Category: Economy

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin  Sunday, may 13, 2025 by devadmin

“Our lives consist solely of trade-offs,” is a truism that is not entirely obvious. But most decisions are made from multiple options and choices. Some options will be better than others, some get cataloged as, “no choice at all,” and still others are fairly easy choices.

“It is never a good plan to increase taxes” is a political truism that should be obvious.

This is why the famous phrase, “Read my lips: no new taxes,” is so apropo. George H. W. Bush, rightfully spoke this truth as a pledge to American people that he would not allow them to be taxed any further. At the time this was an important stance for the leading presidential candidate at the 1988 Republican National Convention to make.

Raising taxes is a losing issue. Candidate Bush knew it; his speechwriter knew it; the American people knew it; and, Democrat Presidential nominee Bill Clinton knew it. Thus, Clinton successfully turned this truism into victory in the 1992 Presidential election.

The political elites imagine, “this is what the people wanted!” Yet, there are very few people who are in favor of having their taxes raised. They can only be convinced to vote for tax increasing bonds and ballot measures through incessant ad campaigns and political strategies that push the narrative that “the sky is falling or will fall” if we don’t fund this or that proposal. Think of the mindless global warming scare tactics.

Just look at the taxes being dreamed up by the Democrat party who control both chambers of the Oregon legislature. As representatives, they think of themselves as those who know best. Yet they know nothing about your personal or business finances, let alone anything about your family’s needs.

These politicians are extremely proud that Oregon does not have a sales tax. Unbeknownst to the public, this subtle virtue keeps the taxing authority within the legislature. Meaning, the Oregon’s legislature gets to pick and choose what to tax and at what rates. For example, there are sales taxes on all sorts of things, like, cars (internal-combustion or electric vehicle), tires, bicycles, trees, harvest activities, vape products, tobacco, beer, wine, marijuana along with others.

Being dyed-in-the-wool statists who apparently look forward to the time when state control will destroy our voluntary choices, they are disillusioned with conservative prudence. They also dislike our skepticism of big-government solutions so they continually work to drain economic resources from the private sector while transferring those resources to the public sector through their onerously contrived tax policies.

This overall assault on our private wherewithal is partly why local economies suffer the same fate as our state’s economy. Both state and local governments spend beyond their means so that their respective revenue problems arise from too much government, not too little.

Public sector and public service costs keep rising because of public employee union wage increases and the increasing costs for supplying training, certification, equipment and the financial burdens of the bureaucracy. These costs keep increasing because of raises, COLAs, and PERS benefits along with forced minimum wage increases in the private sector. In turn, this leads to product shortages, cost boondoggles, rent-seekers and everyone trying to pick everyone else’s pocket, via legislative intervention.

This is partly why over 4,000 bills were introduced in this 2025 legislative session. Many of these bills were trying to protect some segment of society from being ravaged by regulatory burdens while others were just rackets or economic carve-outs which are being forced into law by Oregon’s Democrat majority.

This phenomenon is part of George Orwell’s eerie genius in his book, 1984.  In this cautionary tale he clearly expresses the uncanny notion that once the passion for power takes hold it will animate the coming bureaucracy.

Orwell recognized that a new aristocracy would be sculpted from the bureaucrats, sociologists, teachers, and regulators in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class. His novel paints a bleak future arising out of the ideology brought together by the barren worlds of centralized government and their regulated industry classes.

The new bureaucrats were supposed to be less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, less hungry for raw power, and, above all, more conscious of what they were doing. Their efforts were supposed to be balanced by their moral superiority and thus they could lawfully become more intent on crushing opposition. Think lawfare.

In Soviet Russia this job was delegated to a bureaucrat who was known as a commissar. The commissar was not only a regulatory official but was also responsible for political education and organizational adherence. This job title recognized that the administration of laws in modern states carries with it enormous political power.

In the US, we have long expected better. We expect bureaucrats to protect us from all of life’s contingencies. Yet, simultaneously, we know this is something they can’t possibly do, but we fall for the false promises. Thus, we leave ourselves defenseless against our so-called “protectors”.

The time has come to, just say, “NO!”

What can you do?

First, don’t tax yourself into poverty because you think it might help. It doesn’t. Frugality is your friend.

Second, don’t approve local tax levies or new taxing districts out of fear that “the sky is falling” or someone might call you a cheapskate.

We exercise frugality in our homes and businesses and we must demand nothing less of our local, state and federal government. 

My best,

Diane Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – Elect – District 28 

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, december 19, 2023 by devadmin

The current fiasco on the national stage, with the House Democrats threatening to impeach President Trump and all of the fanfare in Washington, DC isn’t really anything new. We’ve seen it all before and we’ve all heard the proverb, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

What I find most compelling about the sordid affair is that conservatives are being ‘woke’ in a new way. Up until now, the political left had control over what subjects needed to be ‘woken,’ but now the underhanded nature and deceit of the whole ‘investigation’ has put big government, itself, on trial and that’s what the left finds unacceptable. What… dismantle the deep-state?

Back in the early 1950’s our nation faced a similar set of hearings. The Republican House was investigating communist infiltration efforts within the State Department and federal government. They used FBI resources and federal manpower to expose the seriousness of Russia’s efforts. Similar to today’s fanfare, everyone was absorbed by the gossip and accusations that made headlines, only then, it was proven true and today it appears to be only “fake-news.”

Whitaker Chambers was one of the key witnesses. He was a former communist party member who had abandoned that part of his life’s destructive trajectory. During the trial, he said he hoped his testimony would help Americans, “recognize at last that they are at grips with a secret, sinister, and enormously powerful force whose tireless purpose is their enslavement.”

Chambers identified the many famous names who added weight to the fervor for communism. Included were well-known authors John Steinbeck and Lillian Hellman, along with poets Malcolm Cowley, Archibald MacLeish and Dorothy Parker. These were the Hollywood elites and MTV crowd of the day who weren’t afraid to be known as communist sympathizers. At the time, politicians and bureaucrats had to keep their socialist leanings under wraps, unlike today’s Democrat party presidential candidates.

