Dave Hunt, Peter Courtney, Mary Nolan, Ted Kulongoski, Phil Barnhart should take a bow for their “leadership.” As predicted, “Route” 66 was a dead end. This was your orchestration, your idea, your debacle. Just don’t act like it’s a surprise because you were told this would happen. Can’t wait to see how much more capital flight and missing millionaires we’ll discover in the next two FY. You must be so proud. 
Here’s part of the WSJ editorial today (find it here).

Oregon raised its income tax on the richest 2% of its residents last year to fix its budget hole, but now the state treasury admits it collected nearly one-third less revenue than the bean counters projected. The sun also rose in the east, and the Cubs didn’t win the World Series.

In 2009 the state legislature raised the tax rate to 10.8% on joint-filer income of between $250,000 and $500,000, and to 11% on income above $500,000. Only New York City’s rate is higher. Oregon’s liberal voters ratified the tax increase on individuals and another on businesses in January of this year, no doubt feeling good about their “shared sacrifice.”
Congratulations. Instead of $180 million collected last year from the new tax, the state received $130 million. The Eugene Register-Guard newspaper reports that after the tax was raised “income tax and other revenue collections began plunging so steeply that any gains from the two measures seemed trivial.”
One reason revenues are so low is that about one-quarter of the rich tax filers seem to have gone missing. The state expected 38,000 Oregonians to pay the higher tax, but only 28,000 did. Funny how that always happens. These numbers are in line with a Cascade Policy Institute study, based on interstate migration patterns, predicting that the tax surcharge would lead to 80,000 fewer wealthy tax filers in Oregon over the next decade.
The tax wasn’t enacted into law until June 2009 but was retroactively applied to January 1, 2009. So for the first half of the year wealthy Oregon residents weren’t able to take steps to avoid the tax ambush because they didn’t see it coming.

Projected: 38,000

Actual: 28,000

Projected: $180 million

Actual: $130 million

 First projection: $1.26 billion

Latest projection: $827 million