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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 14, 1983)
>3 U i Black Studies cut again Black children scrooged again j 1983 ALL AMERICA FOOTBALL TEAM Page 10 Page 3 PORTWND OBSERMER UCPS 95 9-6 M M 5Í Volume XIV, Number 8 December 14, 1983 25C Per Copy C £»» P o b ta tiiil C o . I " t 19») Educators oppose sales tax The Oregon Education Associa tion, Oregon’s largest teacher o r ganization, has announced that it will oppose the sales tax proposal now headed for the Oregon ballot. Sandy Ellis. O E A president, ex plained that the proposal "would not meet O E A ’s goal to provide adequate and ongoing funding for the education of Oregon's children, and. at the same time, provide prop erty tax relief for citizens who sup port and pay for that education.” Four major reasons were cited for O E A 's opposition to the l egislative Smiling Chinny Reney. 4 years old. tell« her wishes to Sente Cleus (Senator Bill McCoy) at the St. Vincent De Paul Child Davelopment Cent#r (Photo: Richard J. Brownl measure: •T h e sales lax proposal does not meet O E A 's school finance and property tax relief goal. •Com bined with existing lim ita tions, the sales tax proposal would make school funding even more d if ficult. It would complicate— not simplify— the school finance and budgeting process;*and it would mean more— not fewer—elections for school budgets. •T h e sales tax measure would not stop or deter passage of a ivy per cent property tax lim itation because voters would be likely to want to as sure retention o f low property tax rates if they voted to approve an $800 million revenue measure. • Passage o f the sales tax measure would foreclose the option of using a sales tax to finance schools if a property tax lim itation also passed. Ellis warned that the combination of existing limitations plus the sales tax proposal and a property tax limitation would "deal Oregon edu cation a knock-out blow ” The sales tax package to be re ferred to the voters contains four components: provision for a sales tax; an expenditure limitation; a rat ification process; a ban on taxing Social Security benefits. The sales tax would become part o f the Con stitution and could not be changed without a vote o f the people. Nearly all sales of goods and ser vices would be taxed except: food for home consumption; prescription drugs; hospitals and medical ser vices; plants, feed, seed, fertilizer, pesticides, livestock and teed for animals; physical ingredients in manufactured products; utilities; sales or leases of real property. This bill repeals the "3 0 percent” property tax relief program The sales (ax would be dedicated to property tax relief. Families with annual incomes o f under $17,500 would receive up to $40 per year per dependent to offset the sales tax. The estimated net revenue to be gained is $629 million. The expenditure lim itation sets limits on state and local govern ments, including school districts. O E A Governmental Relations Consultant John Danielson studied the inpact o f the lim itation on school districts and found that of the 30 largest school districts, only seven had proposed budgets that would be inside the limitations. Had the proposal been in effect Eugene would have been forced to operati on the same budget it had the pre vious year; actually the voters ap proved a $310,000 increase. Salem would have lost $2.1 m il lion; Portland Public Schools would have had several million dollars less. Districts that have experienced se vere problems including closure, like Bend, Prineville, Junction City and Lincoln C ity, will have serious problems if the measure passes. Ellis said, " O u r education system has already suffered budget cut backs causing the level o f school programs to drop significantly over the past two years. I f the sales tax measure passed, the best most dis tricts could hope for would be to maintain at current level, and that's not an acceptable alternative for many o f them Add to that t h e l 'i percent lim itation measure, and well . .. you get the picture " Reagan advisor in Portland: Recommends tax increase by Chuck Goodmacher President Reagan came under in creasing pressure from his own eco nomic advisors Monday as D r. H er bert Stein joined the more contro versial D r. Feldstein in calling for a whopping $50 billion annual tax in crease beginning next year. Stein was in town as the keynote speaker for the 21st annual “ Busi ness and Economic O u tlo o k " con ference co-sponsored by the Port land Chamber o f Commerce and Portland Stale University School of Business Administration. In addi tion to serving as advisor to Presi dent Reagan (and former chair of the Council o f Economic Advisors to both Presidents Nixon and Ford) Stein is a Senior Fellow at the con servative American Enterprise Insti tute, writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal and Fortune maga zine, and is a director o f Reynolds Metals Company. The $50 billion tax increase would be raised by altering the income tax on middle-class America, in Stein's proposal. Stein wants to "h it the consumption o f the average middle- income American” rather than bus iness or the wealthy since, "people who are very rich are very few and their tax contributions are not very im p o rtan t," and there is "general recognition that we do not want to increase the taxes on business any not, however, an obstacle to short term economic recovery, according to Stein. Rather, its major impact is on the economy’s ability to increase productivity and thereby sustain long-term growth. And producti vity, noted Stein, results from in vestments in both research, develop ment and new machinery. These in vestments are