Carla -

I don't know Kelly Cobb...but I do know that I am sitting her wondering why you hate freedom? Why do you hate freedom Miss Axtman?

I do know that raising taxes in the middle of an economic crisis is never a good thing to do.

Why don't you try cutting your states prevailing wage law that makes every single highway construction project millions of dollars more expensive?

Ooohhhh...that's right, b/c that would upset the unions!

Keep the freedom fighting to those that know what they are doing. I for one am going to visit Grover's webpage and give his group money immediately.

Thank you for continuing to drive people away from your cause.

A 17% tax on rental cars hardly constitutes an assault on freedom. I hold that anyone who thinks so is seriously lacking in perspective.

Any rental car tax such as this one in Multnomah County needs to be extended to cover both bicycle rentals and ZipCar, which is basically a short term rental car company that like drug dealers, does its business on the streets. ZipCar should not be exempt!

Moreover, to increase revenue and balance the tax burden in Multnomah County, a bicyclist only paid bicycle tax, bicycle license and/or bicycle registration fee needs to be implemented so that freeloading pedal pusher bicyclists start paying their own way. It should be noted the suggestion of a bicycle tax was brought up several times by different people at one or possibly more of the preliminary budget public forums. It is time to end the discrimination of only one mode of transport (motor vehicles) being taxed. The constituents and citizens calling for a bicycle tax need to have those reality check views represented and implemented in Portland, Multnomah County and Oregon instead of just having one-sided politicians who view the tax codes as a social engineering tool continually catering to the BTA and other freeloader bicycle groups.

For a little context:

Multnomah County is facing a $42 million budget deficit this year, and the nearly $5 million raised by this tax will save vital public safety and human services.

Multnomah County has the second lowest taxes on tourists of the 50 largest Metro areas in America.

So this seemed like a reasonable way to minimize the pain felt by County residents. Besides, if we pissed off Grover Norquist we must be doing something right!

Carla,

I agree with you. I am so mad at Grover for trying to keep government spending in check. it makes me so mad when people try to make government lean and efficient and not waste tax payer dollars.

This whole cost benefit analysis and allowing people to keep thier own money is all nonense. Truly, we should all be working for the state so the state can tell us where our money should be spent and when.

lets get out on the street and picket Salem to tax us more. We all need to pay our fair share so the government can decide whats best for us.

"businesses often seek rentals in surrounding counties with lower tax rates"

This is sooooo true. I know when our company employees land at PDX, the first thing they do is walk over to Yamhill county to save $4.00 a day on a car rental!

Dan, you do know the difference between "efficient" and "eliminate", don't you?

Norquist and his ilk are for the wholesale elimination of all government services. Try to remember that when you dial 911 while your house is on fire.

Explain why anyone embroilled in the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal such as G. N. would have an audience in money-handling anywhere?

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Off-topic comment deleted--Editor

Wow. This is really the level of discourse of the reactionary right / anti-tax zealots? My, how the mighty have fallen!

A note to the crude right wing folks who have posted the nonsense above, apparently bereft of all ideas and also any shame . . . a sad combination . . .

Look. Your side has wrecked the economy and nearly wrecked the country, and we had an election - two of them, in fact - and your side lost big in both of them. We have polls and your side seems to keep sinking in them. We have special elections and your side seems to keep losing them.

Do you seriously think that these juvenile postings, replete with spelling errors, capitalization errors, no sense of grammar, no argument to speak of, will win converts? Or is this the strategy of the 11-year old angst-driven boy who tries to pull the hair of the pretty girl and then run away because he can think of no other way to get her desperately needed attention?

Your "lower taxes / invisible hand / capitalism fixes everything" argument has been exposed as a vast historic canard, its true believers on a par now with those who don't hold with evolution or human-influenced climate change or the moon landing.

Is there part of these numbers that are still mysterious? It's over for you. Go home and know that the world is moving in another direction.

Anyone who uses the image of drowning a baby in a bathtub to make his point is a sick fuck. I don't need to hear anything more after that.

Perhaps Norquist should take a little time out to do some humanitarian work - like writing his corrupt buddy Jack Abramoff a letter to cheer him up while he is in the slammer.

