Phil Stanford's last column in the Portland Tribune--a rant about the city's proposed Clean Money election reform-- is part fantasy and, perhaps, part lie. Here's the part that may be an outright fabrication--lie-- but it's hard to tell because Stanford offers no evidence to back up his assertion:
"The point, my fellow citizens, is that while Portland ranks No. 1 west of the Mississippi in total state and municipal taxes, we can do much better."
Taxes collected? Money spent? Per capita tax load for residents of Portland? Who knows?
Portland aside, all the evidence, the data, that I've come across suggests that the tax load in Oregon, especially on businesses, is light to the point of absurdity. So says a report from Citizen's for Oregon's Future, headquartered right here in P-town:
"The most recent estimate from the Legislative Revenue Office puts us (Oregon) at 46th out of 50 states."
Now maybe Portland does have a higher tax burden than the rest of Oregon, but that's the price we pay for keeping the schools open. Especially when the state legislature, and the Governor, are not similarly inclined.
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