In Oregon today, just as we see at the federal level, our freedoms are being squeezed by the ever-present, twin pincers of socialism. One tong is the Marxist revolutionaries, like the Antifa gang in downtown Portland, who desire power through violence. Marx, after all, wanted to achieve his goals through revolution. The other tong is gradualism. This is the slow and meticulous pressure that comes through rules, regulations, laws, commissions and agencies springing from the fertile womb of the maternal state.

During each legislative session, legislators pass more laws and the state gains more power, while families and individuals lose freedom. The bureaucracies, agencies, administrative and executive offices exercise greater control over more and more facets of our individual lives.

Both pincers have the potential to crush and destroy our existing culture and force monopolistic government power over the people of Oregon.

In his 1979 book, The World in the Grip of an Idea, scholar and economist, Clarence Carson explains why political forces focus on deriding traditional values, family, sexuality, property and Christianity:

“The engine of Marxism is hatred, hatred for everything as it is, hatred of religion, hatred of the family, hatred of the division of labor, hatred of the state, hatred of capitalists, hatred of property, hatred of the “rural idiocy” (as Marx put it) of farmers, and, yes, hatred of industrial workers. …  Above all, Marxism is a hatred of the past, everything shaped out of it, everything drawn from it, which is to say, just about everything. In short, Marxism hates man as he is and has been.”

Carson’s book examines the results of socialism across three countries, England, Sweden, and the United States and his conclusion is:

“The modus operandi of Marxism is destruction. That is the true meaning of Marxian revolution. It is no simple seizure of political power. …  All the actuality that has been accumulated through the ages must be destroyed—property relationships, religious belief, family ties, legal forms, the intellectual heritage, culture and civilization itself. How else, but by tyranny, can such a destruction be wrought?”

Therefore, we must align our Hope with Virtue, Tradition and Truth. We must avoid getting trampled by a manipulated worldview where up is down, left is right, male is female, and nothing is as it once was. Otherwise, we will find ourselves standing squarely in the quicksand of uncertainty.

There is no reason to buy into the super-majority’s demonization of businesses as the source of our state’s problems. Businesses are the source of productivity.

There is no reason to dismantle our historical and societal understanding of male and female, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and all of their various and sundry complicated relationships. They are the source of our families, our friends and our communities.

There is no reason to disrespect the fundamental right of a parent to direct the care, teaching and education of their own children. Self-government requires that families master themselves, including the management of their own affairs as individuals, families and through voluntary associations of church and community.

There is no reason to imagine that “free college” will make college tuition less expensive. Neither will “free college” solve the employability problems of our youth nor will it increase our state’s labor force participation rates. Ownership and personal responsibility are the truest source of productive freedom for the individual. A student’s motives, desires and goals must be priced into the decision-making process of choosing an education or career path.

The political crisis of our time comes from people imagining that governments, gorged with taxpayer money and immense regulatory power, can provide individuals with an endless array of efficient services, security and liberty.

Remember the proverb, “There is nothing new under the sun?” The danger we face has been seen before. Alexis De Tocqueville described it in his 1832 book, Democracy in America:

“[The power of government] covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power . . . does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people, until each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and hard-working animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

Allow Freedom to win. Vote for traditional values, fiscal responsibility and enforcing constitutional restraints on governmental authority.

Our firmness, resolution and perseverance are the tools we possess to protect our ourselves, our families and posterity from the historical tragedy of socialism. Let us not become “sheeple” following mindlessly to our own demise. Instead, let us continue to make our voices heard through the ballot box, peaceful rallies, public testimony for truth and science, and our own unwavering commitment to voluntary markets, individual liberty and personal responsibility.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense, no one will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, november 21, 2023, by devadmin

“Rome has spoken; the case is closed.” – St Augustine

Governor Kate Brown has stepped onto thin ice, again. She recently issued a mandate for masks at all indoor locations across Oregon’s 36 counties. Her statement can be seen as a clear threat, “I do not want to have to close down businesses again, like other states are now doing. If you want your local shops and restaurants to stay open, then wear a face covering when out in public.” Meaning if your business doesn’t enforce to her liking she’ll shut you down again.

Yet our role as participants in the great American experiment about Life, Liberty and our own just pursuits, or happiness, demands that we analyze, discuss and push back against unfair and abusive power plays by those engaged in policy making.

The Governor also claims that science, data and modeling guide her decision making, but we’ve seen bad modeling before. Her claim that “our hospitals could be overwhelmed by new COVID-19 cases” is 1) not a certainty and 2) doesn’t justify why there is a ridiculous demand for masks in counties with no deaths and few cases.

The governor has spoken, the case is closed.

The mask demand is galling because common masks are only 3% effective. Dr. Fauci told the public, “…in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks. Right now, there is no reason for people to be walking around with a mask. … When you are in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better … and it might even block a droplet but it is not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is and often there are unintended consequences, people keep fiddling with the mask and people keep touching their face.”

Here, Fauci lets loose that masks do little more than make people “feel” better. The Democrat majority specializes in this tradecraft with a magician’s keen sense of misdirection like gun control, cap and trade, mandatory vaccines, banning straws, plastic bags and more. ­­­

In the TSA screening line at the airport, everyone submits because they’ve been told it will make the skies safer. Yet, patting-down granny, your wife or 13-year-old won’t make America safer because these individuals never posed a threat. Millions of travelers have been treated as if they were a threat when they weren’t. The same concept holds true with masks.

In the airport example, when the TSA throws away your soda or water bottle the agents all know, without a doubt, your bottle poses no threat to the passengers, airport personnel or the airliner. They also know there are no explosive liquids present. We know too, because they simply pitch it into a garbage bin filled with other travelers confiscated stuff. If there was any serious consideration of danger, they would clear the area, bring in the robotic bomb-mobile, shut-down air service and explode the device on some out-of-the-way section of the tarmac.