restricted when the government borrows much of the available capital to finance the debt, fu rth er." Stein also made 4n attack on gov ernment aid to the poor: “ W e’ re spending a great deal o f money in those programs for people who real ly aren’t p o o r.. people who are by and large middle-class." He told the all-white crowd o f businesspeople that we should tighten up these pro grams (while still serving the few he believes really are poor) as another major step to reduce the federal he added. Exactly what is happening to pro ductivity isn't clear now because the employment figures used in calcu lating it are subject to varying inter pretations, said Stein. The two in form ation bases used by the govern ment show vastly different rates of employment growth. He noted a survey o f households on how many people are working shows a much larger rise in employment than a survey o f employers taken at the deficit. The enormous federal deficit is Guardian Angels Lou Valezquez. Kelly Gerlach and Guardian Angel trainee H ow ard M iller talk (Please turn to page 5, column I ) w ith residents of the Hum boldt and Piedm ont neighborhoods The trio uses bicycles on patrol (Photo Richard J. Brown) Caribbean history, Grenada invasion reviewed by native by Fobert Lothian Trevor Purcell, assistant profaaaor of anthropology at Raed Col- laga and a native of Jamaica, dlscuaaee the United State« Invasion of Grenada Purcell eays that ha has an axa to grind - the axe of tha liberation of hie people on tha grlndetona of truth and justice. (Photo: Richard J. Brown) As a cultural anthropologist, Tre vor Purcell is concerned about the cultural implications o f the U.S. in vasion of Grenada. Purcell, 38, a native o f Jamaica, is assistant pro fessor of anthropology at Reed C o l lege specializing in Caribbean studies. “ The cultural tool is probably the most powerful tool o f dom ination,” said Purcell in a recent interview at his house in Southeast Portland "Developed countries know this, and they use it to make people feel culturally inferior." Millions in economic develop ment funds and Reagan-administra- tion encouragement o f U.S. private investment in Grenada foretells the reforming of Grenadian culture and institutions along U .S . lines, ac cording to Purcell. " I t ’s not simply a rescue, not sim ply a restoration or o rd er," he said. "There is no doubt in my mind that Reagan is there to create an atmo sphere sympathetic to free enter prise." Massive U .S. investment and the establishment o f a top-heavy indus _i _ i economy «.in >,,.n Grenada's rcrM>f<a*< trial will turn poor Black population into a cheap labor force for U.S. companies, said Purcell. Also, he said, the island will be inundated by luxuries— "trans port attraction” — that will disturb the internal strength o f the people and threaten their mental health. Under U .S. occupation Grenada appears headed for colonial oppres sion once again, he said, with sus pension o f civil rights, press censor ship and U.S. Army psychological warfare aimed at cowing the popu lation. Already, members o f the in terim government are quitting in disgust. "A s more and more in fo r mation comes to light, I think people will start breaking aw ay," said Purcell. " I think a number of prominent Grenadians will start speaking u p ." In the meantime, it is likely that, if asked, island residents will tell their new rulers what they want to hear, he said. "D u a l conscious ness,” where one face is shown to the oppressor and a different one to friends and comrades, is a survival technique used by all oppressed groups, including Blacks in the U.S.. according to Purcell. "Y o u don’t o rk and thi that threatened the en vnursclf." he said. said w w o rk ." ." and reveal yourself," tire rickety system o f neo-colonial Purcell described Grenada before ism in the Caribbean, said Purcell the invasion as "a very small coun Seen in relief against the simmer try where people had been able to be ing poverty o f the other former satisfied " Maurice Bishop’s New British colonies in the area, includ Jewel government had pursued a de ing Jamaica, Barbados and D o m in i velopment scheme based on devel ca, Grenada’s Caribbean socialism oping and diversifying the island’ s made the leaders o f those countries resources, mainly cocoa, bananas nervous, he said. Tom Adams of and nutmeg A coffee processing Barbados and Eugenia Charles of plant, a juice plant, and a fish pro Dominica offered verbal support cessing plant had been set up under and contributed troops to the invg Bishop, said Purcell, and by 1982 sion. the socialist government was invest "T h ey're very, very scared," he ing at the rate of $100 million per said. "T h e fear is based on the rec year in roads, schools and free ognition o f poverty in those coun medical clinics. That rate lar out tries and that people are likely to re stripped investment during British volt because of th a t." colonial times and under the post What the U.S. is doing under the colonial regime o f autocrat Eric smokescreen of "restoring order" Gairy from 1974 to M arch, 1979 and “ rescuing the mecical students" (when the New Jewel revolution oc is nothing new for the Caribbean curred and Bishop came to power). and Central America, said Purcell "Bishop did make tremendous “ The Caribbean, since the 15th strides," said Purcell. As the first century, has been used for the bene English-speaking Black socialist fit of outside forces, and the inva country, Grenada under Bishop was sion is just one more step in that a shining example for poor Blacks in the Caribbean "People were there is a way lems outside and the U .S ., he said. beginning to see that o f solving their prob the capitalist frame trend ."
