It looks like the opponents of Measures 66 and 67 have found their Dorothy English. Her name is Carol Marie Leuthold, and she and her husband Dan have a dairy farm in Tillamook.
Dorothy English, as you may remember, is the sweet little old lady who wanted to develop her farmland outside Portland but was prevented by Oregon’s land use laws. She became the poster child for Measure 37, which gutted those laws. (Fortunately Oregon voters saw the light and later passed another measure that repaired most of 37’s damage.)
Last weekend, a letter from Carol Leuthold appeared in Oregonians’ mailboxes. “Five generations of our family have worked at our Tillamook dairy,” it began. “It’s our life and our business. Milk prices are plunging and it’s harder than ever to keep our business afloat. We’re worried that the new, permanent tax increases legislators passed in June will hurt our farm and the families it supports.”
The letter goes on to ask recipients to vote no on 66 and 67 and thereby reject the modest increases in taxes on corporations and affluent individuals that the legislature passed.
A touching appeal from a poor, struggling farmer with manure on her boots and a battered old pickup out in the yard, right?
Well, not quite.
As a good reporter should, Oregonian blogger Jeff Mapes did a little checking and discovered that the Leutholds are not exactly the Joad family from “The Grapes of Wrath”:
“In an interview, Leuthold said her farm operation will face just one increase: a new minimum corporate tax of $150 a year on her family’s farm partnership. However, she said her family has enough income from other activities, which she declined to discuss, to be subject to the personal income increases levied on households with taxable income of more than $250,000 a year.”
The Leutholds do not appear to be just barely scraping by: “According to a blog post from a Tillamook Dairy promotional web site, Carol Leuthold traveled in Italy and France [last year] to take cooking classes while her husband Dan went on a South African safari,” Mapes reports.
And last year apparently was not unusual. The Basic Rights Oregon website reports that Carol Leuthold’s profile on the Tillamook Cheese Fan Club site says “Leuthold and her husband, Dan, have a serious case of the travel bug. The couple has roamed around the world, including stops in Brazil, Italy, Germany and Alaska. They touch down in Switzerland, Dan’s familial homeland, every four years or so.”
Curiously, when I went to the Tillamook Cheese Fan Club site today to read the profile for myself, it wasn’t there anymore.
UPDATE: This afternoon, the page that formerly contained Carol Leuthold’s profile had been revised to include this message:
“The personality of the month profile for Carol Marie Leuthold has been removed by request of her family.
We here at the Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA), appreciate the opportunity to share the following information with you.
On Friday, November 27, Carol Marie Leuthold, a member of the TCCA dairy cooperative, wrote a letter opposing Measures 66 and 67, which was mailed to voters in Oregon. The campaign opposing the measures obtained addresses from Oregon state voting records and mailed 950,000 letters to voting households across the state.
While Carol Marie and her family are one of the more than 110 dairy farm families who are members of TCCA, producers of Tillamook dairy products, her letter was not sent on behalf of TCCA or our other dairy farm families.
The letter from Carol Marie reflects her personal views on Measures 66 and 67.
There is no clear consensus among our member dairy farmers regarding these measures. Consequently, as a farmer-owned cooperative, TCCA has not taken a position on Measures 66 and 67. However, we respect our members’ ability to participate in the political environment of their own accord.”
“There is nothing wrong with enjoying the benefits of working hard for 45 years,” Leuthold told Mapes.
Certainly not. But as Carla Axtman writes on the Blue Oregon blog, “It’s tough to make the case that [the Leutholds are] in a world of hurt over possible personal tax increases when one sees the entire Leuthold picture. They don’t want to pay more to fund schools and police and roads because … it might put a dent in their ability to take a European vacation? So apparently we’d be killing jobs in Europe, not in Oregon. I can live with that.”
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.
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Now that we’re on the subject, how might I find out what sort of farm subsidies the dairy’s received over the years? I could get irritated as a taxpayer indirectly paying for European vacations I simply can’t afford myself…
Yep….. Got that letter…. It was mildly convincing,, Thank You SO much for shedding light on the subject!!
“”There is nothing wrong with enjoying the benefits of working hard for 45 years,” Leuthold told Mapes.”
….I cannot disagree with that statement,, however with said light shed on the whole picture I find myself lactose intolerant,, -Cheesy indeed!
Why Mr Miller, do you think your profile was omitted? …Curious!
Keep up the great work!
MGM
The entire anti-tax campaign is slimy. They are ill-served by their advertising agency. Knowing nothing but the ads they put out, I would be opposed to whatever position they were pushing. Give us facts – don’t just run a campaign based on fear.
“Why Mr Miller, do you think your profile was omitted?”
It wasn’t my profile that was omitted, it was Carol Leuthold’s.
Pure coincidence, no doubt.
Steve Novick of the Blue Oregon blog adds some interesting info about the Leuthold letter this morning:
“This letter came from tobacco lobbyist Mark Nelson and his sidekick Pat McCormick, who are running the opposition campaign. The return address is nowhere near the fields of Tillamook, but rather an abandoned mattress superstore in industrial Salem. The letters were hand-signed to look authentic, but all in different handwriting. (Good to see there are still job opportunities available for Sizemore's old signature gathering team.)”
Novick’s post is accompanied by an illustration showing some of the various signature styles used on the letters.
He adds that “between 2002 and 2006, the Leuthold farm took in $92,753 in Federal farm subsidies. Again, the Leuthold Saga illustrates one of our key points: We all benefit from the services that taxes make possible. However, most of us don't get to claim tax benefits and subsidies and, at the same time, travel to Europe and go on African safaris. As Chuck Sheketoff said the other day, Mark Nelson “can't find the poster child” for his fight against raising the $10 corporate minimum. So he's been reduced to trying to paint a wealthy globetrotter facing a $150 tax bill as a struggling farmer who will have to lay off employees.”
Reader,
Has Carol Marie Leuthold or her husband ever heard of The Power Elite , 1955 by C. Wright Mills, which continues to be in print ?
One chapter ‘The Higher Immorality’ describes in detail all the damage done to others by this chronic lying and deceiving .
Most Oregon state representatives, and corporate elites have reduced corporate tax share from 18% to 8% (to be generous) over the last generation proving to the middle class that they could care less about honesty and good governence.
What is gained by these deceptions is a loss for all.
Carter Rose
POB 152
Wolf Creek
Oregon
97497