It is not about safety; it is about compliance and conformity. Bureaucracies have their rules, regulations and checklists. They follow instructions and gaining compliance from you and your business is at the top of that list. The point is, we are universally treated as potential terrorists by the TSA and the same is true with the mask mandate where everyone is deemed diseased.
Instead of simply isolating and protecting the most vulnerable, i.e., the elderly with underlying health conditions, residents of nursing homes, etc., our state government is using this “crisis” to further their socialist agenda. This mask mandate forces businesses and schools to be the enforcement arm of state government without any liability protections.

Oregonians have had their businesses crushed and their lives upended not by a virus but by policy mandates spilling from our Governor. The public has been forced into compliance by the innumerable possibilities of regulatory threats to their businesses, education, travel, worship, employment and access to markets if they fail to walk the line. This threat is very real and quite serious because our state is nakedly authoritarian.

The state can selectively enforce control over a business through licensure requirements, hiring, wage limits, advance scheduling and absurdly ridiculous safety demands. In essence, business owners, across all socio-economic strata have lost their business enterprises to the iron-handed demands of the state.

This stranglehold is on more than just businesses. It has enveloped every aspect of life, family and community over the last three decades of Oregon’s march toward socialism. The COVID-19 fearmongering has made this evident.

The authors of the COVID-19 rules have placed their chief confidence in censorship, vain repetition, and the suppression of truth. In doing so, they are destroying the real interests of the people of Oregon by the grossest statistical fabrications and absurdities. These so-called policy advisors have imposed these mindless dictates upon diverse and disparate groups of people, both healthy and unhealthy alike, and in turn have wreaked havoc in every community across Oregon.

Peoples lives are harmed when they are not allowed the necessary freedom, and peace of mind, to develop as individuals to make decisions for their families, their education, their businesses, their places of worship, and for those most vulnerable within their neighborhoods. The current authoritarian system stifles the development of any sort of individuality, while keeping people constantly off balance and in a state of demeaning dependence. There is no better way to protect individuals, families, children and the elderly, than to fight for the rights of people to make their own distinct medical choices, raise their children, protect their grandparents and run their own lives. Only then, will we see progress in the real world which happens to be filled with complexities, risks and rewards.

Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate – District 28

 

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, January 9, 2020 by devadmin

A recent Wall Street Journal book-review, When the Earth Had Two Moons, by Erik Asphaug, starts with,

“If you visited the surface of the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, you wouldn’t recognize it. The newly formed planet was still cooling from its recent coagulation. There was a hot rocky surface (probably; we don’t know for sure), volcanoes (again, probably) and a steamy atmosphere (maybe). It seems unlikely that even the smallest thing resembling life was yet present, though, really, we don’t know. … We can be forgiven for not knowing what the surface of the Earth was like before this moment, as nothing survived that day intact.”

The reviewer’s thoughts are remarkable because, 1) there is a frank admission of uncertainty and 2) there is a profound recognition that our planet is always changing.

This WSJ book-review affirms my argument that the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) crowd and the tax and spend proposals we see cascading through various legislatures have put too much weight into stasis. The environmental balance that we witness today will not be the balance of tomorrow. The T. Rex and Mastodon are proof of that. It is one thing to recognize that the barred owl is a more successful survivor than the spotted owl but does this warrant shot-gunning the former to preserve the latter? This policy is not rational or scientific, it is a moral argument that demands an appropriate moral response.

Scientists have extensive knowledge of the Earth’s most recent 4,000-year period of glacial expansion and retreat. Historical references to the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warming Period, are quite robust. Documentation particularly notes the improvement in mortality rates, farming, horticulture, livestock management, population growth and cultural achievements across most known cultures during the warmer periods of human history.

If this is fact, then why the political clamor? Why does the public at large expect the state, or federal government, to control or dictate the best type of energy that should be available? All our choices – nuclear, ethanol, diesel, low-octane rotaries, natural gas, fuel oil, solar, wind – all have drawbacks and benefits. Why not let the market decide?

Government mandates are blunt force instruments that shrewdly coerce compliance through costly fines, penalties and taxes without having the bandwidth to assess alternative technologies and innovative approaches that might solve our problems. Unlike the private sector, government is not an ingenious inventor. Economic data suggests that government is too costly, too inefficient and bureaucratic while being prone to corruption, misdirection and fraud.

The results seen on the street rarely match the political hype. Missed targets and cost overruns abound while with every election cycle the public gets promised newer, bigger, grander and longer-term, yet, more costly and unsustainable programs.

I would prefer an approach which more closely resembles the paradox witnessed throughout world history. A situation where free people enjoy the rewards of their hard work and where disseminated freedom leads to increased human well-being, societal growth and creative problem solving. Free people are creative people.

So, why the relentless drive to force Oregonians into a new proposal for a look-alike HB2020 Cap and Trade Carbon Management scheme? I am convinced it is nothing more than scare-mongering in order to tax Oregonians. It is nothing more than a cleverly worded grab and run, tax and spend, swindle.

The proposed legislation will grow the state, empower the political elites, raise taxes and redistribute the wealth of the most productive without even slightly impacting worldwide carbon emissions.

If you think I’m out on limb, look at this map with regard to existing, planned and currently under construction, coal-fired electrical production facilities and ask yourself, “Given the world’s population demographics, will taxing Oregon families and businesses impact the behavior of the heaviest carbon polluters?” Can Oregon’s population make up for emissions from expansive fires in California, Russia, or Australia, or, volcanic activity through-out the world?

Clearly, no.

The Democrat super majority should have asked this same question when they outlawed plastic straws and single-use plastic bags, “will it make a difference or is it just a costly hassle?”

