approved more than $1 billion in new taxes!!!

Interesting that even in a deep recession the Democrats increase state spending by 9%.

Apparently they see no problem with this government system that demands funding increases in excess of the taxpayers increases in income.

What happens next year and the year after?

Oregon Democrats are following California digging deeper holes and using all of the same excuses. According to Kari et al they have no other choice, so they pat them on the back.

Kari, Here is a more accurate summary:

When all state taxes, federal funds and other fees are counted, Oregon's "all funds" budget for 2009-11 will rise to nearly $53.8 billion, an increase of more than 9 percent over the current budget.

Seems there is a problem using the English language. A 9 percent increase is NOT a cut!

What is Oregon going to do when tax revenues next year still don't meet the spending needs? When the stimulus dollars disappear there will be a huge gap - a chasm that will be impossible to fill.

Cutting is not letting out another notch or two in one's belt.

Government is growing while the rest of Oregon is shrinking.

Well, I thought the budget and stimulus were pretty decent, the tax increases were appropriate and were about as fairly done as they could have been, and I'm very appreciative of Hass and Schrader coming through on the captive audience ban. Oh yes, and the online voter reg is going to be great.

I was only really dissappointed about the way that field burning has been handled.

Kari,

It's simple. I would do the same as I am doing in my own home, since my family income has not gone up, and neither has any of my friends.

I would have held spending to the same level as the last biennium. That is not a cut; that is holding spending to past levels that are still 205 more than the previous biennium.

In looking at the several budget reports on our state's website, I did review a line-by-line budget, and I see most areas were asking for sizable increases. Others have suggested that social services, public safety, and unemployment deserved to ask for increases since many are now unemployed or needing further assistance in these tough times. It's hard to argue against that, but then again these areas don't explain all the approved increases.

I suppose from the talk here that most progressives are doing their part to help the economy by spending more of what they don't have. Since their income is not increasing, they are spending their savings or taking out second mortgages to finance their lifestyle.

In addition to significantly increasing the state budget and taxes along with some tax giveaways for some sacred some cows; this session of the legislature has loaded up the table with what could be called the biggest pile of social engineering crap in the State of Oregon’s history. Much of it is masked as environmental protectionism that endeavors to dictate the lifestyle, housing, transportation and even the food choices of the people. Additionally, changes in the initiative process are designed to fend off any challenges the people might want to make the supreme rule of the legislature. Historically fought for basic rights along with freedom of choice have been heavily trampled by elephantiasis course this legislature has plotted out and taken.

1. Higher taxes
2. Reduction of important tax incentives (BETC, etc.)
3. Block destination resorts
4. Worthless stimulus pkg

Unfortunately, I characterize this session as anti-business and tax a spend. Well, I guess I just defined the democratic party.

The 9% increase in total funds budget is a red herring. That includes federal dollars that are mandated spending, and which must be applied to certain budget areas. For instance, the vast bulk of the federal stimulus had to go to very specific areas and had maintenance of effort requirements.

Second, there were drammatic cuts in general fund spending in many budget areas...in particular, human services. Many programs saw cuts of 20 to 30% in general fund spending. For our conservative commentators, that's the dollars we raise via the state's income tax and lottery funds. I suppose you all want to go the Mark Sanford route and turn back federal funds...tax dollars paid by Oregonians to the federal government that would otherwise go Mississippi or Kentucky etc...

And worthless stimulus package? Based upon what measurment? The fact that the Leg created more jobs through the GO Oregon package than were promised? 3200 jobs created, accoring the final report.

We can have an ideological debate if you want, all you budding neo-cons. But lets at least agree on the facts. Don't confuse the all funds budget with the general fund budget. And don't get your "facts" from the Oregonian.

I am not a conservative. I do wonder whether state employees (union and non-union, high paid and low paid) were forced to make an appropriate sacrifice in light of the condition of the state's economy. At my private employer, everybody has been forced to take a temporary 6% cut in pay. There has been plenty of complaining and moaning but nobody has quit over it because the job market is so difficult. Did the legislature do anything similar to force Oregon state employees to share the pain? If so I did not hear about it.

I am not sure that the public sector fully appreciates the pain that is being suffered by private sector workers and businesses. I can forsee a vote to cancel the new taxes passing by a 3:1 margin. That would be bad for Oregon, but such are the times.

A call for an intellectually honest debate here is indeed a curious cry. Whether the economy is good or poor the budget under Democrats always goes up. So please spare us the whine about special circumstances, because the Democratic Party never finds a reason to hold the line on spending or a way to refund the taxpayers their money.

Richard, would you have had the unemployment folks, the food stamp folks, etc. deal with increased workload with no more funding other than what they had in the last biennium?

What spending exactly do you complain about? DHS? Transportation? Employment Dept.?

Meg, those taxes you complain about: Turned the corporate minimum from a flat fee of $10 to a sliding scale depending on sales. A higher tax bracket for upper income earners ($125,000 single, $250,000 couple, as I recall, and maybe someone can chime in here and say if that is gross income or taxable income after deductions).

