THE PILOT www.TheCitizensWhoCare.org The Pilot - 12/30/09 (Facts on 66 (income tax) and 67 (corporate tax) Krieger: ...how the state government is growing, not being cut, during a recession. "The fact is we're growing 9.3%." (compared to what?) What areas of the goverment are growing? Public safety? "The budget is up $7.9 billion. Agencies would come in and say we want this. They asked for 120% increases. We do 110 and they say it's a cut." "Corrections" was up but 4CF was cut 20%. "Says there are 130,000 Oregonians out of work," many because of the cuts that have happened in education, health care, and public safety. Sheriff's department alone, when compared to population growth in the last 15 years is down 31%, more than any other state in the country. Next closest cut 19%. Plus, 44M more people moved to Oregon than left last year and the current unemployment is 88M people. Looks like we had a lot more jobs than people to fill them. "This thing we've got going now is putting Oregon in the highest personal tax rate, the higest business tax rate and the second highest in capital gains." Hawaii's high is 11%, California 11.75, And, how does this compare with other states when combining income tax, property tax, fees AND sales tax? According to CNN (money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbystate2005/index.html) Oregon is 36th out of 50 in personal taxes. www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/corp_inc.html indicates that Oregon's corporate tax rate is about average. He said that if those taxes approved, big business will leave Oregon. Where's your indicators to support this outlandish statement? An independent researcher (not identified) says 70M more jobs will leave Oregon. "We're the only state with a gross receipts tax." (No sales tax.) "That's why people are not going to come here." Yet, 44M people did move here last year. Many retire here because of no sales tax and those making more than $125M get a pretty free ride. More people that don't want to take responsibility. "Senate Republicans, we have come up with some potential savings that will make the tax cuts totally unnecessary." What are they? Kruse was going to eMail me a copy. Not received yet. The one we know is to have state employees pay a portion of the state provided health care to save $300 million of the budget. There they go again. Suggesting to make up some of the deficite by cutting the disposable income of those well under $125M in taxable income. More for them to enjoy life with while many other Oregonians struggle to make ends meet. ...with or without the tax increases, the projected rollover costs for the next biennium will leave the state $3 billion short. "You can't continue to grow government when your industries are losing." Grow government? Prisons, unemployment and services, human needs. What happened to taking care of my neighbor? ...kind of get what people's concerns are so we can share them with our colleagues when we're there in February." Some of my concerns are: Oregon law encourages parents to let their kids drink alcohol at any age. "Increasing the cost of alcohol is the single most effective intervention to reduce underage drinking." Oregon Healthy Teens (2006) & Monitoring the Future (2006) "Oregon 8th graders use alcohol (31.8%) and drugs (15.7%) at nearly twice the naiontla average for 8th graders (alcohol 17.2%, drugs 15.7%)." Oregon law makes booze cheap for kids. Beer and wine tax has been at 6 cents a gallon for 30 years. It is the lowest "effective tax" on malt beverages n the U.S. Other states that hav malt beverage taxes as low or lower than Oregon's (6 states), have a sales tax, making Oregon's the lowest "effective tax." Both Washigton and California are over 20 cents a gallon and Alaska is over $1.00 a gallon. Oregon Liquor Commission tested selling liquor in grocery stores and saw a major increase in sales without dedicating funds for prevention and treatment services to handle the increase in alcohol related problems. "Alcohol abuse and alcoholism cost each Oregonian $683 annually (emergency health care, auto crashers, criminal justice cost, workers' comp claims, chikld abuse, etc." NIAAA, 2000. "Among teen mothers, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) alone costs Oregon $12.4 million per year." PIRE, 2005. "Youth traffic crashes cost Oregonians $135.7 million per year." PIRE 2005. "Total Oregon underage drinking sales - $278 million. Total alcohol industry profits on underage drinking in Oregon - $135 million. Total funds (mostly federal) available in Oregon for combating underage drinking - $33 million." Pire, 2005. "It is an opportunity for people to express what they think....If they say we're wrong, that's fine, too." The Pilot - 1/6/10 Krieger: "I understand Nike is talking about moving out of the state if this passes. They pay $40 million a year in taxes and have thousands of employees. In the long term, we would wind up shooting ourselves in the foot.". Nike told me "Absolutely not." and was going to turn this over to their government affairs department. They also said they have about 5,300 employees. "South Coast Lumber is losing $1 million a year to keep going." South Coast told me they didn't know where that information came from but couldn't comment further. The building materials market has tanked nationwide due to the collapse of the housing bundle and the lack of commercial lending due to the banking crisis. How is that the fault of the Oregon democrats? BTW: They still have money to fly their corporate aircraft all around the western US: flightaware.com/live/flight/N46BR. IThis is not to say they shouldn't use their corporate Super King Air 200 ten passenger twin turborprop, which is a valuable business tool. But by the Kruse/Krieger standard they should cut out the waste and get rid of it. It would save them at least $1 million.)   Legend: Black = the statement as it appeared in The Pilot. Red = my comments.  Read More Here ©2010, www.TheCitizensWhoCare.org/pilot.html