This week’s letter comes from former chamber president Mike Schmidt who questions the authenticity of claims that new business and top earner taxes will derail economic recovery. Thanks for the letter, Mike. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Oh wait, we did. Regardless, you’re entitled to a bag of Strictly Organic Coffee on us. Collect your caffeinated spoils at our office, 704 NW Georgia.
Bravo to your Oct. 7 “Boot.” Your excellent commentary on the taxes our state legislature passed on corporations and high-income households. Raising the corporate minimum tax and adjusting the taxes on households making over $250,000 was a bold move to help ensure Oregon has the funding for education, public safety and other much-needed programs. Let’s hope all thinking Oregonians will vote “Yes” to keep these nominal tax increases. Remember, this time you do want to vote “Yes.”Oddly enough, it was our local chamber and the Central Oregon Builders Association where one could sign petitions to repeal these taxes. They argue that raising the corporate minimum taxes will cost jobs and make Oregon less competitive. It’s almost as bogus an argument as when the chamber’s board of directors passed a policy statement earlier this year opposing business support for public transit.
In their policy statement, dated April 29, 2009 and delivered to city hall, one of the points centered on the $50-a-year business license fee, the lowest in the country for a community of our size. The statement read: “The business license is a hardship on small businesses and will hamper the creation of jobs; it should be repealed rather than increased.”
The corporate minimum tax applies to all business classifications other than “Sole-proprietorships.” This business classification makes up a huge majority of businesses in the state and an even larger number of the local chamber’s membership. So the corporations, who should be paying more, are! Did you know the average Oregon household pays more in income taxes than do 300 corporations? Even with the tax increase passed by the legislature, corporations will still pay less in taxes on their income than do you and I as non-corporate taxpayers.
Likewise, having the local chamber state that $50 a year for a business license fee is a hardship and hampering the creation of jobs is another bogus argument. I wonder where the chamber is finding workers willing to work for 13 cents a day, or $50 a year? Given the city’s financial hardship, the business license fee should be raised – not repealed. Similar no-brainer statements are being made by some pro-business organizations working to repeal the new corporate taxes.
I encourage all votes to support the new corporate minimum tax and income tax increase on less than 3 percent of households earning more than $250,000 a year. Bravo to The Source and The Boot commentary on why we should not “Enrich-the-Rich” by repealing these much-needed taxes.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.
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Why do left wing Democrats love raising taxes so much?
Oh yes, because very few of them pay taxes, just feed off the gov’t teat.
Here is an article you should read.
http://portlandbusinessbroker.org/2009/08/20/petition-to-repeal-oregon-state-gross-receipts-tax/
Very few of them pay taxes? How many is “very few”?
I agree that the business license fee sounds fair, I doubt $50 will make or break anyone.
We have some important programs that need support, and some not so much. I have to prioritize with my budget at home, my work boots need to be replaced, but I can get through another month or two before I do, I like steak but I'll be eating hamburger helper tonight to live within my means. Government should do the same until we can get back to being able to afford the “extras”. Increasing taxes for any one right now is a tough pill to swallow. Making someone, who is not me, pay is not taking responsibility for what needs to happen, it's chicken sh*t. If we really believe all of the programs are needed, and that the money needs to increase, then we should all step up to the plate, not just some of us. I never agreed with the Robin Hood thing to steal from the rich and give to poor, that's just flat out lazy on the legislature's part. By God they need to get off their butts and do their job, I'd sure get fired from mine if I didn't.
If WE want it, then WE should pay for it. And right now I can't afford it!
If I praise you and rewrite one of your articles can I have a bag of coffee too, and if I write something negative aboutthe source does that mean I have to get a bag of Earl Grey Tea?
You all keep saying how stealing from the rich to give to the poor is so wrong. You all are missing the big picture. At this point, today, corporations are paying LESS than the average citizen is. These tax increases only make it to where they are paying a little more than they were; which is still less than the average citizen. If someone who makes $250,000 a year is only paying 2% taxes and the average citizen is paying 15%, then hell yeah raise the tax rate of the rich!!!! It is called making them pay their fair share!!