According to the nice man I talked with in the House Republican Office, they count provider tax, gas tax, filing fees, DMV fees, etc. in their over a billion dollar number.

Kari,

Let me address your analogy from the perspective of this one-child household; my son is finishing HS and is on the quest to determine where he will go to college.

1. Few "suddenly" have a new child or new expenses for unexpected twins. That is rather irresponsible. The prudent thing to do is to plan for eventual family additions and the potential new expenses. That is called saving. Yes, I realize that not everyone plans appropriately, but should the people who plan take care of the ones who don't?

2. My "exotic" vacations are well in the past, but I still save for their eventual return. Staycations look mighty attractive right now.

3. Looking at the budget details also shows that not all funding increases are tied to "federal requirements".

Do I see "entertainment" and "vacations" in the state budget? Of course not. What I do see are several areas of the public sector whose funding is higher, and the public employment numbers increasing in many areas. I don't see much "visible" belt tightening, except the ransoming of education and social services. I hear from my teacher friends complaints of missing their step increases, and losing plan days.

The current line-by-line budget on the state website is several weeks old and out-of-date, and it will be a few days or weeks before the final budget is online; only then will a critical look be meaningful. Yes, the state website has loads of detail, and the promise of future transparency on spending may make it easier to look at the specifics. Until then, we wait.

Why do I care when the tax increases don't directly affect me today or in the near future?

I've prepared for my future, and I have my rainy day fund in hand for my family; so have many of my friends. I give to the charities and non-profits that I choose. I volunteer in the schools so have first hand knowledge of the good things done in our schools as well as see a bit of the waste. I help friends and other members of my extended family. I care about education and social services.

Yes, they all have costs, but at the end of the day there still must be limits as my resources and state tax revenues are not unlimited. When asked, few look forward to paying more taxes; of course, a few don't mind if the "rich" have to pay more.

I fear the future when spending continues to advance past tax revenues and new schemes are considered to extract money from more sources. Will the line be drawn lower or not be indexed like the Fed's AMT? Will everyone's savings start to look tempting? After the kicker is eliminated; after sales taxes are enacted; where will future state funding come from when those sources are exhausted?

Yes, I fear a tax on assets would be considered like in several European countries. Sure, this is a straw man argument that I hope never comes true.

What I do see here is a group of people cheering that the state was able to extract more tax revenues from "the rich", from businesses directly, and from everyone else indirectly. I do not see any value placed on rewarding responsibility, efficiency, or merit.

Righties, leftys, those in the center, conservative or progressive - what was hijacked is the right of the people to freely circulate initiative petitions without jumping through a series of complicated unrealistic mandated hoops that in content and to be voted upon by the people, present alternatives to the manipulative social engineering agendas that became the trademark of this session of the legislature.

The person income increase is actually more progressive than LT said. It created two new tax brackets, one at $125K/$250K (for individuals vs. couples) and a higher one at $250K/$500K. As for the spending increase, it can be attributed to increased demands on federally mandated spending (particularly in human services), better federal matching programs and the state better taking advantage of these programs, and inflation. Because Republican leadership deprioritized human services, the state has been leaving federal money on the table for over a decade. A good portion of our increase just reflects federal matching money finally being utilized. The better measure is to compare state spending to our minimum funding goals, and in this regard, we took serious cuts. Even with the increased taxes, we are looking at a budget that was 2/3 cuts, 1/3 spending increases.

The thing to remember is that someone is going to pay for the recession. When we cut social services to keep taxes low, we are choosing to make people who disproportionally receive social services (schools, public safety, health care, food stamps, etc.) pay for the recession i.e. middle and lower income individuals. However, when we raise taxes to stabilize social services (or "expand" them to meet increased demand) we are making higher income earners pay for the recession. In the end, this is a philosophical divide. Conservatives, for the most part, do not want to make the wealthy pay for the recession. This even includes conservatives with relatively open minds about social spending (such as Reps Berger and Bruun). Liberals want higher income individuals to pay, even more business friendly liberals like Rep. Kople-Bailey or Sen. Hass.

All that said, the biggest bill in the long run was the health care pair of HB 2009 and 2116.

torridjoe

I respect your comments and opinions, but does the "less salary for the same work" argument still apply? Has anybody done a salary survey between the public and private sector recently? Does the DA pay its file clerks less than Stoel Rives pays its file clerks? Do the folks that clean the Multnomah County courthouse make less than the folks that clean my office building in the middle of the night?

I have no statistics, but I am skeptical of your point.

Legislators should never be paid any more than a per diem so as to encourage them flee from the capital as soon as can be managed.

If we pay legislators next to nothing, only the rich will be legislators; regular people wouldn't be able to do it like they can barely manage to do now.

