I have to hand it to the Democratically-run Oregon legislature for pushing forward with legislation to raise the Oregon corporate minimum tax, the marginal tax rate on the biggest Oregon corporations, and the marginal income tax rate for wealthy individuals.
It's about time, I say.
Republicans call the tax increases "job killers." I beg to differ. Not raising state revenue is the real job killer --think corrections workers, teachers, and others in the pubic sector whose "jobs" are on the line if the state budget is drastically cut.
Republicans, of course, don't believe that government jobs are real jobs. That reminds me of a conversation I has a few weeks ago with a relative of my brother-in-law, an ultra-conservative who happens to be a well-off dentist from the Puget Sound area.
He claimed that government workers don't produce anything of value, therefore they don't contribute to the economy. By "value" I assume he meant commodities that can be bought and sold. If so, what I should have said in response, but didn't, is, by that definition, many private sector workers produce nothing of "value" either.
Like dentists.
Like lawyers and accountants, dentists provide services. So do teachers and other government workers. One can debate whether dentists provide more economic bang for the buck than teachers, but few would argue that teachers are simply drags on the economy. Like dentists, they pay taxes and buy stuff --commodities-- that keeps the economy moving.
Oregon Democrats would do well to ignore Republicans until they have something reasonable to say about the realities of modern economies.
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