BY TONY CORCORAN
Crank the Faucet
Squirt some WD-40 on the revenue plumbing.
T
he legislative bipartisan group-hug phase skidded
to an abrupt halt in Salem last week, slamming
into a concrete wall of needs without ways or
means. House and Senate Republicans were pretty
cranky after the success of Tuesday’s school votes
in Multnomah and Washington counties. House
Democrats, feeling their colleagues’ pain, tried in
vain to force a $6 billion K-12 bill to the floor for a
vote — it died a slow procedural death. Senate
Republicans, seeing more of their bills being bottled up
in evenly divided committees, obstinately lost a procedural vote 15-14; and a
meaningless bill, allowing ODFW to shoot from the air, went back to the Ag
Committee. Meanwhile, the speaker and her conservatives are calling the budget
($11.2 billion) — released last month by the Joint Ways and Means co-chairs — a
“ceiling”; the Senate Democrats are calling it a “floor” which needs a couple of
billion added to it just to make it acceptable.
So Speaker Minnis threatens to yank her members from the joint budget
committee and form her own. This has only been done once since World War I
— in 1993 Larry Campbell was speaker, the Senate was Democratic — and it led
to the longest session in legislative history. Incidentally, the House
Appropriation Committee chair in 1993 was my current next-door neighbor on
the Senate floor: then-Rep. John Minnis. Please, Yogi, don’t make it déjà vu
again.
There are a variety of discussions going on in the building about increas-
ing revenue, but not very many that supply a sufficient amount. But, putting
aside whatever that number is for a moment; consider politically what will
have to happen for us to end this session. The House Republicans will probably
not propose a budget that doesn’t have some Democratic support. The speaker
has a hard core of 20 conservatives in her caucus of 35 that are fundamentally
incapable of supporting a budget that Democrats would accept as sufficient.
So, if there are to be any revenue bills arising from the House that require 36
super-majority votes, probably the only way that happens is for the speaker
and 10 or 12 moderates to join the Dems with a get-out-of-Dodge budget.
Senate D’s don’t have enough votes to get anything out, nor do the Senate R’s.
Their leader, Bev Clarno, has the same problem as the speaker; with a hard
conservative core of nine or so — in a split partisan chamber. You know the
leadership in both parties want bipartisan votes for the budget. But how do we
get there?
U
sing the criteria of adequacy, fairness and stability; how can Oregon get
more revenue? From a public policy standpoint each option has an up-
side and downside:
• Increase income tax to 10 percent for joint incomes over $100,000, gets
you $250 million for ‘03-05. Progressive, no additional cost to collect; but
Oregon is already over-dependent on income tax.
• Change Measure 5 property tax limit for schools from $5/thousand to
$7/thousand, gets you $1 billion for ‘03-05. Requires vote, regressive if no low-
income offset.
• Increase corporate excise tax to 9 percent, yields $240 million. Oregon’s
business taxes are lower than other Western states, but business taxes are par-
ticularly unpopular.
• Create restricted 3 percent sales tax, yields $3.4 billion for biennium.
Stable, but very regressive, poor pay more, relatively expensive to collect, no
deductibility on federal taxes.
• Suspend property and/or income tax breaks, yields hundreds of millions.
Has to be done carefully, across-the-board doesn’t work. One example: Just
cutting personal income tax exemption from $145 to $100 for households over
$75,000 and eliminating it for households over $100,000 would yield $200
million.
• Others: beer tax of six cents yields $80 million plus additional federal
funds match, reduced video poker commission could get you $100 to $140 mil-
lion.
Nothing’s easy in this business. But the speaker needs to understand: This
is not a Ways and Means discussion — we know what we’d spend the money on.
It’s a Revenue discussion — where’s the acceptable plan that gets us out of the
building? The governor will probably sign whatever budget gets to his desk, so
I hope he fades into the background for a few weeks — or months — and lets
the legislative process do its dance.
But I guess it wouldn’t hurt to invite Teddy to a Butt Face Caucus, especial-
ly since it’s Randy Miller’s turn to buy?
Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove represents portions of Lane and Douglas counties in Senate District 4, which
includes the UO area. He can be reached at sen.tonycorcoran@state.or.us
Train Excursions are Fun
Good Times Await on Trips to Portland & Seattle
Amtrak Cascades Trains Depart Eugene at 5:45 am & 9:30 am
Coast Starlight Train scheduled to depart Eugene at:
Northbound to Seattle 12:44 PM • Southbound to California 5:10 PM
New Service
Lewis & Clark
Explorer Train
Portland • Astoria
May 23 through Sept. 2, 2003
Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday
Via the Lower Columbia River Rail Line
Depart Portland Union Station 7:30 am
Arrive Astoria RR Station at 11:30am
Depart Astoria RR Station at 4:30pm
Arrive Portland Union Station 8:30pm
Travel close to historic L&C sites
You can also get there on Amtrak Oregon Thruway Buses
NORTH: 1:45 PM and 3:10 PM to Albany, Salem and Portland
3:10 PM Bus connects to Cannon Beach, Seaside and Astoria
EAST: 9:22 AM to Sisters, Bend, Burns, Vale and Ontario
WEST: 3:50 PM to Florence, Reedsport and Coos Bay
For Tickets and Schedule Information Contact:
Your Amtrak Travel Agent or call 1-800-USA Rail
This service is partially supported by Oregon Department of Transportation Passenger Rail Funds
MAY 29, 2003 5