Page 2
Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Tax measures 66 & 67 set for Jan. 26 ballot
Now that we’re in a new decade with the beginning
of 2010, I am willing to reveal that I made no New Year
resolutions. Well, one. But I’m not at liberty to discuss it
here. However, it’s a good one.
As a younger guy I always made New Year pledges.
None of them lasted longer than maybe a week or so.
They usually involved matters such as: promising to
study harder to earn better grades; planning to eat
fewer cheeseburgers, deep-fried fish sandwiches and
French fries; resolving that I’d stop driving too fast and
drag racing; and being determined to have a money
vault like Scrooge McDuck.
Yeah, well, I was a strange kid. Haven’t improved
much (you already knew that) since my ducktail hair
days either. Honest. I used to have long hair all over my
skull. I really thought it was my best feature (the hair,
not the skull). But as it’s said, hair today/gone tomorrow.
And someone told me not long ago, “Hey, your hair is
getting thin.” My response: “So who wants fat hair?”
And another guy told me that split hair is a problem.
My response: “Right. My hair split years ago.”
Heard about a man who sat in a barbershop chair,
and the barber asked, “How do you want it?" The cus-
tomer says, “Well, I want it with my waves up top, light
on the left side, bushy on the right side, and then make
it all out of shape and sticking up.” The barber said,
“Why do you want your hair cut like that?” And the guy
says, “That’s how you cut it last time!”
Which reminds me of a time when I was, oh, maybe
12 or 13 years old. Back when we thought that hair was
our crowning glory, so to speak. Was in a barber’s chair
in El Paso, Texas in mid-summer. As the barber was
using the clippers on my cabeza, a drop of sweat (mine)
caused me to jerk my melon. This resulted in the clip-
pers digging into my “do” and the barber uttering a few
vulgar words. And a “haircut” that kept me housebound
for weeks. No way was I going to let anyone besides
family see me.
Yeah, weird. And a few “vulgar” words of my own
come to mind. Not that I used them at the time, but
these are among those that applied at the time:
Fiasco, debacle, dud, farce, and calamity. Not to
mention catastrophe.
Thank goodness I’m mostly bald now. Call it “thin on
top” or what you will. I’m quite happy being hairless.
By SCOTT JORGENSEN
IVN Staff Writer
Voter Pamphlets for Ore-
gon’s Jan. 26 special election
were mailed last week, as
both sides of the tax debate
prepare for the final stretch of
the campaign.
Measures 66 and 67 re-
sulted from $733 million in
tax increases passed by the
Legislature last year to fill
growing budget gaps. Imme-
diately after the session ad-
journed, business groups
throughout the state worked
with Conservative-leaning
organizations to gather
enough signatures to refer the
hikes to voters.
If passed, Measure 66
would raise the tax on in-
comes at or above $250,000
for households and $125,000
for individuals. It also would
eliminate income taxes on the
first $2,400 of unemployment
benefits received in 2009 and
raise an estimated $472 mil-
lion in revenues for the state
during its first year.
Measure 67 would raise
the corporate minimum tax
from $10 to $150. It would
increase the tax rate that some
corporations pay on profits by
1.3 percentage points and
increases certain business
filing fees. An estimated $255
million would be raised in the
first year of implementation.
Area Groups
Get Organized
At the local level, mem-
bers of the Illinois Valley-
based Social Justice Alliance
(SJA) plan to ramp up their
efforts relatively soon. SJA’s
Barry Snitkin said that the
group will engage in phone
banking to encourage support
for the measures, but will not
conduct any door-to-door
canvassing.
He added that canvassing
in rural areas is difficult.
Bill Ertel, Josephine
County Republican Party
chairman, said his group’s
“big thrust” right now is to
help support phone banking
efforts in Medford to oppose
the measures. Tax opponents
have set up eight call centers
throughout the state.
“Were trying to organize
our precinct committee peo-
ple and volunteers from the
(John) McCain campaign to
support that effort,” Ertel
stated. He added that canvass-
ing will kick off around the
second week of January.
Statewide Campaign
Efforts Also Planned
At the state level, Scott
Moore, spokesman for De-
fend Oregon, said that his
group has “certainly been in
full campaign mode for a
while now.
“Were taking every op-
portunity to talk to Oregon
voters about what’s at stake
in this election,” Moore said.
He added that volunteers
have been out “just about
every night making phone
calls and knocking on doors”
to bolster support for the
measures. Pro-tax groups also
have been sending literature
directly to mailboxes during
recent weeks, and have ads
on television.
Pat McCormick, spokes-
man for Oregonians Against
Job Killing Taxes (OAJKT),
said that group began its ad-
vertising after the Thanksgiv-
ing holiday. It did not, how-
ever, run any TV commer-
cials around Christmas.
“We decided early on
that Christmas week was not
a week that we needed to be
distracting voters from their
families and other activities to
talk about the campaign,”
McCormick said.
Crunching the Numbers
Both sides are using sta-
tistics to try and bring voters
to their side.
According to figures
released by Defend Oregon,
approximately 1,617,145
people statewide file taxes.
Of those, less than 40,000
would be affected by the tax
hikes, Defend Oregon said.
There are approximately
33,727 tax filers in Josephine
County, Defend Oregon said,
and only 447 would be af-
fected by the measures.
McCormick said that
around 137,000 private sector
jobs have been lost in Oregon
since the recession began in
November 2007. During that
same time, he said, state gov-
ernment employment in-
creased 12.8 percent.
“In good times and bad
times, they continually in-
creased spending,” McCor-
mick said. “At some point,
that kind of spending is not
sustainable.”
