Tag Archives: City Club of Portland

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The City Club of Portland: Still in its Blue Bubble

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Hundreds gathered at a City Club of Portland Friday Forum on Friday, Nov. 11 to commiserate on the results of the Nov. 8 election.

“Elections 2016: What Just Happened?” was the topic. After an hour of dialogue, it was clear that what didn’t happen in Portland was a new understanding of why vast areas of middle America and rural areas of Oregon rejected liberal dogma and the Democratic Party.

Instead, the discussion swarmed with complaints of racism, misogeny, Islamaphobia and xenophobia by Donald Trump and his supporters.

The panel moderator was Sarah Mirk, online editor of ‪@BitchMedia and host of feminist podcast, Popaganda Backtalk. Her perspective was revealed the night of the election when she tweeted, “Should have brought anti-nausea meds to watch the election results.

The panel included: Jesse Beason, Director of Color PAC; Amy Herzfeld-Copple, co-executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, and; Julie Rabadi, chair of Young Republicans of Oregon.

“So many of us are still reeling today in shock and despair,” Mirk observed in her opening remarks. “No question this election has left us scared, stunned and angry,” Herzfeld-Copple added. “Many of us are grieving.”

Studies showed that Trump supporters were “much higher on the racial resentment score,” Beason said. This was “the first election I can remember where someone running on a racist and misogynist platform wins. Either voters themselves have racist proclivities, or it just didn’t matter enough that their presidential nominee did, for them not to vote for him.”

“…the ugliness and targeting of marginal communities” won’t stop until Americans “who perceive themselves as losing power get to less than a majority,” opined Herzfeld-Copple.

What the panel didn’t talk about

What the panel didn’t talk about was this map of the U.S., showing how the Republicans swept most of middle America and then some:

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or this map showing Hillary Clinton’s loss of most of rural Oregon, including Lake County, where Donald Trump captured 79 percent of the votes for president:

finaloregonelectionmap

or the clear evidence that economically anxious blue collar voters, particularly whites, feel they’ve been forgotten, that America’s middle class is under seige, that many Americans were deeply offended by Hillary Clinton calling many of Trump’s supporters “deplorables” and “irredeemable.”

The Friday Forum panel didn’t talk about the fact that, in contrast to much of middle America, they and their City Club audience were largely higher income, educated, upwardly mobile professionals

What wasn’t discussed was that the Forum participants were largely liberal Oregonians living in a blue bubble. As Michael Moore said, “Unfortunately, you are living in a bubble that comes with an adjoining echo chamber…” and don’t understand the anger of Americans at “… all who wrecked their American Dream.”

What the Friday Forum, taking place in a liberal “Sanctuary City”, didn’t talk about was how much of America is struggling to deal with massive immigration, both legal and illegal, and changes to American culture. Beason even said, “…illegal immigration is actually not a significant issue here in America.”

Finally, what they didn’t talk enough about was the need to listen to and try to understand people not like themselves. “No one wants to hear an opposing viewpoint.,” said Young Republicans Chair Julie Rabadi. “No one wants to consider it, to understand why somebody else thinks a different way.”

Not a good sign.

 

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City Club of Portland: wrong on Measure 97

tax-increaseAppalling! What else can you say?

Members of the City Club of Portland voted Tuesday to support Measure 97, which proposes imposing burdensome gross receipts taxes on Oregon businesses that could total $6.1 billion in the 2017-19 biennium.

It’s hard to believe that such a distinguished civic group could support such a flawed scheme.

Oregon’s General Fund expenses are expected to grow by about 14 percent, or $2.7 billion, in the 2017-2019 biennium. The budget anticipates only about half that will be covered by new revenue, translating to a projected $1.35 billion shortfall.

Given such things as public employee pay increases, higher Medicaid expenses, and pension rate increases for state government and school district employees covered by PERS, some additional revenue may be justified. But not $6.1 billion. That’s highway robbery.

And collecting the additional revenue through an odious gross receipts tax, which ignores a business’s profitability, or lack thereof, is irresponsible. How well-educated City Club members, many of whom presumably work in the private sector, could endorse such a tax is inexplicable.

Also damning is the uneven applicability of Measure 97’s proposed taxes. Taxation of just C Corporations would create a vastly uneven playing field for Oregon businesses.

As the minority noted in the City Club’s committee report, “Many large businesses are LLCs and S corps, and they often compete with C corps in similar sectors. For example, Fred Meyer (Kroger) and Safeway grocery store chains are C corps and would pay the tax. New Seasons Market, a B corporation,47 and Albertson’s, a limited liability corporation (LLC),48 would not pay it. “

The flaws in the City Club’s arguments in favor of Measure 97 are evident right off the bat.