People and their personal choices can make big differences. Personal responsibility and stewardship are the appropriate tools for each of us to use in our personal and public lives. I’m not making the claim that everything is peachy, and people aren’t wasteful or thoughtless when it comes to environmental concerns. Instead, I’m making the claim that government mandates never represent a balanced, efficient or rational choice due to the conflicting interests that guide public policy.

For example, I can remember when paper bags were outlawed to “save the trees.” The legislated solution was a floppy, thin, shapeless, “single-use” bag that never had any groceries in it by the time you got home because they were strewn about the car.

These constantly changing perspectives on right, wrong and which bag is the correct bag, shows that government policy can be irrational. Politicians make decisions based on limited knowledge with biased information. Paper bags were banned because legislators believed the environmentalist rhetoric about diminishing forests. Now there is a new emergency because people have been so diligent in following the law and not using paper.

Yet, the real solution would have been to allow free choice in the marketplace. Some folks would have used paper, others plastic, some would tend toward variations on recycled products while clever stewards would have developed the inexpensive reusable bag two decades sooner. Was it helpful to force people to use nothing but plastic only to berate them and force a nickel charge for buying the next version of the correct bag?

Yet, reality does not appear to inform the super majority. Free market solutions are lost to AGW fanaticism, as though state power is the only goal. Thus, we see the ‘politicizing’ all areas of our lives and society. Success hinges on being able to implement all-encompassing and ever-more complex social experiments where results become difficult to recognize and evaluate.

Additionally, the true societal costs are never properly accounted for as profound economic and community distortions, dislocations, and malinvestments pile onto the balance sheets of families and businesses.

The Climate Policy office holders will not be the people’s representatives as they will be appointed by the Governor and represent the statists’ interests, instead. They will have near universal control over Oregon businesses through rulemaking, unlimited taxing authority, penalty assessments, discretionary enforcement and other extensive economic burdens that will never make headlines. Oregonians know better, as we’ve seen unfettered giveaways and compliance incentives before, like the $1.2 billion Business Energy Tax Credit (BETC) scandal.

The super majority continually reaches for near-tyrannical mandates that are wasteful and extremely expensive to Oregonians without ever accomplishing any measurable goals. Therefore, I will do everything in my power to stop any HB2020 look-alike  which will subvert our individual liberty and bankrupt businesses, whether small or large, in the metro area, or in the rural heartland of Oregon.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense, no one will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin sunday, april 1, 2019 by devadmin

Last week Governor Kate Brown pulled a PR stunt by asking for a special legislative session. The Governor’s press release expressed her desire to clean-up Oregon’s adaptation of a pass-through law by including only the smallest of Oregon’s small businesses.

The Governor’s statement is cleverly worded to make it sound like she will be stepping up to rescue small businesses, and sole proprietorships. Her claim is that a simple fix would give these businesses access to the same tax breaks afforded larger businesses.

The Governor said, “We have an obvious inequity in Oregon’s tax system that is prejudiced against thousands of small Oregon businesses, and a simple change can fix it. I’m simply not willing to let these main street businesses — entrepreneurs, mom and pops, and start-ups — go through another tax year with unfair tax treatment as compared to their larger competitors.”

Doesn’t this message sound grand, generous and legitimate?

The Governor can apparently conquer inequity, solve the Democrat Majority’s long-standing prejudice for extracting taxes from hard-working Oregonians and provide well-deserved tax relief.

Hoooooray!

The governor’s statement continues by bragging this will help, “an estimated 9,000 sole proprietorships [who] could qualify and use this new opportunity to reinvest more of their profits into their businesses and employees.”

Only 9,000? Who are we kidding?

Recall, Oregon’s tax gulag recently imprisoned 192,000 of Oregon’s small businesses (mom and pop operations, sole-proprietorships, and “Schedule-C” filers) through Senate Bill 1528.

“Schedule-C” filers represent self-employed owners of small businesses who utilize the Form 1040 (Schedule C). This is the form used by businesses to complete income tax information for the federal government.

More importantly, this form is also known as “Profit or Loss from Business” and it documents exactly what the State of Oregon is interested in – your profits. Oregon is rapacious when it comes to scraping the last morsels off the plates of their small-business inmates.

The Oregon Department of Revenue estimated that SB 1528 would deny 192,000 “Schedule-C” filers their eligible for a 20% reduction on their Oregon income taxes. Although these businesses would qualify under federal tax-law they become trapped in an environment where it would be legal, except it’s not. This is exactly what SB 1528 from the 2018 legislative session was designed to do. It was engineered to disconnect Oregon’s tax code from Trump’s recent federal tax relief efforts.

With an effective state tax rate of 7.7%, these hardworking Oregonians already pay a higher tax rate than large Oregon C-corporations. In my view, SB 1528 represents the Democrat Majority’s official assault against small business owners and operators.

Here is another item that you may not realize: all revenue bills are constitutionally obligated to originate in Oregon’s House of Representatives. House bills are numbered with an HB prefix while Senate bills carry the SB prefix. Obviously, SB 1528, is a bill for generating tax revenue which started, unconstitutionally, in the Senate.

Additionally, raising revenue or increasing taxes requires a two-thirds majority to pass. SB 1528 passed by a simple majority without a single Republican vote.

The increased taxes on these 192,000 small businesses will be nearly 40 percent of the estimated $258 million in increased tax revenue pinched during the 2018 session. That means nearly $103 million will not be available for those local and family owned businesses to reinvest in their enterprises. That will be money that is no longer available for employees, benefits, or business expansion. For the young family running a small, sole-proprietorship, it could mean bread, milk and cheese which can no longer be afforded.

It seems that the language about solving the state’s tax-inequities quickly evaporates like green-house-gas emissions right into the night sky when we realize that this is  $103 million which will no longer be spent in our local communities but funneled into Salem’s grimy machinery.