Redistribution of wealth will not only cripple the American economy, it will create generations (not that it isn’t already here!) of lazy couch potatoes totally dependent on the government. Those who work hard at obtaining a college education will get better jobs and achieve personal success and wealth. Those who chase after the crumbs from the table of the rich will never accomplish anything and continue in failure. And, a government stealing from those who have accomplished some level of success and wealth will continue to destroy freedom, liberty and our capitalistin economy – to grow socialism.
I agree with Luanna – it isn’t a case of “stealing” from the “rich” … Here’s the problem: the wealthy have more access to the machinery of “Democracy” (in other words they have more powerful lobbies and they make “contributions” to [aka they bribe] those who are supposed to be representing the interests of the People. It’s a matter of ensuring they pay their fair share. And pleeeeease let’s not have all those doctored statistics about the US Corporate tax rate being among the highest in the world… enough already… research shows this makes NO difference what the rate is: THEY DON’T PAY IT ANYWAY!!!!
The Bible tells us “if you don’t work then you don’t eat” and there’s much symbolism and truth in this. Lazy people don’t deserve nor have a ‘right’ to the wealth of others. Plus, there’s evidence that right-leaning citizens already distribute their wealth by being charitible…while those on the socialist/liberal side are the greedy ones and do NOT share.
I couldn’t quite find Happy’s chapter and verse in the Bible – maybe gentle, loving Jesus said it to some lazy, good for nuthin’ poor person, or to a cripple! Eh Happy? Were there perhaps two Jesus’s: the real Jesus and American Tough Guy Jesus? And you follow the latter. That must be it.
But it just goes to show, if you’re willing to dredge deep enough in the silt of the Old Testament, you can find something to back up your primitive and antisocial and uncivilized prejudices:
In short, the Bible has a lot of rubbish in it and it is not a suitable text from which to design a civilization – if that is what one aspires to:
“1. Deuteronomy 25:11-12 NASB
If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.
8. Deuteronomy 23:1 ESV
No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.
3. Ezekiel 23:19-20 NET
Yet she increased her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth when she engaged in prostitution in the land of Egypt. She lusted after their genitals as large as those of donkeys, and their seminal emission was as strong as that of stallions.”
There are other books – Old Testamentarians should read some of them.
To R Shortall: It is shameful that you do not know the Biblical Jesus… “tough guy Jesus”..absolutely, why don’t you read the Book of Revelation, then call him a wimp. Also, it is very interesting that you quote from various versions of the Bible which are NOT accepted by real Bible scholars…only the King James Version and the 1599 Geneva Bible version are reliable and based on authentic manuscripts…not those manmade apostasies.
Actually Happy (though you could not be Happy, you come across more like Grumpy or Sneezy) the WHOLE Bible is man made – stories gleaned from earlier oral traditions finally written down by men, then translated (several times) by men, transcribed (hundreds of times) and mistranscribed by men and mistakingly, and vainly attributed to a supernatural author by, you’ve guessed it, men.
I see no more reason to rank one version of the Bible above the rest than to accept your credentials to state which Bible “scholars” (?oxymoron? LOL) are best.
Thank you
I don’t really want to get into this with Mr. Happy but to asuage his concerns about which version of the Bible I consulted for the(quite random) examples I used to show that you really can find some quote or other to back up almost any opinion, superstition, urge, fantasy or prejudice you wish. I did this to show Mr. Happy that he had done exactly this when he “quoted” the Bible to support his disdain for the poor and the unemployed. I still can’t find where Jesus said this about people who do not work… could you have made it up Mr. Happy?
King James Version:
Deuteronomy 25:11 When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: 25:12 Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.
Deuteronomy 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD.
Ezekiel 23:19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
Ezekiel 23:20 For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.
Ezekiel 23:21 Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth.
This is only ONE of many reasons why the Bible cannot be used to run a country.