Why not make up a list all essential services and the dollar amount of each.

Add them up and compare to the total spending (after removing pass throughs).

The difference is non-essentials. Lets talk about that pile o f spending.

We can also talk about the tax money being diverted from basic services to the urban renewal whores - over $65 million recently.

Quoth billy: "Why not make up a list all essential services and the dollar amount of each."

OK. Let us begin by thinking about one sector of government spending, i.e., education.

Currently, if we actually expect K-12 in Oregon to do that which we claim we want it to do (leave no child behind, fund the quality education model, rebuild infrastructure, fund an entire school year of excellence throughout the entire state with music and art for all students, challenge the gifted, include remediation for those who need it, special education, etc., attract the most talented teachers . . . well, conservatively, yada, yada, yada) we are talking about at least doubling the present state expenditures. And make no mistake, education is an essential service. Says so big as life in the Oregon Constitution.

Actually, I think to really do this well (double teacher salaries to bring them in line with private sector high level masters salaries, approximately twice as many teachers to bring down classroom sizes to about 15-17, build the infrastructure to support this) would quadruple the sector's spending, but I'm trying to do the bare minimum for present day objectives for the sake of argument here.

The simple, sad fact of the matter is that 40 years of Republican and Democratic strangulation of the commons has left a huge deficit to be made up. It won't be healed in a biennium. Still, with any luck at all, we won't be going back to the days of the oh-so-aptly-named Laffer curve. My God, what were we thinking?

Posted by: Terry Parker | May 8, 2009 3:10:06 PM

Any rental car tax such as this one in Multnomah County needs to be extended to cover both bicycle rentals and ZipCar, which is basically a short term rental car company that like drug dealers, does its business on the streets.

Finally! Something actionable on Terry Parker! How ironic he will be sued by a company that supports his favorite fuck-buddy, the car!

Daniel Quinn in Ishmael said that we are all in cages, but usually can't find the bars to press out. As the world is burdened with more surplus, blank population, and their intelligence decreases, anyone that provides a bar they can grab will get a go.

These people are fired up and want to get out and talk radio has handed them something they can understand. No taxes. So they grab it relentlessly. It's all they can understand.

The real idiots are those that think they can have progressive democracy without proportional representation, when the cognitively challenged are such a formidible voting block. Look at the rise of the ignorance tax (lottery). Parallels mob politics. Then the street follows. Then the banks. Rewind from 1910 and appoint Senators, or reform the Constitution!

going back to the days of the oh-so-aptly-named Laffer curve

So, are you laughing? It was a strategy to wreck the economy and bring corporate fascism and it's working. Those interests will keep trotting it out. When will you get a clue, try them for treason, line 'em up, and move on?

Finally! Something actionable on Terry Parker! How ironic he will be sued by a company that supports his favorite fuck-buddy, the car!

and how obvious that, as hypothesized in these virtual pages, all of his rants are about his damned commisions! Come on Parker, full disclosure. I sell cars..or is it Hummers?...for a living.

He doesn't hate anything that's not a car. He hates anything that isn't car ownership. How transparent is that? Doesn't that make everything he posts simple spam?

"ZipCar, which is basically a short term rental car company that like drug dealers, does its business on the streets."

 Wow, that's melodramatic. I thought you booked the cars on the computer.

He's the guy whose anti-tax jihad...

In times past, that would have been termed an anti-tax CRUSDADE. If you're going to out every non-PC term, it seems that's not exactly kosher.

These constant "dancing on their grave" posts are disturbing enough.

I think that when private citizens earn money they should be allowed to keep as much of it as possible to spend how they see fit.

I am so mad at Grover for trying to keep government spending in check. it makes me so mad when people try to make government lean and efficient and not waste tax payer dollars.

Wow. I know someone who will NEVER be my nutritionist. You can't tell the difference between "starving it to the point where it can be drowned in a bathtub" and being made "lean and efficient"! Hint: when it's losing vital signs, the diet isn't working!

The real idiots are those that think they can have progressive democracy without proportional representation, when the cognitively challenged are such a formidible voting block. Look at the rise of the ignorance tax (lottery). Parallels mob politics. Then the street follows. Then the banks. Rewind from 1910 and appoint Senators, or reform the Constitution!