Meanwhile, large multinational corporations will be allowed to hustle the system with special tax credits. Oregon’s inequitable tax-program allows its highest income earners to buy tax credits to offset their tax liability. This means that wealthy Oregonians will enjoy these tax savings at the expense of the small business owner who can’t afford to purchase these credits, let alone a box of Mac ’n’ Cheese for the kids.

In the typical fashion of the classic redistributionist, this scheme transfers general fund dollars to Oregon’s top 1% income earners while stealing federally allowed tax deductions from mom and pop businesses.

High-income investors have the financial resources and the means to lobby for these quirky tax rules. They can arrange to successfully game the tax system by using their Democrat allies who support complex giveaways hidden beneath layers of statist bureaucracy.

Gov. Brown could have exercised her leadership skills with a veto of SB 1528, but instead, she signed it into law. Typically, Oregon would copy federal tax breaks for businesses into state law. However, this year’s federal tax breaks have Trump’s signature all over them. In response, Gov. Brown reminded us once again why capitalist prosperity in America is so dangerously imperiled as she built her own version of a wall preventing Oregonians from accessing legitimate tax benefits.

Why? Because the Governor is on the ballot this November. The Governor’s claim that there is an “obvious inequity in Oregon’s tax system that is prejudiced against thousands of small Oregon businesses” will sell. It’s true. There is great inequity.

However, setting a mere 9,000 filers free does not make up for marshalling the other 183,000 tax-payers into Oregon’s scheme for preventing access to the Trumpian tax-breaks.

What gets missed is that the Democrat majority used unconstitutional and illegal means to create the initial problem and the Governor signed this into law. Despite claims about protecting small business, Gov. Brown and Oregon’s Democrat majority are masking their true objectives behind generous words.

They have accomplished their goal of raising an additional $1.3 billion in unneeded tax revenue over the next 6 years off the weakened souls of small businesses, local mom and pop shops and “Schedule-C” filers trapped within the state’s labor-camp boundaries.

The sad truth is, Oregon’s fiendishly unfriendly business environment will eventually push Oregonians to cut the wire, jump the fence and escape to more business-friendly states.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – No one will!

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, april 1, 2019, by devadmin

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ) invites the public to comment on the proposed section 401 water quality certification for the removal of the J.C. Boyle Dam, reservoir, powerhouse and all other infrastructure related to the existing Lower Klamath Project.

ODEQ will hold two public hearings on Tuesday, June 12 at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. at Oregon Tech’s College Union Auditorium.  View the full public notice for details on the public comment period at: http://www.oregon.gov/deq/get-involved/documents/070618Klamathpn.pdf.

After reading the above announcement, several people asked the same question: Didn’t Congress refuse to fund the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) and isn’t that story over?

The simple answer is yes! It should be over; but, it is not.

After KBRA/KHSA was rejected by Congress the “stakeholders” decided they didn’t need to abide by Constitutional requirements set in Article I, Clause 3 which holds that two states entering into an agreement need Congressional approval. Instead, dam removal and tribal interests convinced Gov. Brown (D–CA) and Gov. Brown (D–OR) that their two states could do it, alone. Typically state governments like to use federal funding sources because the Feds continually run enormous deficits, and besides, they can just print money.

Although, these two left-coast executives want to blow the dams, several legal and regulatory issues remain unsolved. In Oregon and California multiple levels of public comment are required depending on the project’s size. The Klamath River Dam Removal is the largest US dam removal effort ever contemplated and public comments are required.

The 401 Water Quality Certification program is designed to review and evaluate the water quality impacts of projects which require federal permits for activities that may result in a waterway discharge. Specific areas of interest will be water quality, turbidity and damage to spawning habitat from sediment held behind the structures, demolition debris, or bank erosion during the dam removal process.

Scientists report that the water in the upper reaches of the Klamath Basin is “severely impaired” therefore, it follows, that poor-quality water would subsequently flow downstream and become a part of the subject matter for review. This “severely impaired” water will spill into the Klamath River system more than 200 miles from the salty Pacific. Add to this, the volume of demolition debris and the toxic sedimentary loads stored behind the current dams and you have real problems.

There is estimated to be in excess of 20 million cubic yards of accumulated sediment behind these structures. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement did not investigate the seriousness of this potential problem, address any possible mitigation efforts or the costs associated with fixing these issues.

On Tuesday, June 12th, ODEQ needs to hear our voices. They need to be made aware of a realistic assessment of the potential problems and our concerns for costly overruns, damages, clean-up and/or mitigation efforts that are currently omitted from the feel-good narrative coming from dam removal promoters.

This water quality issue is not easily side-stepped because estimates suggest 20 million cubic yards of toxic sediment exist. That in itself is the equivalent of 1 million twenty-yard dump truck loads of silt, sediment and sludge which needs to be removed. Is ODEQ willing to dump that into the river system? Where else would this sludge get dumped? I can’t wait to hear the “NIMBY/NOMR” (Not-In-My-Back-Yard/Not-On-My-Reservation) crowds erupting with those realities.

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, July 18, 2019 by devadmin

The 2019 Regular Legislative Session finally came to a rumbling halt on the constitutional day of adjournment, Sunday, June 30. It reminded me of a run-away, “tax and spend” freight train finally hitting a concrete barrier. What a wreck!

The total state budget for the 2019-21 biennium rose by 9.9% over the 2017-19 budget and 24.4% over the 2015-17 budget. What does a careening budget look like?

The budget grew to $85,799,479,438 to provide services to a mere 4.1 million people for two years.

The supermajority’s revenue raising tactic was no penny and dime affair. They scheduled monstrous tax increases, like the Corporate Activities Tax (gross sales tax – HB 3427) and the Carbon Tax (HB 2020) but needed to lessen political resistance.

