As you read this, we are only 60 or so days out from the November election. Right?!? With that in mind, this column and October’s will deal with topics that will be on our ballots as statewide ballot measures. There are five this year. I feel like this is something that I can talk about that is educational and a little less ideological or fraught with straight up politics, like endorsements of candidates. I will save that for my e-newsletter.
First up is Ballot Measure 118, dubbed by its supporters the Oregon Rebate, as it seeks to raise taxes on very large businesses to provide every Oregonian an annual check, a guaranteed income. If passed, the measure would raise taxes by three percent on companies with sales greater than $25 million. Those taxes would then be distributed to every Oregonian, regardless of age or income level. Initial estimates pegged the benefit at $750 per person, but a more recent analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Revenue Office (smart tax economists who help legislators and the public understand tax policy and legislation) now has the benefit at $1,600 per person.
When things sound too good to be true, they usually are. Ballot Measure 118 is one of those things. I suspect that might come as a surprise to some of you as I am a pretty liberal/progressive Democrat who has supported just about every tax increase that the legislature or the public via the ballot measure process has tried to pass.
Oregon’s working families are struggling. I bet we all know someone(s) that could use $1,600 right now. Having extra money to spend on food, gas and bills is useful. But I challenge anybody to look around and ask if raising taxes to give everyone in every household $1,600 is the silver bullet for Oregon’s problems. Is it that working Oregonians are struggling or is it that key things in our state are not working? It might be little of both. But working Oregonians who are struggling rely on decent schools and the health care system and Ballot Measure 118 does nothing to help those struggling systems.
This was our worst forest fire season ever, and it is not over yet. Our public school system is not staffed as well as it needs to be for the outcomes we want. Tuition at our state universities and community colleges is too high and I already mentioned that our health care system, especially the behavioral health care system, needs investment as well. And we don’t have enough affordable housing. If we as a state are going to make the difficult decision to raise taxes, we ought to raise taxes to address Oregon’s most pressing predicaments.
Ballot Measure 118 would send checks to many people who don’t need them, while making it harder to address the existing crises I outlined, along with a few others.
Noticeably, Ballot Measure 118 has drawn broad, bipartisan backlash. Legislative Republican leaders have decried the measure with the usual anti-tax talking points. However, leading Oregon Democrats, including Governor Tina Kotek, are also urging a no vote. “It may look good on paper, but its flawed approach would punch a huge hole in the state budget and put essential services for low-wage and working families at risk,” said the governor. House Speaker Julie Fahey, Senate President Rob Wagner, as well as House and Senate Majority Leaders Ben Bowman and our own Kathleen Taylor, all called Ballot Measure 118 “a bad deal.” Oregon’s major unions have yet to weigh in, save for the Oregon Education Association, which came out against the Measure, but I suspect more of them will also weigh in and urge a no vote.
I am sympathetic to the proponents’ aims. As a long-time labor organizer, working people were squarely at the center of my work for my entire professional life. But so was/is standing up for a good healthcare system, paying for decent schools and lowering tuition. Moreover, as someone who got his start in politics in the 90’s fighting against disastrous tax measures, I know all about how Oregon’s uneven tax system benefits wealthy Oregonians at the expense of working Oregonians. But this isn’t the way to fix that.
A tax increase of this scale has expectably drawn the ire of Oregon’s business community. They make some good points. For starters, the tax is on sales, not profits. If a business has a large profit margin or a small one, they would be subject to the tax regardless of how well they were doing financially. This new increase would inevitably be passed along to consumers. The tax applies to every business along the supply chain. This means that as a product moves through the supply chain, the company manufacturing the product will be subject to the tax, creating a “tax on a tax.” This would raise prices and potentially trigger job losses. Nowhere would this effect be more acutely felt than grocery stores.
In short, I am a “no” on Ballot Measure 118, and I urge you to vote “no’ as well. If we want to try this approach, let’s fix the “kicker,” since we cannot seem to get rid of it. I will talk about the other four statewide ballot measures next month.
