying advertisements and setting
up a website to push an agenda
based on assumptions, not facts.
BMP: Forget about being a
smoother mover with the political
and environmental crowds and
just do your job in a fair-minded
manner.
It will earn you respect and not
contempt.
Which brings us to Section 6:
Get the facts before you act. It’s
always easy to make assumptions
and accuse farmers and ranchers of
polluting rivers.
It’s not only easy, it’s lazy and
offensive. BMP: If the EPA would
do actual testing of the water
quality upstream and downstream
from a farm, it would have facts,
something missing from many of
its assertions.
What the EPA needs to do is stop
forcing states to undertake half-
baked ideas like best management
practices and work together to help
farmers that have a problem to
meet the law.
That’s one best management
practice we can all support.
address and a daytime telephone
number with your submission. Longer
pieces, 500-750 words, may be con-
sidered as guest commentary pieces
for use on the opinion pages. Guest
commentary submissions should also
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Send letters via email to opinions@
capitalpress.com. Emailed letters are
preferred and require less time to
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publication. Letters also may be sent to
P.O. Box 2048, Salem, OR 97308; or by
fax to 503-370-4383.
fter a recent com-
mentary published in
the Capital Press, I feel
compelled to remove any confu-
sion pertaining to the provisions
in the Energy Bill Amendments
speciic to the Upper Klamath
Basin.
Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron
Wyden championed this effort
(with important help from Con-
gressman Greg Walden) and the
Klamath Water Users Associa-
tion (KWUA) is tremendously
grateful for their efforts.
Key Klamath provisions of
the amendment are:
• Direction to Department of
Interior to take actions that make
power costs for irrigation and
drainage in the Upper Klamath
Basin on par with other irriga-
tion intensive areas.
• Authorization for reim-
bursement of some D-Plant (an
important Klamath Project facil-
ity) pumping costs, which would
be consistent with an agreement
reached between the Tulelake
Irrigation District, U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service and Bureau
of Reclamation for an equita-
ble share of pumping costs for
movement of Project water.
• Elimination of the need for
burdensome federal permits for
conveyance of Non-Project wa-
ter (i.e. groundwater) through
Klamath Project facilities.
Guest
comment
Scott White
• Clear and permanent fed-
eral authorization for locally
supported water-banking and
marketing activities that beneits
all Klamath Project contractors.
• C-Flume (Project infra-
structure) Emergency and
Extraordinary Operation and
Maintenance (EEOM) designa-
tion, which would save millions
for Project water users.
The amendment is clear, direct
and does not circumvent congres-
sional authority. KWUA worked
diligently and constructively for
these provisions and continues to
work to see them enacted.
KWUA remains committed
to securing a reliable supply of
water and affordable power for
our family farms and ranches.
These provisions move us one
step closer to that end goal.
To verify for yourself, see the
speciic language of the amend-
ment here: http://tinyurl.com/
SA3288
Scott White is executive
director of the Klamath Water
Users Association, a nonprof-
it organization that defends
the livelihood of approxi-
mately 1,200 family farms
and ranches in south-central
Oregon and northern Cali-
fornia.
Readers’ views
the children that come after
Why I support the and
them.
Permanently protecting the
Owyhee monument Owyhee
Canyonlands is the
I wasn’t able to attend the
hearing in Salem that the Cap-
ital Press refers to but wanted to
comment because of my many
days in the Owyhee Canyon-
lands hunting and ishing.
That, and my 45-plus years
of working in natural resource
agencies in America have me
convinced that this uniquely
spectacular, yet fragile ecosys-
tem, needs certainty in the form
of permanent protection.
And I’m not alone in this
assessment. Supporters for per-
manent protections come from
across Oregon, and far outnum-
ber the handful in opposition.
Over 35,000 Oregonians have
signed on in support of saving
this ecosystem, and a recent poll
shows that 70 percent of Orego-
nians across the state want per-
manent protections in this place.
In my career of managing
multiple agencies in three dif-
ferent states, local opposition
is not uncommon in these situ-
ations, but this opposition melts
when folks realize that current
uses can and will be written into
management plans. Permanent
protection of the Owyhee Can-
yonlands doesn’t mean locking
it up and throwing away the
key. It means we’re protecting
our clean drinking water sourc-
es from irresponsible mining,
we’re allowing grazing, camp-
ing, hunting, and ishing that is
happening now to continue, and
we’re leaving a legacy for our
children and our grandchildren
right thing to do, and it is the
right thing to do now.
Rod Sando
Woodburn, Ore.
Why trade treaties
should be rejected
Are we all overlooking
and oblivious about the TPP
(Trans-Paciic
Partnership)
and TTIP (Transatlantic Trade
and Investment Partnership)
treaties? These treaties aren’t
only about imports and exports
of beef and the money. That’s
offering a prize and not con-
sidering the consequences. It is
control. Buy maybe the buck is
worth more than the freedoms
we have — and are not protect-
ing — under the Constitution.
Have any of you researched
the full contents (what is al-
lowed to be viewed, even by
our legislators) of these treaties?
Do you value the U.S. Con-
stitution or would you rather be
ruled by the U.N. Constitution,
their courts, rules, etc.? Are we
selling out our nation for 25
pieces of silver?
For your freedom, well-be-
ing, and security under the U.S.
Constitution, research the con-
tents of these dangerous treaties,
what you will give up and bow
to. Don’t be swayed by rhetoric.
Hosea 4:6 — My people
are destroyed by lack of knowl-
edge.
Mrs. M.A. Novak
Yamhill, Ore.