The chosen tactic was to raise money from vastly different groups of people, across different periods in the year. This type of money-grab greatly increased fees and citizen participation costs (i.e., Fishing Licenses, Drivers Licenses, Vehicle Registrations, Permits, etc.), while dissipating blowback and squelching any revolt. The total take from this seemingly penny-ante game was enormous and increased the Other Funds category by 19.6% or $6.2 billion.

As you are aware, I was among the eleven Republican Senators who left the state to deny the administrative quorum required for the legislative body to conduct business. The impact of this effort was a success and brought reasonable Democrat supermajority members back to the negotiating table. They willingly helped kill several bad pieces of legislation.

Earlier in the session we aimed at protecting constitutional issues, such as SB 978, an extensive gun-control bill that would have saddled all gun owners with rigid ownership requirements. These included, locked-while-not-in-use regulations, burdensome insurance requirements, criminal responsibility for actions of other parties and extraordinary financial obligations.

Another bill that tore at the constitutional rights of constituents and their children was HB 3063. It would have removed religious, philosophical and specific medical condition exemptions from Oregon’s vaccination requirements. This bill would have placed Oregon Health Authority (OHA) bureaucrats between the patient and their physician and I considered this a violation of an individual’s right to volitional consent for medicine and medical procedures.

During the close of the session we specifically focused on the crippling Cap and Trade Bill, HB 2020. The thrust of my opposition to HB 2020 was it cost too much while doing too little – it just wasn’t worth it.

The bill’s arbitrary regulations on greenhouse gas (GHG) producers in Oregon could never successfully impact world-wide GHGs. Oregon is too small to impact global pollution stemming from giants like, China and India. China produces 28 percent of the world’s carbon emissions while India has thirteen of the world’s twenty most-polluted cities.

In other words, stifling Oregon’s 2 million taxpayers with restrictive laws and punitively higher taxes will not impact the issues seen on the horizon. The only solution can, and should, come through the creative genius, technological advances and innovation that blossoms from our productive use of capital resources within our own free economy.

The 2019 Legislative session has ended but the political battle is not over. I remain convinced that these legislative concepts will return during the 2020 short session.

The central planners in state government have an insatiable appetite and are always looking for higher taxes, green energy subsidies, carbon taxes, free college tuition, single-payer government-run health care and the list goes on and on. At the same time, they burden taxpayers by out-lawing non-existent problems like fracking in Oregon, plastic straws, single-use plastic bags and making “legal” immigration simply unnecessary.

Yet, people are smart and the elite planners can never predict how individuals might change their habits due to taxes and regulations. What would the state do if people quit playing the Lottery, buying cigarettes, hunting or boating? Remember, part of the reason the state promotes and regulates these areas is for the revenue stream.

This misguided course of raising taxes, increasing regulations and removing spending restraints will result in the inevitable. It will destroy private sector jobs, productive assets, economic output and viability while disrupting the landscape in a vain search for Utopia.

Each of us realizes the inherent danger that stems from political power. It has the potential to corrupt all it touches including the public, politicians, businesses, schools, industries, associations, non-profits and even news outlets.

For people to be free, they must seek to live by the highest standards of personal virtue, justice and honesty. Lawrence W. Reed, President Emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education, penned this encouragement for personal character. He writes:

“In America’s first century, we possessed it in abundance and even though there were no think tanks, very little economic education, and even less policy research, it kept our liberties substantially intact. People generally opposed the expansion of government power not because they read policy studies or earned degrees in economics, but because they placed a high priority on character. Using government to get something at somebody else’s expense, or mortgaging the future for near-term gain, seemed dishonest and cynical to them, if not downright sinful and immoral.”

In closing, I’ll hearken back to 1942 when the fans of the innovative radio series, “Adventures of Superman”, were thrilled to hear of Superman’s battle for “truth, justice and the American way.” This motto is simple and straight-forward; we know it by heart; all political affiliations can recognize these values and our American experiment in self-government requires that we live by it.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – who will?

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, June 28, 2017 by devadmin

State law proved to be no match for Senate Democrats’ desire to illegally pass a $22.8 million-dollar tax hike in the House last week. Senate Bill 28 was passed in the House and will spike taxes at least $22.8 million in the two upcoming budget cycles. Our Republican legislators universally voted against the tax increase and made the claim that SB 28 should have originated in the House because it is a revenue raising bill.

Additionally, the bill allows taxes to be raised with a simple majority vote versus the three-fifths or 60/40 margin required by the Oregon constitution.

In 1996, Oregonians approved Ballot Measure 95, now Article IV, Section 25, of Oregon’s Constitution, which mandates that tax increases receive a three-fifths vote of all members in the Legislature. Article IV, Section 18 of the Oregon Constitution requires tax hike bills to start in the House of Representatives. Therefore, SB 28 is illegal on two fronts, 1) it passed without the legally required three-fifths vote, and 2) it inappropriately originated in the Senate.

Senate Republican Leader Ted Ferrioli stated, “Disregard for the Constitution prevails yet again, with the House passing an illegal tax hike. This outrage will be countered with litigation. Democrats want to ignite fury within the hearts of Oregonians by trampling on the Constitution.”

Oregonians are being exploited by House and Senate Democrats who are violating Oregon’s Constitution to dramatically spike taxes.

This tax hike is a demonstration of their willingness to approve “lawlessness.” Small Oregon businesses will see a dramatic hike as the legislature schemes for revenue. For some businesses, it will be a brand-new tax. Senate Republicans decried the passage of SB 28 saying it thwarts the will of voters. Republicans also point out that it should have first been introduced in the House of Representatives. Senate Bill 28 modifies how Oregon corporate income taxes are apportioned for intangible property and services. It changes the apportionment method from a cost-of-performance method to a market-based method.

The cost-of-performance method attributes all corporate income tax revenues to the state where the greatest proportion of the activity is performed. For example, if most of the effort for manufacturing and creating your product is done out of state then your product would be taxed based on the appropriate proportion of in-state verses out-of-state work.

