A New Year’s Resolution for Oregon: A Mobile, Living Billboard
Chuck Sheketoff
Like many others right about now, I’m drawing up my list of New Year’s resolutions. As usual, it is a long list of ways that I can be a better person. But this time I’m not thinking only of myself. At top of the list I’m placing a resolution that will help Oregon, and I ask others to join me in this pledge.
The resolution? To acknowledge daily the important role that public structures play in my life and to educate my community about how they foster happiness, opportunity and success for all Oregonians.
We’ve all seen the “Your highway taxes at work” signs alongside highway improvement projects. But how often have you seen those signs on private contractors’ trucks or heard the owners of construction or aggregate companies acknowledge the important role that government dollars play in their businesses?
We’ve seen the “United Way Agency” logo on the letterhead of non-profits that provide social services. But when was the last time you saw “Your tax dollars at work” signs on the doors of hospitals, doctors’ offices, or clinics that provide services paid for with Medicaid dollars?
Years ago the director of the state human services agency called on each of the hundreds of private entities that together receive millions of public dollars to provide social services to become “a mobile, living billboard” that makes the connection between services provided by the private sector and public financing of these activities.View PDF of article.
It’s time for all of us to take him up on that challenge and become mobile, living billboards. It’s time to educate our families, friends, neighbors and community about how public structures strengthen our state and promote opportunity.
The erosion of public knowledge about and support for the role of government in our lives is setting Oregon on a dangerous course. Veteran Oregon pollster and public opinion researcher Adam Davis calls it part of a “perfect storm” that’s brewing. The ignorance and distrust are already taking a toll.
Our hands are tied when it comes to raising revenues fairly in order to support public structures. “Supermajority” and “double-majority” provisions cede power to the minority and impede progress. Responsible legislative efforts to save for the inevitable future when the economy turns sour fall victim to simplistic slogans such as “it’s our money.” That claim, taken to its logical conclusion, would mean that no taxes would ever be paid and ignores the plain fact that even the staunchest libertarian relies on government daily to succeed.
The most vulnerable in society suffer when Oregonians fail to recognize the importance of government. Children who are victims of abuse and neglect don’t get the quality of foster care they deserve. Too many low- and middle-income Oregonians go without health care. Promising young people are shut out of college because of rising costs. The list goes on.
And it’s not just the vulnerable who suffer. The business community needs well-educated and well-trained employees, a court system that’s fair and efficient, effective transportation and public safety systems, and government contracts to perform tasks that assist the state in meeting the needs of Oregonians.
All Oregonians need a vibrant public sector. Government protects individuals and businesses against misfortune and works with business and civic groups to solve society’s problems. Well-maintained public structures are necessary for achieving broadly based prosperity and opportunity.
So this New Year, resolve to become a living, mobile billboard by educating fellow Oregonians about how our tax dollars support public structures that improve our lives.
Chuck Sheketoff is the executive director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy. You can sign up to receive email notification of OCPP materials at www.ocpp.org</p
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11:08 a.m.
Dec 20, '07
Chuck, I have sympathy with the spirit of this but not the method. Oddly enough, the method suggested in itself reflects the degeneration of organized social action.
It needs more organization and focus. It needs a coherent theme, like "Good government: a tool for helping one another."
It needs a media strategy. It needs an ad campaign with ordinary people saying things about specific examples.
It needs ads that directly take on the "you know how to spend your money better than government does" meme that Bush used again in his press conference this morning. Along the lines of "I pay taxes because the government can do things I can't achieve by personal spending."
How about an initiative to repeal the supermajority for legislative referral of taxes as a vehicle for education? Use the Measure 50 debacle as an example of what's wrong.
If new taxes have to be referred anyway, voters can always say no.
Dec 20, '07
Do tell it, Brother Chuck! Can I get witness?!! Who says the stone-cold left ain't got no religion? This is about the purest testimonial of state worship and government idolatry I've seen since ...well, since probably the last thing I read that Pastor Sheketoff wrote.
Dec 21, '07
Chuck, Great idea. Post "your tax dollars at work" signs all over the Billion dollar condo districts that the PDC is paying for in the North Macaddam Urban Renewal District and the "Pearl".
While we are at it, why don't we ban supporting any project that benefits any campaign donor?
Thanks JK
Dec 21, '07
Good points, Chuck. The right-wingers talk as if there was some sort of Chinese wall between the public and private sectors and tax money vanishes down a black hole and disappears from the economy. Of course it doesn't; it's spent on goods and services and payments to people who in turn spend it and help keep the economy humming.
Dec 21, '07
The right-wingers talk as if ... tax money vanishes down a black hole and disappears from the economy. Of course it doesn't; it's spent on goods and services and payments to people who in turn spend it and help keep the economy humming.
You could say the same thing about stolen credit cards or a wad of cash some mugger lifts off an old lady at a MAX stop.
Dec 21, '07
Great idea, Chuck.
How about: "Vote for Hillary in Iowa: This ad brought to you by the taxpayers of Oregon whose governor and staff obviously don't have enough to do back home."
Dec 21, '07
Randi: So you see no difference between taxation and theft. Maybe you subscribe to Ayn Rand's idea that government should be supported by voluntary contributions.
Yeah, THAT'll work.
Dec 21, '07
Dartagnan: So you see no limits to or on the power of government to seize wealth from productive citizens and then hand it over to bureaucrats, subsidy-seekers and politically-connected special interests?
Here's Tocqueville (dead more than half a century before Rand suffered her first-hand experiences with Soviet communism): "The people can never penetrate into the dark labyrinth of court intrigue, and will always have difficulty in detecting the turpitude that lurks under elegant manners, refined tastes, and graceful language. But to pillage the public purse and to sell the favors of the state are arts that the meanest villain can understand and hope to practice in his turn."
2:29 p.m.
Dec 21, '07
"no difference between taxation and theft"
"no limits to or on the power of government to seize wealth from productive citizens and then hand it over to bureaucrats, subsidy-seekers and politically-connected special interests"
Holy undistributed middle Batman!
Dec 22, '07
Randi: Do the phrase "false dichotomy" mean anything to ya?
You right-wingers are great at presenting these phony either-or choices. In the real world, however, governments need money to operate and they have only two ways to get it: 1) taxation or 2) borrowing. And borrowing alone won't work forever.
So if we want to have any government at all (and I assume you agree there's a need for SOME government, unless you're an anarchist, in which case this discussion is pointless) we must empower government to levy taxes.
Dec 23, '07
governments need money to operate and they have only two ways to get it: 1) taxation or 2) borrowing. And borrowing alone won't work forever.
What are you talking about? Of course we can borrow forever. Don't you realize that someday the money fairy will wave her wand and make the whole national debt magically disappear?
9:40 p.m.
Dec 25, '07
I'd just like to mention here that this idea is not so different from Steve Novick's proposal that the IRS should send taxpayers a letter after they file, thanking them and explaining to them where their taxes go.
<h2>It's a good idea.</h2>