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OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, June 24, 2017
REVENUE: To pass, bill needs
at least one Republican blessing
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
A semi-final heat races towards the finish line Friday during the Dogtona 400 wiener dog race on Main
Street in Pendleton.
RACE: Event benefits the Children’s Museum
Continued from 1A
compete with two other pugs allowed
a mid-competition costume change?
Could a man set a personal record
of eating four hot dogs while keeping
the contents from re-emerging?
And could dogs endowed with
features that make them arguably
the least conducive breed for racing
cross the finish line without getting
distracted?
The answer to all those questions
was a resounding yes, as the doggy
costume contest (won by Sophie)
and hot dog eating contest (won by
Travis Williams) preceded the fastest
two-and-a-half seconds in sports —
the wiener dog race.
The races were closely monitored
(one of the heats was repeated after
the results were contested), but in the
end, it was Boomer of Kennewick
who repeated for the title.
“He’s just extra hyper,” Daniels
said, revealing Boomer’s competitive
edge.
The contestants weren’t just
racing for the pride of victory, but
for a good cause — the Children’s
Museum of Eastern Oregon.
The community heavily sold
the wiener dog races to first-year
children’s museum director Joanna
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Elanore Bailey of Vancouver, Wash., looks over the race course with
her dog Penny, 3, on Friday during the Dogtona 400 wiener dog race
on Main Street in Pendleton.
Engle, and she came away impressed.
“It did not disappoint,” she said.
Proceeds from the event will go
toward the nonprofit’s operations and
maintaining it’s children’s exhibits.
As for Boomer, Friday’s victory
gives him a chance to compete in the
Northwest regional competition at
an Oktoberfest in Aberdeen, Wash-
ington.
But even the racers who didn’t
come home with a prize were left
with consoling words from emcee
Sam Neal.
“Every wiener is a winner
tonight,” he said.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or
541-966-0836.
revenues and expenses in the
upcoming state budget.
That figure was partially
closed by an assessment on
health care providers passed
by the legislature Wednesday,
which is projected to narrow
the gap by at least $600 million,
according to revenue impact
estimates.
Many Democrats who
spoke in favor of the bill Friday
portrayed the four-year-old
policy as hastily compiled
and failing to meet its policy
objective, which was to help
the state’s small businesses
create jobs.
Instead, they argued, the
break benefited “scrubs and
suits” — doctors and lawyers.
“We created yet another
giveaway to the very wealthy,”
said the bill’s carrier, Phil Barn-
hart, a Democrat from Eugene.
Democrats point to figures
from the Legislative Revenue
Office, which found that in
2015, over 90 percent of
beneficiaries made more than
$200,000 per year, and that
more than 70 percent made at
least $500,000.
State Rep. Janelle Bynum,
D-Happy Valley, said Oregon’s
economy was thriving before
the tax break was passed in
2013.
“Why is small business
thriving?” Bynum said. “It’s
not because of this tax break.”
Conversely, many Repub-
licans cast the legislation as a
broken promise to the state’s
small businesspeople.
Rep. Sherrie Sprenger, a
Republican from Scio, said the
law could advance the state’s
“urban-rural divide,” and said
the state would be hard-pressed
to find a small agricultural
business that employed at least
10 people year round.
State Rep. Carl Wilson,
R-Grants Pass, appealed to
legislators’ self-interest and
said the tax would not be
popular among voters.
“This is not going to play
well in your district, you know
it won’t,” Wilson said. “...I’m
talking from Brooks to Port-
land, and from Grants Pass to
Roseburg and Cottage Grove,
you’ve got a lot of constituents
that are going to be damaged by
this.”
For a period, the debate
over the bill took a detour as
legislators debated whether it
required a simple majority or a
three-fifths majority.
The distinction, trivial at
first glance, is actually essential
when it comes to the Legisla-
ture’s efforts to raise new taxes
this session.
Under the Oregon Consti-
tution, measures “raising
revenue” require a 3/5 majority
approval in both the House and
Senate.
Democrats easily have a
simple majority in both cham-
bers, but are one seat shy of that
three-fifths majority in both. So,
assuming all Democrats vote
for a revenue-raising policy, in
order to pass, it needs at least
one Republican signing on.
At issue Friday was whether
the partial repeal of the tax cut
qualified as “raising revenue.”
The debate over that ques-
tion quickly turned philosoph-
ical.
“They call a tax rate cut
an expenditure,” said House
Minority
Leader
Mike
McLane, R-Powell Butte, “As
if somehow the premise is that
the government owns your
money.”
But a June 22 legislative
counsel opinion says otherwise.
“...We view (the bill) as
adjusting the parameters of a
tax benefit rather than enacting
a new tax,” Legislative Counsel
Dexter Johnson wrote in a letter
addressed to Kotek.
And
some
Democrats
suggested it was fiscally
irresponsible to maintain what
a spokesman for the House
Democratic Caucus called a
“runaway tax break,” or money
that would otherwise be taxed
and an amount that is projected
to continue growing.
Kotek, in a speech toward
the end of Friday’s floor
session, said the policy did not
have the “targeted effect” of
incentivizing small businesses
to hire more people.
“We’re not eliminating this
break,” Kotek said. “We’re
trying to fix it and make it more
targeted.”
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