The market-based method attributes corporate income tax revenue to the state where the customer is located. In other words, even if all your work, offices and effort are in another state, Oregon will tax your business based on total sales if any of those sales occur in Oregon.

However, the Democrat raiding party is not finished picking your pocket. House Bill 2060A is another direct tax increase on small businesses. It too, passed out of the House by a simple majority.

HB 2060A imposes a tax increase, up to 40%, for small businesses with fewer than ten employees while preserving lower rates for larger S-corps, LLCs and LLPs.  It is a $196 million-dollar tax increase on Oregon’s smallest businesses.

The 2013 Grand Bargain between Democrats and Republicans provided tax relief to small Oregon businesses. House Bill 2060A would remove the protection provided to small businesses by Republican legislators in 2013.

Also, the tax-grabbers decided to go after the smallest-of-small businesses. They changed the language to expand the size of companies that could quality. Formerly, the Grand Bargain allowed an individual business owner to qualify for a lower tax rates. This House Bill increases the size of the company receiving the benefit by ten-fold. This means a small individually-owned business, or the Mom and Pop operation, are eliminated from the possibility of a reduced tax liability. These small businesses will be forced into paying more of their hard-earned income into this Democrat sponsored revenue collection scheme.

Not only are more employees required to qualify, but the Democrats jimmied the numbers by adding even more requirements for qualifying businesses. These added conditions reduce the overall number of businesses that will be able to qualify for the lower tax rates.

See… Money is easier to find than gumballs in the sofa cushions

This financial tyranny runs contrary to our state and nation’s most sacred principles. George Washington said, “I think the Government hath no more Right to put their hands into my Pocket, without my consent, than I have to put my hands into your’s, for money…”

Washington’s thoughts flow directly from our Declaration of Independence, immediately following Life, Liberty and your happiness through just pursuits. It states, “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

However, today the folks in Salem are following the rule that Ronald Reagan criticized so poignantly. He claimed that big government policy wonks believe in the motto – “if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – No one will.

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Friday, April 27, 2018 by devadmin

Last week Governor Kate Brown pulled a PR stunt by asking for a special legislative session. The Governor’s press release expressed her desire to clean-up Oregon’s adaptation of a pass-through law by including only the smallest of Oregon’s small businesses.

The Governor’s statement is cleverly worded to make it sound like she will be stepping up to rescue small businesses, and sole proprietorships. Her claim is that a simple fix would give these businesses access to the same tax breaks afforded larger businesses.

The Governor said, “We have an obvious inequity in Oregon’s tax system that is prejudiced against thousands of small Oregon businesses, and a simple change can fix it. I’m simply not willing to let these main street businesses — entrepreneurs, mom and pops, and start-ups — go through another tax year with unfair tax treatment as compared to their larger competitors.”

Doesn’t this message sound grand, generous and legitimate?

The Governor can apparently conquer inequity, solve the Democrat Majority’s long-standing prejudice for extracting taxes from hard-working Oregonians and provide well-deserved tax relief.

Hoooooray!

The governor’s statement continues by bragging this will help, “an estimated 9,000 sole proprietorships [who] could qualify and use this new opportunity to reinvest more of their profits into their businesses and employees.”

Only 9,000? Who are we kidding?

Recall, Oregon’s tax gulag recently imprisoned 192,000 of Oregon’s small businesses (mom and pop operations, sole-proprietorships, and “Schedule-C” filers) through Senate Bill 1528.

“Schedule-C” filers represent self-employed owners of small businesses who utilize the Form 1040 (Schedule C). This is the form used by businesses to complete income tax information for the federal government.

More importantly, this form is also known as “Profit or Loss from Business” and it documents exactly what the State of Oregon is interested in – your profits. Oregon is rapacious when it comes to scraping the last morsels off the plates of their small-business inmates.

The Oregon Department of Revenue estimated that SB 1528 would deny 192,000 “Schedule-C” filers their eligible for a 20% reduction on their Oregon income taxes. Although these businesses would qualify under federal tax-law they become trapped in an environment where it would be legal, except it’s not. This is exactly what SB 1528 from the 2018 legislative session was designed to do. It was engineered to disconnect Oregon’s tax code from Trump’s recent federal tax relief efforts.

With an effective state tax rate of 7.7%, these hardworking Oregonians already pay a higher tax rate than large Oregon C-corporations. In my view, SB 1528 represents the Democrat Majority’s official assault against small business owners and operators.

Here is another item that you may not realize: all revenue bills are constitutionally obligated to originate in Oregon’s House of Representatives. House bills are numbered with an HB prefix while Senate bills carry the SB prefix. Obviously, SB 1528, is a bill for generating tax revenue which started, unconstitutionally, in the Senate.

Additionally, raising revenue or increasing taxes requires a two-thirds majority to pass. SB 1528 passed by a simple majority without a single Republican vote.

The increased taxes on these 192,000 small businesses will be nearly 40 percent of the estimated $258 million in increased tax revenue pinched during the 2018 session. That means nearly $103 million will not be available for those local and family owned businesses to reinvest in their enterprises. That will be money that is no longer available for employees, benefits, or business expansion. For the young family running a small, sole-proprietorship, it could mean bread, milk and cheese which can no longer be afforded.

It seems that the language about solving the state’s tax-inequities quickly evaporates like green-house-gas emissions right into the night sky when we realize that this is  $103 million which will no longer be spent in our local communities but funneled into Salem’s grimy machinery.

Meanwhile, large multinational corporations will be allowed to hustle the system with special tax credits. Oregon’s inequitable tax-program allows its highest income earners to buy tax credits to offset their tax liability. This means that wealthy Oregonians will enjoy these tax savings at the expense of the small business owner who can’t afford to purchase these credits, let alone a box of Mac ’n’ Cheese for the kids.

In the typical fashion of the classic redistributionist, this scheme transfers general fund dollars to Oregon’s top 1% income earners while stealing federally allowed tax deductions from mom and pop businesses.