Defend Oregon has an-
other set of statistics showing
how many residents in each
county depend on state ser-
vices. Those figures show
that approximately 11,136
children attend public schools
in Josephine County. There
also are 12,017 county resi-
dents served by Oregon
Health Plan, 882 receiving
long-term care and 864 super-
vised criminal offenders, De-
fend Oregon said.
The Money Trail
Running a statewide
campaign can be expensive,
and both sides of the tax de-
bate are spending and receiv-
ing large sums of money to
fund their efforts.
According to the Oregon
Secretary of State’s Website,
Vote Yes for Oregon netted
$3.4 million in contributions
as of Dec. 29. It posted $2.2
million in expenditures, with
a $1.2 million cash balance
remaining.
During December, Vote
Yes for Oregon received two
contributions from the Ore-
gon Education Association
(OEA) totaling $800,000.
The national America Federa-
tion of State, County and Mu-
nicipal
Employees
(AFSCME) contributed
$500,000. Oregon AFSCME
Council 75 made two contri-
butions totaling $250,000, an
amount matched by Service
Employees International Un-
(Continued on page 3)
(Editor’s Note: Views
and commentary, including
statements made as fact, are
strictly those of the letter-
writers.)
* * *
Typed, double-spaced
letters are considered for
publication. Hand-written
letters that are double-
spaced and legible also can
be considered. “Thank you”
submissions are not ac-
cepted as letters.
positions of responsibility.
When Ross Perot took over
the party in ’96, Jack declined
further nominations and left
the party.
(Editor’s Note: The
letter-writer is the wife of
the candidate.)
Corporations, large or
small, for profit or not, will of
course pass on to consumers
any additional tax they face;
that is, if they can continue
doing business in Oregon at
all. Must Oregon’s private
businesses continue to be pe-
nalized in order to support the
expansion of the public sec-
tor? Have you noticed lately
the number of businesses clos-
ing their doors, the empty
storefronts? Some corpora-
tions will pay the minimum
tax of $150, but others that are
large enough to be providing
jobs will be taxed based on
their gross receipts—whether
or not they realize a net profit,
a real penalty to a growing
business.
It’s time to put on the
brakes!
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Illinois Valley News
www.illinois-valley-news.com
An Independent Weekly Newspaper
Co-publishers: Bob & Jan Rodriguez
Editor-in-Chief: Michelle Binker
Entered as second class matter June 11, 1937 at Post Office as Official Newspaper for
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Volume 72, No. 43
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‘New life in sobriety’
From Crystal Costa
Tucson, Ariz.
I just want to apologize
to the whole valley for my
past actions, and want all to
know that I am starting a new
life in sobriety.
P.S. “Mister” is just fine.
Brown background
From Mary Brown
Grants Pass
To review: Jack Brown’s
family has been in Josephine
County since 1934, working
and raising children to become
sincere Christians and politi-
cally active U.S. citizens.
Jack became involved in
politics when the Legislature
passed Senate Bill 100 in the
1970s, creating statewide
land-use planning, and has
been active in opposing en-
croaching socialism since.
He has belonged to both
major political parties. As a
Democrat, he was elected to
several terms as a precinct
committeeman in the Jose-
phine County Central Com-
mittee. He sought the Democ-
ratic nomination for Jose-
phine County commissioner
in 1976, U.S. senator in ’78,
and state senator, District 25,
in ’80.
Jack switched to the
more conservative Republi-
can Party, serving several
elected terms as precinct
committeeman, and was
elected chairman of the Jose-
phine County Republican
Party Central Committee. He
sought the Republican nomi-
nation for state representative,
District 49, in ’92.
Jack became involved in
the American Party of Ore-
gon in ’94 and received its
nomination for state represen-
tative. He continued in that
party as Josephine County
chairman as well as other
Say “No” to 66 & 67
Jim & Melanie Tehan
Selma
It is time to put on the
brakes. Hundreds of volun-
teers have worked tirelessly to
gather signatures for a referen-
dum to allow the voters of
Oregon to decide whether we
are willing to let the newest
tax imposed by our state gov-
ernment to stand.
With such high unem-
ployment, why aren’t our rep-
resentatives working harder to
help Oregonians get back to
work? We are blindly headed
toward the same great pit of
tax-and-spend as our
neighbor, California. The fur-
ther away from local govern-
ment, the less control we have
about where the spending
goes.
If we allow Measures 66
and 67 to stand as passed by
our state legislature, without a
vote of opposition by its citi-
zens, Oregon will have the
largest personal income tax of
any state in our nation—
retroactive to Jan. 1, 2009.
Your Money Can
Make a Difference.
So can your time and talent.
Now that you have enough to make a real difference in
your community or even the world, how do you make sure
that what you give matters? At Morgan Stanley Smith Barney,
we can help you plan your philanthropic efforts.
NELSON R. MALER
Second Vice President-Wealth Management
Investment Management Specialist
Financial Planning Specialist
1867 Williams Highway, Suite 209
Grants Pass, OR 97527
(541) 244-2609
fa.smithbarney.com/nelsonmaler
nelson.r.maler@smithbarney.com
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Practice starts in March.
Illinois Valley Little League
Saturday, January 9
Sunday, January 10
9 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Noon - 2 p.m.
Little League Home Office
I.V. Golf Course
Redwood Hwy.
4 to 18 years
Bring Birth Certificate
and 2 proofs of residency
Teams Forming NOW...
We need YOUR help!
If you can volunteer as a
coach or umpire, phone
415-1718
for more information.