Whatever government revenue might be generated by the passage of Measures 66 and 67 in Oregon on Tuesday, make no mistake that one result is simple and straightforward. It has allowed those who make decisions with taxpayer dollars to skate. Rather then solving the problem of paying too much out to everything — including salaries and benefits to Oregon state workers — legislators simply asked for, and received, more.
We hope Washington state is not next, but we suspect that all states — including ours — are in the reaching-deeper-into-our-pockets mood instead of getting their expenses under control.
In the meantime, we put out the welcome mat here in Clark County for Oregonians who want some relief. Our community has always been a great place to do business; as of Tuesday, it just got better. More than any immediate or statistical impact (we noticed no long line of northbound trucks moving companies here Wednesday morning), the benefits to Southwest Washington will evolve slowly and will be related to overall business climate. Even several days before the vote, a Saturday story by The Columbian’s Libby Tucker included this quote from Bart Phillips, president of the Columbia River Economic Development Council in Vancouver: “(Tuesday’s election has) already had its impact whether or not it passes, just because the specter of it causes instability. It shows the legislature is willing to increase corporate taxes …”
What we’re talking about here is an overall message from voters and politicians to entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and small businesses: “We’re going to sock it to you good, and we’ve got the public employee unions’ voter base, plus the deep campaign-spending pockets of those same unions, to pull this off.” And then, legislators will not only skate on their responsibilities to rein in an extravagant system of public employee pay and benefits, they’ll skate on their duty to reform government overall.