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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 3, 2016)
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | December 2, 2016 | PAGE 7 ...Measure 97 backers take their campaign to the Legislature From Page 1 THIS NEWSPAPER BROUGHT TO YOU BY AMERICA'S LABOR MOVEMENT. SHOP LOCAL. AND BUY UNION AND AMERICAN-MADE. THOMAS, COON, NEWTON & FROST jority support for the measure, but a $23 million ad campaign by big business opponents turned that around, and Measure 97 lost 59 to 40 percent. Sup- porters are choosing to interpret the result as voters rejecting that specific proposal, not voters re- jecting the idea that big corpo- rations should pay more in order for Oregon to improve funding for schools, health care and sen- ior services. “The hundreds of thousands of conversations we had with voters at the door showed that nobody wants us to be lowest in the nation for corporate taxes,” said Andrea Paluso, executive director of Family Forward Ore- gon. “The problem around cor- porations not paying their fair share still remains, and we’re going to keep working until we find a solution.” Now the state is heading into another one of its perennial budget crises, with Legislative Revenue Office forecasting a $1.4 billion shortfall in the next biennium. “We refuse to accept service cuts when Oregon has the low- est corporate tax rate in the na- tion,” said OEA President Hanna Vaandering. According to a May 2016 study by Ander- son Economic Group, Oregon has the lowest effective business tax rate of any state in the nation APPRENTICESHIP OPPORTUNITIES International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 23: Oregon & SW Washington Applications must be completed online by visiting www.neiep.org/careers.aspx Completed applications must be received between Jan. 9, 2017 & Jan. 29, 2017 THOMAS, COON, NEWTON & FROST Applicants must be at least 18-years of age and possess a high school diploma or GED. Applicants will be selected without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national ori- gin. More information can be found on the IUEC Local 23 website: http://iueclocal23.org/ “They have an uncon- scionably low tax rate. That’s one of the rea- sons we’re going to be pushing tax trans- parency for corporations.” — Brian Rudiger, SEIU Local 503 executive director — 6.6 percent. “They have an uncon- scionably low tax rate,” said SEIU Local 503 Executive Di- rector Brian Rudiger. That’s one of the reasons we’re going to be pushing tax transparency for corporations.” Rudiger said the coalition will be coming up with a set of revenue proposals in the next few weeks for the Legislature to consider. The Oregon Constitution re- quires a three-fifths supermajor- ity for the Oregon Legislature to pass new revenue-raising bills, thanks to a ballot measure re- ferred to voters in 1996 by a Re- publican-led Legislature. De- mocrats are one vote short of the supermajority in both the House and Senate. But lawmakers could refer tax measures to vot- ers with a simple majority, and they may also be able to repeal or reduce tax breaks with a sim- ple majority under a recent court decision. Oregon has over $1.8 billion a year in personal and corporate income tax breaks, not counting deductions and exclu- sions that come from alignment with the federal tax code. Ironically, business groups that campaigned against Meas- ure 97 by saying it was a sales tax (actually, it was a corporate income tax) have themselves proposed a sales tax as the best solution to Oregon’s perennial budget troubles. But leaders of A Better Oregon said they’re not in favor of that. “We don’t want to push for- ward a revenue solution that happens on the backs of work- ing people and small busi- nesses,” Paluso said. “We be- lieve the focus should remain on the largest corporations doing business in our state.”
