Yeah, I know PERS has BIG issues. But when I checked out the website for The Tax Foundation, ranking each state in tax rates, per capita and per $1000 in income, the charts I found for 2001 put Oregon in the middle.
So who's your source for saying Oregon is 10th in overall state tax rates? Gimme a citation.
And what's the big surprise that our property taxes are so high? That's part of the by-product of our having NO sales tax. Look at what Washington and California generate in per capita revenue by general sales taxes... and we have NONE of that going to run this state.
The legislature did approve the state budget that shorts programs. The legislature decided to not do a rainy day fund. The legislature decided to not keep the tax surplus refund kicker. The legislature did next to nothing when the revenue forecasts built into its budget came up hollow. And when the legislature decided to nothing about the cuts posed by the budget it passed and turned underfunded, it let M28 go to the voters to allow nothing to happen to re-fund state cops and schools and courts and elderly and infirm programs etc etc etc.
I don't mean to defend funding every program out there. But how often do you hear the "I don't have kids in school here. Why do I have to pay" comments? Someone was sure catering to that constituency!
Hey, guess who passed the PERS laws that were supposed to do one thing, but when they worded it wrong and passed it anyway, it had a different effect? Yep. The legislature. I guess our citizen legislators back then did not know enough about legal rules for construing statutory language when they botched the money match wording. You can pull the legislative history, where people explained what they THOUGHT they were doing, then you can compare the court opinions, where the courts read the language of the passed statute and conclude that wasn't what they wrote but we're stuck with what they passed... we have a history of amateur legislators, and sometimes there's bad along with the good that comes of that.
I'm not overjoyed that soon they'll have a worse reputation than lawyers, but they will certainly deserve it.
Some other time, on a lighter note, we can discuss a line item veto. Or how while I'm a die hard baseball fan (now you know I'm a whacko) I doubt Portland's SMSA can support one adequately. (Watch out for the White Sox this season)
In the meantime, I doubt people understand how much bang they get for the buck on their tax dollars. Yes, I'm being serious. Sure, everyone gripes. But it's too complicated for most people to understand.
By the way, if taxes are too high, should we all save money by doing away with unemployment benefits?
R. Birk JD/MBA
