Uhhh... if memory serves, local governments with public works authority levy a franchise fee against The Phone Company which is then passed on via telephone bills.

Yet - if memory serves - cell phone bills do not yet carry this burden.

Is 5% a high figure in the scheme of things? Probably. Is such a fee, at any rate, a way of making up lost revenue?

I would think so, given the overall trend of people moving to cell phones in lieu of landlines.

Is the concept hamfisted or unnecessary? Maybe so. shrug

But the issue above is, near as I can make out, presented in an under-researched, fallacious manner.

Thanks for this post. I was going to do something similar soon.

The cell phone tax, and that's what it is, a consumer tax, is for two reasons from what I've read. One is the growing revenue potential of cell phones. The other is that the city, after finally revealing that it charges its own franchise fees for its own water and sewer systems, recently capped that fee at a certain percentage.

So the consumer tax the city charges us for our own water and sewer systems, which the city owns, won't take in what it could. They need to make up revenue somewhere, and Randy Leonard and others proposed taxing cell phone consumers.

There may indeed be merit to doing so. But let's call it what it really is. A tax. Cell phone companies won't pay it. Cell phone users will via a direct pass through on our cell phone bills, just like with other utility bills.

Other bills, that is, except our water/sewer bill where the franchise tax consumers pay is hidden in the overall bill.

I sure wish they wouldn't hide what this really is, however, by calling it a franchise fee. It's a consumer tax, pure and simple.

Lay it out, ben. Give the research that you say is missing.

I'll say again that I'm tired of taxes here and fees there, with promised results that are never delivered. THAT is the rant. I said I don't care if there is a fee on cell phones. It's relatively small. What I don't appreciate is the practice of using the threat of cuts to cops and schools to get what they want. Is it right to cut fees on businesses and raise them on the public? We didn't like it when the President cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans. Why allow it locally?

I want to see small businesses succeed. One thing I LOVE about Portland is the number of local business owners. The less they have to pay to start something which benefits the entire community, the better. Lower their fees, we all benefit. I just want a better explanation for creating a new fee. That's all.

The city could follow the Governor's lead and post the status of the budget with a breakdown of needs.

If we could review city / county budgets with all the city / county revenue proposals (calling them what they are and where / how they will be applied to address specific areas)then maybe the "missing research" could be accessed by everyone following this post.

The new "fee" isn't only for cell phones. It is an additional tax on "call waiting, caller ID, phone calls placed using the Internet and other telecom services." Does this mean that land lines will be taxed two or three times? Will multiple-line households be charged multiple times for multiple services?

Just asking questions here...

I'm trying more for an appeal to reason, and skating dangerously close to fallacies of my own.

I'm not coming out for or against the tax. In fact, I'm not living in Portland these days, but when I went looking for links to substantiate the claim that franchise fees are typically a landline-only affair, the third link I found was to an article in what is now my local paper, about an effort sometime back to institute just such a fee system here... ahemanyway.

What you're saying is that the Responsible Authorities are fishing for consent by tailoring each appeal to its audience, rather than just coming straight the hell out and saying how the money will be spent. So build your points around that, instead of fighting one fallacy with another.

The whispers in my head keep on reminding me that this is part of the reason why the Democrats got their asses handed to them last week:

Democrat Fallacy: if you vote for the other guy, you're voting for someone who's governed by his intuition, and governing by intuition is bad, so a vote for the other guy is bad.

Republican Fallacy: if you vote for the other guy you're voting for a cold, tax-and-spend liberal. Don't you want instead to vote for the guy who shares your values?

Prospective Voter Fallacy: But neither of your guys will actually come out and prove he's any good, so f--- y'all, I'm not voting.

Thenceforth we make it into our present circumstance.

It strikes me that the tax is relatively fair, in light of current trends with cell phone use. Of course, I will also be double-burdened, as I have a landline and a cell phone. But, still, I know of a lot of households with no landline.

But, I want to comment on Jason's concern regarding the lack of AP courses in public schools here in Portland. Comparing Portland to Beaverton is, well, comparing apples to oranges. I have taught in a variety of schools over the past 3 years. From that experience, I can tell you that the link between socioeconomic status and AP courses is evident. A wealthy school with involved parents (see Beaverton schools) is going to offer more AP courses than a school in a less advantaged area. The reason for this is not money, but INTEREST and DEMAND.

Last year, I taught in a rural school district southeast of Portland. We had 4 AP courses offered, none in my department: social studies. We did have an Honors class of Junior history. Enrollment: 13. AP Calculus was similarly small.

It wasn't about money that we could not offer more. This district was actually quite alright financially, due to brilliant budget planning on the part of an otherwise scary superintendent. But, we chose not to offer more due to lack of interest and demand.

I am sure that many Portland schools choose to spend money in different ways when there is not the demand for AP courses.

I wondered privately if the differences were as you describe them, Christy. However, it just seems to be such a HUGE gap - 3 Beaverton schools have almost three times the number of students testing at higher levels than 10 Portland schools. It baffles me.

I'm interested in hearing more, though.

Jason, not to worry! I am sure this will just be a temporary measure to help us keep the libraries open, the parks functional, and make sure my poor wheel chair confined grandma doesn't get pushed out on to the street without her medications or ability to call her Klingon translator! Assuming that is she can still afford to use her cell phone....

Just a question that I do not have time to research right now... What about IB programs? Cleveland and Lincoln have IB, which is essentially an entire AP curriculum. If we were to include those courses? And they have tests, too.

When PACs quote figures that show Oregonians pay less taxes than the average state, they're usually ignoring our fees, which are higher than the average. The overall burden--taxes and fees--puts us middle of the pack.

I've always wondered when corporate America (read: NIKE, Microsoft, Exxon, Shell, et.al.) decides to increase stockholder profit (benefiting the few), they pass on to consumers a "fee" (i.e. increase in the cost of their goods). We pay it, maybe curse a bit, but there is no great "hew and cry". Government adds a "fee" (benefiting the many,i.e. schools, mental health, public safety, parks, etc.) and we cry "foul", "no more taxes", "government needs to live within its means", "where's the accountability", etc. Something is wrong with this picture. Where are the voices when the Enron's, Halliburton's (who just "stole" $300+ million of your tax dollars), et.al. "do their thing" to us? If I read correctly, the fee structure has not increased for well over 10 years. Clearly the use of cell phones has changed the dynamics relative to providing resources the City can use to ensure the public good. I'm perplexed. Frankly, I hope we begin to look closely at the issue of tax abatements to large scale capital development projects. This practice has taken far more resources away from the public good and is more of an issue than cell phone fees.

Much of this problem stem from City Hall giving away services to those who qualify for tax exemptions. They don't have to pay the tax but they get the service. So the city has to make up the difference some how. Well why not send those folks a monthly bill for fire protection services, police protections services, or whatever just like they get a water bill phone bill, electric bill, etc? What do you say Randy? Mike

I support the concept of the cell phone tax, but I'm perplexed about the proposed dedication of its revenue to funding jail beds. That's a County function, not the City's. And didn't Commissioner Saltzman's cut in the sewer franchise fee take money out of the General Fund? So how does the City propose to pay for parks (taking a potential $3m hit from the franchise fee decrease), if this new money is going to jail beds?

I believe the money would actually buy more services that are tied in to jail beds. These services are 1)mental health triage, 2)medical services, etc. Multnomah County can't just provide jail beds only. I believe the other services must be offered to all detainees in the jail population. Without these additional services the County is liable for any injuries suffered by the detainees while in their custody. Also, I think we have to look broadly and be able to say that although schools are not a function of County or City government, both entities provide resources to augment Portland's state funding.