There are no "regular people" acting as legislators. They all change into some sort of petty lords. I'd rather have them not able to do it very long at all. The "state's business" is needlessly complicated by an unending stream of bullshit bills like the one that bans handset cell phone driving but not hands free cell calls when the divided attention of the call itself is the root of the problem. Multiply these busybody projects by the score and you have a sizable piece of the "state's business" in any given biennium.

Make a budget and the the hell out of town.

The legislature created havoc with criminal justice system. One can argue the merits of delaying M57, but the bill (HB 3508) that delayed M57 also capped probation violations from 180 days to 60 days for felonies on "technical" violations- that is interpreted as any violation that does not involve a new crime. Also good time was moved up to 30%.

The M57 "fix" the legislature made was as date of sentencing not offense, thereby creating an incentive for defendants to fail to appear for court.

The 60 day probation violtion cap is going to be a severe blow to many Drug Courts. Why? In Oregon, people convicted of drug possession do NOT go to prison like in other states. Therefore, the incentive for people to do drug court in many (but not all) of the State's drug court programs is to avoid doing 180 days in the county jail for a probation. Now, the choice is between doing intensive drug treatment or 60 days. Therefore, no incentive for treatment.

HB 2414 was easily the low point in the session. The fact that the Democrat controlled legislature tried to pull a fast one on all of us is not remarkable. This went way beyond that.
For details, read the opinion piece in the News-Register at http://www.newsregister.com/article/40458-jeb+bladine+politicans+caught+—+and+just+time This attempt was just short of criminal. I am not surprised that no member of the contributing writers of this blog wanted anyone to know about it. The politicians should be ashamed of themselves, as should Blue Oregon for not telling the whole truth.

If I have failed to read all the comments to each post on the subject, I apologize. The point I hoped to make might have been hidden in the comments but was clearly not given any credence in the posts you list above. The exception seems to be Novick's call to reject the Freedom Works efforts to derail 2414. He does this by very briefly saying it is something that it is not. I have just read through many of the comments to Novick's post. The point of how devious an attempt this was to confuse the public was made well and often by your commenters. My beef with Blue Oregon was that the posts were pure party line and dishonest in my view. None of this was an issue until the Blue Oregon contributors felt the need to come to the defense of their brethren in Salem who were caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Did it not occur that this was a last minute attempt to change the ballot procedure to protect unpopular tax increases? Had this been an important issue, it would have been near the front of the line. It did not become important to the democrat majority until they sensed how unpopular their tax increases were and how likely it was they would be overturned. My other beef with Blue Oregon is your language, Kari. You need to put yourself above that. It only encourages more of the same which is not appropriate in civil discussion and debate. I will rephrase my comment: The lowlight of the session was the sleazy attempt by the majority to prevent the overturn of their tax increases. The lowlight of Blue Oregon was when it slavishly attempted to cover the legislature's tracks. This is a good blog with lots of good give and take. The contributors lose credibility when they give up their independence to parrot their masters in Salem. They should be calling them (the legislators) out when they are dishonest.

If the taxes never reach the ballot, how the wording on a ballot is phrased might seem a moot point.

And perhaps there are those who are worried the above just might come through.

Tonite on the 11 PM KATU News, there was a story (Adam K was the reporter, and no I won't try to spell his name) introduced by the woman anchor (Deb Knapp?) as "this could affect your right to vote on tax increases".

HUH?? We are all supposed to want a return to the days of Measure 30 where much of the debate was "all good people want taxes voted down"? Just how much money does such a special election cost?

The KATU story gave Bob Tiernan a lot of air time. He is furiously angry because they can't start collecting signatures until the Gov. signs the bills. He thinks it is a plot that those 2 tax bills are not among the first few bills on the Governor's desk to sign.

Bob Tiernan was in the legislature--why didn't he get a bill passed back then to require any tax increase to be on the top of the pile of bills the Governor has to study and sign after Sine Die?

I thought the change to 2414 was stupid, but then I think the whole question of what is yes and what is no on a referendum strikes many people as being clear as mud--the whole process can be confusing to those who are busy with work and family and not political junkies.

Tom, you call out Kari for his language and then say things like "The contributors lose credibility when they give up their independence to parrot their masters in Salem."

Any regular BO reader will know how often he and I disagree, sometimes strongly.

But I applaud Kari for calling for more intellectual honesty.

"More with less" has been tried. It does not work. Increased caseloads don't lead to good results, but they can lead to burnout.

There were many hard working legislators of both parties on Ways and Means subcommittees. One of the Republicans has been a friend of mine for some years. Others impressed me with their hard work. They really appreciated being thanked for their hard work. And my friend agreed with me that anyone who really cared about balancing the budget rather than scoring political points could have spoken to one or more members of Ways and Means (even if they didn't want to testify in front of the committee) about what they believed should be cut.

Personally, I don't think GOP Chair Tiernan does those hard working Republican legislators any favors with his "in your face" attitude. When he became State Chair, didn't he say something about having learned to work with people?

<h2>Sounds like the same polarizing Tiernan he always was.</h2>