Once more, with feeling: “Oregon is not a high tax state!”

Today, on KPAM’s Victoria Taft show, I listened to Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton blather on about out-of-control state spending.

That’s a fiction. I proved so in my April post, “Oregon is not a high tax state.”

In my blogger delusionality, I figured that would be the end of it. Politicians and talk show hosts would have learned the truth. My post would have changed the world.

Sadly, the message obviously hasn’t gotten through. So I’ll sing my song again.

Oregon ranks 36th out of the 50 states in state and local taxes as a percentage of per capita income. Colorado is #37, and it already has a cap on state government spending.

So where is the need for the Oregon TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) ballot measure that would starve state spending and cut necessary services like education and law enforcement?

There isn’t any need. Even Ron Saxton knows that. He isn’t supporting TABOR. Yet he told Victoria Taft that if the measure passes and he’s Governor, he could happily live within the spending limit.

Saxton must have taken campaigning lessons from John Kerry. He isn’t for TABOR, but he’s not against it either.

The most nonsensical words that I heard Saxton utter (and many competed for this distinction) were in response to a Taft question: “Could you ever see yourself raising taxes?”

Saxton said that he couldn’t, because taxes shouldn’t be raised in a down economy, and taxes should be cut in a booming economy. So there never is a reason to raise taxes.

Well, mathematics isn’t my strong suit. But it seems evident that if Oregon (A) kept taxes the same in bad times and (B) cut taxes in good times, eventually the state tax rate would be zero. Oregon would have starved itself to death, just like an anorexic who believes that she (or he) never can be too thin.

Yet you can be too thin. That’s why anorexia nervosa is a disease, not a desirable lifestyle.

In the same fashion, tax-cut anorexics (otherwise known as right-wing Republicans) have the delusion that government spending can go on a limitless spending diet without ever incurring any ill effects.

I’d like to ask Saxton, “Could you ever see yourself spending more of your household income on health care?” I assume he’d say “Yes.”

If not, I’d follow up with: “What if your wife or child fell ill and needed expensive medical treatment that wasn’t covered by insurance? Would you be willing to spend more money to save the life of a loved one?” Almost all of us would. All of us who have more than an ounce of human compassion.

So Ron, what if it was your beloved state of Oregon that had fallen on hard times and needed more money to cure health, education, environmental, transportation, or other serious problems?

No one should vote for a candidate who says that he’ll never raise taxes. Especially when he lives in a state that already has a below-average state and local tax burden. Fall another ten places in the rankings, from 36 to 46, and Oregon will enjoy the company of Alabama.

Whoopee.

You can be too thin. And you also can be too tax-starved. Don’t vote for Saxton. Or for the TABOR measure. Keep Oregon lean, not anorexic.

[Next day update: just came across this excellent Daily Kos piece about TABOR-like state spending limitations. It hits on the same themes I did, and points out what a disaster the Colorado experience has been.]

Comments

[Mark@PSU]

How true you are that Oregon is not high tax state, but fees are not calculated into your equation. Oregonians may have a tax rate that puts them at 36th highest per capita taxing, but the spending puts Oregon at 13th highest per capita. Fees make up the difference. For example, when a builder builds a home, local and state governments add approximately $24,000 to the price of the home.

Furthermore, The Rainyday amendment/spending limit/(Incorrectly termed Oregon TABOR) does not address the tax rate, only the increase in spending.

For more information on the State/Local spending per capita:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/276.html

[Brian]

Mark, I think you need to do some research. I suspect the page you linked to includes federal revenue sources. Oregon's state taxes are about $1,700 per capita, according to another page on the Tax Foundation web site:
http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/04staxrank.html

Your page shows per capita spending of $7,857 for Oregon. I seriously doubt that local taxes and fees are over $6,000 per capita in Oregon (my wife and I pay nowhere near $12,000 to Marion County).

The link above shows Oregon ranks #40 in per capita state taxes.

Even more persuasively, another Tax Foundation page shows that Oregon ranks #35 in state and local tax burden:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/476.html

I stand by my statement: Oregon is not a high tax state. Good try, but choosing the wrong data from an anti-tax group like the Tax Foundation won't make your case.

[Mark@PSU]

Alright without using The anti-tax website, let's look at the figures.

According to the legislative budget (P. 5) - http://www.leg.state.or.us/comm/lfo/budghigh05-07.pdf

Funding for the state budget came from the following funds:
$8.412 Billion - Federal Funds
$21.683 Billion - Other Funds
$11.489 Billion - General Funds (AKA Income tax + Property Taxes)
$.783 Billion - Lottery Funds

Using a population of 3,641,056 from the Census Website, the per capita spending of these funding sources:

$2310 - Federal Funds
$5955 - Other Funds
$3155 - General Funds
$215 - Lottery Funds

Federal Tax dollars represent only 19.9% of the budget for the state. Other Funds, which represent non-tax revenue, make up 51.2% of the state budget. This explains Oregon's very low tax rate while having a significantly higher spending than other states.

[Mark@PSU]

Sorry for the double post, but keep in mind these are biennium figures and thus your approximate $1,700 tax figure is as accurate as it gets.

[carla]

(This explains Oregon's very low tax rate while having a significantly higher spending than other states.)

Huh?

Both spending and taxation are waaaaay down in Oregon relative to what other states.

http://rfs.rockinst.org/exhibit/9054/Full%20Text/GovtFinancesBrief2001Recession.pdf

In addition, Ron Saxton's own source citations prove that relative to other states, Oregon's spending is well managed and controlled:

http://loadedorygun.blogspot.com/2006/04/in-which-we-call-bullshit-against-ron.html

The latest figures I can find for per capita spending for the states are from 2002. Oregon ranks 35th among all states.

http://www.ppinys.org/reports/jtf2004/stlocalspending.htm

Given that we've continued budget cutting since that time, I find it difficult to believe we'd be much higher on that list in 2006.

[Brian]

Carla, good points. And good links. A 2003 report from the Oregon Center for Public Policy further supports the conclusion that Oregon is in the middle of the pack, or lower, on both state taxation and spending:
http://www.ocpp.org/2003/rpt030415.pdf

Further, the piece that I linked to at the end of my post makes the most persuasive argument of all:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/11/164451/031

We live in a democracy. We elect people who carry out our policy wishes. If Oregonians want to spend less on state government, they can do so via the ballot box. If they want to spend more, ditto.

It galls me to have an out of state group try to take that right away from me via a highly politicized initiative. These TABOR-like efforts are aimed at handcuffing grass-roots democracy and substituting central government control.

Want to expand public services that reflect your values? Sorry, can't do that, because the bureaucratic state spending limit knows more about what you want than you do.

That's complete bullshit, especially coming from conservatives who supposedly want to limit the power of government. What they really want to do is limit the power of citizens to control their own destiny.

I'm confident Oregonians will see through this crap. We're independent in this state and don't appreciate being controlled by outside interests.