High-income investors have the financial resources and the means to lobby for these quirky tax rules. They can arrange to successfully game the tax system by using their Democrat allies who support complex giveaways hidden beneath layers of statist bureaucracy.

Gov. Brown could have exercised her leadership skills with a veto of SB 1528, but instead, she signed it into law. Typically, Oregon would copy federal tax breaks for businesses into state law. However, this year’s federal tax breaks have Trump’s signature all over them. In response, Gov. Brown reminded us once again why capitalist prosperity in America is so dangerously imperiled as she built her own version of a wall preventing Oregonians from accessing legitimate tax benefits.

This brings me to a question. Why all of the press notices and expense by Gov. Brown for this special legislative session? Why? Because the Governor is on the ballot this November. The Governor’s claim that there is an “obvious inequity in Oregon’s tax system that is prejudiced against thousands of small Oregon businesses” will sell. It’s true. There is great inequity. However, setting a mere 9,000 filers free does not make up for marshalling the other 183,000 tax-payers into Oregon’s scheme for preventing access to the Trumpian tax-breaks.

What gets missed is that the Democrat majority used unconstitutional and illegal means to create the initial problem and the Governor signed this into law. Despite claims about protecting small business, Gov. Brown and Oregon’s Democrat majority are masking their true objectives behind generous words.

They have accomplished their goal of raising an additional $1.3 billion in unneeded tax revenue over the next 6 years off the weakened souls of small businesses, local mom and pop shops and “Schedule-C” filers trapped within the state’s labor-camp boundaries.

The sad truth is, Oregon’s fiendishly unfriendly business environment will eventually push Oregonians to cut the wire, jump the fence and escape to more business-friendly states.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense – No one will!

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, april 26, 2017, by devadmin

Hello Friends,

Last week, the co-chairs of the Joint Ways and Means Committee released their budget framework. Their budget claims to address the reality that, “we must grapple with the fact that Oregon is facing a $1.8 billion budget shortfall in the coming biennium.” But, it falls short of a successful take-down and there really is no serious grappling going on here.

Grappling would involve something more real, sweaty and contentious. It would be a battle where serious issues were actually addressed. “Grapple” is a high-energy, action word where one would expect to see significant headway when it comes to dealing with Oregon’s currently unsustainable trajectory.

It appears that the co-chairs don’t realize that Oregon has been in a tepid and barely measurable economic recovery. Our economy is one of the weakest in history in terms of job growth, although revenue is flowing into the state’s coffers. If we fall into another recession, the PERS unfunded liabilities will necessarily sky-rocket leaving Oregon with no tools or dry powder left.

At least the co-chairs have come to realize that Governor Brown’s budget has problems. Yet, they insist on classifying the problem as being a $1.8B shortfall.

This is not true. There is no shortfall.

Even with our tepid economic growth there is more revenue pouring into Oregon’s treasury than ever before. Never in Oregon’s history has so much money been available for government services.  The truth is our current biennium is expected to gain $3.1B more revenue than the previous biennium largely due to rising marginal tax rates and the economically destructive bracket creep across all income levels.

Our real problem is that government growth has outpaced revenue growth by the $1.8B shortfall. Clearly, this calls for a different mind-set when it comes to wrestling with Oregon’s sustainability.

Oregon’s problem is a spending problem.

Not only are we spending more than we receive from local taxpayers but nearly forty-cents ($.40) of every dollar ($1.00) spent by Oregon comes directly from federal funding sources. This means that 4 out of every 10 teachers is funded by the federal government. It also means, 4 out of every 10 state troopers, DEQ staff persons, university employees, parks & recreation staff, road department personnel, DHS staff, DAS personnel and more, is funded by federal dollars.

Now, in discussion, you might be told, this is not true because federal monies are typically silo-ed into specific areas like infrastructure, highways, criminal justice, prison systems and grants for employees, research projects and studies.

However, this masks what is going on. You see, if Oregon can save a dollar on infrastructure by using Uncle Sam’s dollar instead, then the dollar saved by Oregon can get shifted toward other services or personnel. Hence nearly 40% of Oregon’s entire budget, meaning all services, projects and expenditures comes from federal funding. This is clearly unsustainable.

Why?

The answer is it all comes from the same place – the taxpayer’s pocket

Governments, just like people, come into the world naked and poor. People either inherit resources or create money through hard work. In the private sector we see this occurring through competition, innovation, and invention. For government, the citizens with their ingenuity and wealth creation are the only source at hand.

What we are witnessing today, in the public sphere, is a cavalier attitude toward this ultimate source of wealth. The co-chairs budget statement even attempts to shift blame onto the backs of citizens for daring to prefer a smaller government that might actually live within it’s means.

The co-chairs belittle Oregon’s citizens for adopting Measure 5, by voter approval in 1990. Measure 5 reduced property taxes while shifting the responsibility for funding K-12 schools from local property taxes to the state general fund. This was a perfectly legitimate request from the citizens regarding how their money was to be allocated and spent.  Voters also passed Measure 50 which limited funding on local tax levies.

Besides unfunded PERS liabilities at $22 Billion, our Oregon debt load is $37.5 Billion, or about $9,300 for every man, women and child in the state. Unfortunately newborns and five-year-olds aren’t paying any taxes so someone else is on the hook for their share.

Now, while I’ve got you thinking about debt, add-in your city’s debt and unfunded liabilities, your county’s debt and unfunded liabilities, your mortgage, your credit card, auto and student loan debt and then top it off with your share of the federal debt ($20 Trillion) or, ~$61,000 per person.

There is only one way out. Prudence and wisdom dictate that we cannot continue to spend like debt is an economic elixir.

Voters passed Measure 5 and 50; they rejected Measure 97; their wishes need to be heard and respected. We must learn to be frugal – it’s our only hope.

Best regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28