Eugene weekly., July 17, 2003, Page 12, Image 12

Kulongoski shouldn’t worry about a tax ballot hurting
Democrats in 2004, he says. “It probably wouldn’t make
much of a difference.”
Reformers say the time to act is now. “Oregon can’t afford
not to act,” says FOFT coalition director Chip Terhune.
“We’ve become this national poster child for states in fiscal
difficulty.”
Budget cuts threaten to cut medical coverage for 150,000
Oregonians and close schools up to 30 days early.
“Tremendous damage is being done,” Terhune says.
Lundquist of OBA says business leaders also have a sense
of urgency. “We cannot have a healthy business environment
if we let the state fall below certain minimum standards,” he
says. Already it’s becoming hard for businesses to recruit
employees to a state with a national reputation for schools
closing to save money, he says.
Nesbitt says now is not the time for yet more tax reform
blue-ribbon commissions. “It’s a time for solutions.”
With so much publicity recently about Oregon’s failure to
fund schools, the time is ripe right now for reform, Nesbitt
says. It will be harder to restore cut programs later than save
them now, he says. With school out for summer, the public
pressure for reform has let up, he says. “We may already have
lost it for the time being.”
taking initiative
a chance” of passing, Nesbitt says. The AFL-CIO director
says the group should put one easy to understand measure on
the ballot. Two measures could split a potential majority and
both fail, he says.
moral majority
Whatever reformers put on the ballot, it won’t be easy to
pass.
“I don’t think it’s a problem of finding the right question,”
Hibbitts says. “Nothing would pass.”
A tax increase will be even more difficult given recent
votes to fund tax increases in Eugene and Multnomah
“
With action from the governor and legislature unlikely,
FOFT coalition members say they’re preparing to gather sig-
natures to put a progressive tax reform measure on the ballot
in November 2004.
Coalition members are now debating among themselves
and trying to figure out what exactly to put on the ballot.
Members want something that will be fair, politically viable
and provide additional stable revenue, Terhune says. “It is
going to take a lot of work to boil it down to either a single
initiative or series of initiatives.”
Given the urgency of the school funding situation, there’s
some debate on whether it’s more important for the measure
to provide more revenue and be politically viable or be fair to
the poor, Marshall says.
David A. Leslie, director of Ecumenical Ministries of
Oregon, says the most important criteria should be fairness.
“It would be better to try and keep the principle focused
before you jump to any revenue is good revenue.”
“The benchmark has to be does this make the tax system
more fair to working families. Without that I don’t think it has
rant of the highly regressive nature of sales taxes, and were
more vulnerable to lobbying by the better off against reform.
“Changing the tax system in a big way is hard to do,” McIntyre
says.
Another difficulty in taxing the rich and giving to the poor
is that “class warfare politics hasn’t been terribly successful in
the United States,” Hibbitts says. “Many people believe that one
of these days they’re going to be in the upper class,” Hibbitts
says. Middle class voters also often have different interests and
don’t ally with lower income people, he says.
But McIntyre says, “raising taxes on the rich always polls
well.” The challenge, he says, is educating voters that the poor
the key to solving the budget problem is
to come up with a more fair tax system that
raises revenue,” he says. “fair taxes for
good schools and good jobs.” – tim nesbitt
County, Hibbitts says. Voters who’ve already passed a local
measure for schools may say, “We gave at the office.”
“It’s way too early to know what’s going to pass in
November 2004,” Marshall says. She says this tax reform
effort will be more broad based and well-organized than the
failed Measure 28 campaign and other past efforts at tax
reform.
Oregon passed an income tax increase in the deeper 1980s
recession to fund schools, Marshall says. “We could do it now
if we had the political will.”
If Oregon is able to reform the higher burden of it’s taxes
on the poor, it would be a leader among states nationwide.
Oregon state taxes are actually less regressive than most
states, mostly because Oregon lacks a sales tax, according to
ITEP.
State taxes are so regressive because of a variety of rea-
sons, according to Bob McIntyre, director of ITEP. States his-
torically left income taxes to the federal government, were igno-
get stuck with the bills the rich don’t pay. “When confronted
with the tradeoffs, people tend to move towards more progres-
sive taxes.”
Nesbitt says the appeal of fairer taxes will help pass a ballot
measure. “The key to solving the budget problem is to come up
with a more fair tax system that raises revenue,” he says. “Fair
taxes for good schools and good jobs,” should be the motto, he
says.
“Possibly that might have a chance,” says Hibbitts of such a
Robin Hood call for fairness and justice.
Leslie of Ecumenical Ministries says fairer taxes have a uni-
versal moral appeal. “In a fair and just society, the rich should
pay more,” he says.
In anti-tax Alabama, conservative Republican governor Bob
Riley is citing the Bible in his campaign to reform the
“immoral” taxes in his state by taxing the rich more and the
poor less.
Who would Jesus tax?
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12 JULY 17, 2003