Appointing Senators is going to aid Democracy? Is there a reason Oregon's delegation would not consist of Phil Knight and a timber industry lobbyist? And Michigan's Senators be whichever auto industry lobbyists spent the most to ge the ruling party elected? Alaska get two of Sarah Palin's high school Heathers friends? Delaware get two Republicans selected by Mike Castle? And between them, they make up a body that can prevent any legislation from being written, with absolutely ZERO accountability to the public?

The know-nothings who equate freedom with not paying taxes, no regulation, packing AK-47s, throwing your garbage wherever you want to- really want to live in Somalia. Have your "Regulation Vacation" wing-nuts! Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0&feature=player_embedded

The know-nothings who equate freedom with not paying taxes, no regulation, packing AK-47s, throwing your garbage wherever you want to- really want to live in Somalia. Have your "Regulation Vacation" wing-nuts! Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0&feature=player_embedded

Hey Multnomah County, go for it! This would be an excellent petri dish to study the ultimate effects of taxing a specific good or service regarding ultimate use and marginal utility.

Try it out and see if, 2-3 years down the road vehicle rentals as counted in gross rentals and days were affected by the tax. Then go back and report to your constituents the ultimate success/failure of the tax. Not a bad idea.

Terry Parker hates children. Goddamned banana seats and sissy bars. Tax 'em! Tax 'em! See if the little bastards cry NOW!

Sigh. God Terry - what is wrong with you? When I was still riding my thirty miles per day, there were a good number of dangerous people like Terry out there who would literally try to edge a bicycle off the road, and scream at them as they drove by. I've seen some really sickening rage incidents out there. I always could understand, a little bit - I was a rider who could hold the painted line precisely for miles, not a weaving-wobbling-novice OR the current assholes I see who take the entire road and then force all traffic to drive at their easy pace (happened to me last week downtown - that girl was an asshole). I see why drivers get angry when we CAN share the road and drivers do not need to push us off and WE do not need to dominate the road and passive aggressively make them cede the entire way to us.

But both are in reaction against the worst examples of each other, and those of us who are neither are getting hurt in between.

Carla said: "Crusade...Jihad...tomato..tomahto."

hahahha.. Yep.

And dear Joe: that was a beautiful post. Really really beautiful.

Ahhhhhhhh...... I don't need my fragrant cuppa Joe after all... I've had a fragrant... cuppa JOE!

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahah. The ballots will be delivered by European swallow. Errrrr.... I think. Unless that was an African sparrow? Wait now, let's see.... if a European swallow flies due north into a 20 knot headwind carrying one mail-in ballot.....

Run Awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy!

Since Oregon has no sales tax, and prices of food/lodging are pretty low compared with other tourist destinations, visitors are getting a bargain overall. There is an under-tapped revenue stream here, probably most visitors would not even notice higher taxes on rental cars and lodging. I speak as a current California resident, but a product of Oregon and very frequent returnee.

"Your "lower taxes / invisible hand / capitalism fixes everything" argument has been exposed as a vast historic canard, its true believers on a par now with those who don't hold with evolution or human-influenced climate change ... "

And in many cases they are the same people. Simple dogmas have a powerful appeal to simple minds. The theory of evolution is complex; believing "God made everything just the way it is" is simple. Economics is complex; mouthing slogans about "freedom" and the ineluctable evil of taxes and gummint is simple.

Kaarlock AKA billy sez:

Why not make up a list all essential services and the dollar amount of each.

Add them up and compare to the total spending (after removing pass throughs).

The difference is non-essentials. Lets talk about that pile of spending.

Obvious problem with these assertions is that Kaarlock AKA billy would have you believe that there's some simple definition of "non-essentials" on which everyone would agree. But of course that's not the case. As just one obvious example, the empirical evidence is that the US government has heretofore regarded health care as "non-essential". That is pretty clearly a different judgment about "non-essential" than has been reached in nearly every other industrialized country.

If We The People insist that certain government functions are essential, and pay for those functions, then they become essential. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and there are no "inalienable rights" unless people fight for them.

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