The City Club committee charged with determining the merit of Measure 97 said it “…presents a long-awaited opportunity to assure adequate investment in the health, education and the well-being of Oregonians.”

Nonsense!

The fact is there is absolutely no guarantee the legislature will apply Measure 97 revenue to early childhood through grade 12 public education, healthcare and services for senior citizens, in the coming years as the measure states.

If Measure 97 is approved by voters, the Legislature can appropriate its revenues “in any way it chooses,” Legislative Counsel Dexter Johnson said in an Aug. 1 letter to Rep. John Davis, R-Wilsonville, a member of the House Committee on Revenue. Not only are Legislators “not bound by the spending requirements” of Measure 97, they can “simply ignore” them,” Johnson added.

What is most likely is that over time Measure 97 revenue would be spread around like honey in response to pressure from self-serving special interests with access to, and influence on, decision-makers.

Rep. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland) said when endorsing the measure, “If that passes, we’ll have a lot of money to pay for stuff.” The hundreds of groups that spend millions annually lobbying the legislature will have plenty of ideas on what “stuff” to spend the money on.

There’s also a high likelihood that some of those lobbyists will seek exemptions from all or part of the tax, just as Nike cut a deal with former Gov. John Kitzhaber and the legislature in 2012 to protect it from changes in the way the state calculates the company’s state income taxes.

Gov. Brown has already said she’d favor some “technical adjustments” if Measure 97 passes, including:

  • Allowing businesses to subtract a portion of their Oregon payroll from their corporate tax bill.
  • Prohibiting businesses from changing their corporate status “for the primary purpose” of evading the new gross receipts tax. (As written, the measure would exempt “benefit corporations” from the new tax)
  • Helping out software companies in Oregon by classifying sales of their services based on the location of the purchaser, rather than the location of the company selling the service.

The majority of the City Club committee that recommended a “yes” vote on Measure 97 also argued that “… the potential benefit of adequately funded state services outweighed any of the tax’s potential detrimental effects and that the consequences of prolonging the state’s revenue shortage where (sic) too great.”

Outweighed “any of the potential detrimental effects”? In other words, satisfying the state’s greed with $6.1 billion in additional revenue per biennium is more important that an expected dampening of income, job and population growth. Give me a break.

Finally, in endorsing Measure 97, the City Club is giving an easy out to liberal Democrats who want to avoid tackling difficult spending issues.

For example, as the minority pointed out, the unfunded PERS liability is $21-$22 billion. If nothing is done to deal with the creeping cost of PERS, even the Measure 97 windfall won’t be enough to avoid a funding crisis.

It’s not as though Oregon’s budget problems snuck up on the Democrat-controlled Legislature, leaving it no choice but to abdicate its responsibilities and leave it to a poorly crafted union-inspired ballot measure to fix things.

It’s been abundantly clear for a long time that trouble was coming. Where was the grit to fix things right?

 

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If City Club of Portland says “no” to GMOs, is “no” to vaccines next?

With the anti-science GMO silliness that’s going on at the City Club of Portland, I’m surprised it hasn’t recommended that moms reject vaccinations for their kids. After all, Jenny McCarthy, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Charlie Sheen are already on board.

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A study committee for the City Club recommended in July that the group endorse a November ballot measure mandating the labeling of genetically engineered foods sold in Oregon. The City Club will vote on the recommendation on Wednesday, Aug. 20.

antiGMO

One key element of its reasoning – some consumers want such labeling. If public opinion is to be the primary determinant of whether the City Club endorses a policy, just do a poll and go with the majority. Then they won’t have to do any real independent research.

Of course, even if the City Club did a poll today, that would only tell them what the public thinks at that point. Public sentiment on an issue can shift over time, as the defeat of many once widely supported Oregon ballot measures illustrates.

Good research by the City Club might reveal that the public is really misinformed and being swayed by nonsensical arguments. The fact is, the so-called “collective wisdom” is often wrong. The public does not always have all the relevant information to make an intelligent decision.

Besides, why should the City Club care what other people think. Make up your own mind.

The other principal reason the City Club committee gave for endorsing mandating the labeling of genetically engineered foods sold in Oregon is that it would help track the safety of genetically altered foods.

Come on now, folks.

Independent scientific organizations have overwhelmingly concluded that genetically engineered foods pose no health risk.

For example, the National Academies (the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine) were asked to convene a committee of scientific experts to outline science-based approaches for assessing or predicting the unintended health effects of genetically engineered (GE) foods and to compare the potential for unintended effects with those of foods derived from other conventional genetic modification methods.

The committee’s report found, “To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.”

That’s not to say more research isn’t needed. It is. But requiring that all genetically engineered foods be labeled won’t help. More likely, the labeling, in combination with unscientific scare tactics by GMO critics, would simply depress demand for such foods.

But then, maybe that’s what the labeling advocates really want.