The legislature had $2B MORE to spend this biennium compared to last. They spent it and then came after the taxpayers for another Billion–selling out small business owners, corporations (insuring new ones won’t come here) and raising the income tax rate on the “rich” to 11%.

This was all done with the overwrought rhetoric about people and businesses paying their “fair share.” But what is their fair share? How much is enough? Looking at the 2006 income tax returns we see that the top 5% of Oregon income earners pay 41% of the taxes. The top 1% pay 23% of the taxes. The bottom 60% contribute a combined total of less than 14% of the income taxes paid. In fact we subsidize/pay for some of these people. We pay those who don’t pay taxes.

Much was made of the “principled” stand by DEMOCRAT Tax Supporter, Mark Hass and how he stopped the vote on Wednesday, only to vote in favor of it today. He says he did it to make sure that Oregon would never be in this predicament again. Well that’s utter nonsense. If he were interested in standing on principle he would have proposed spending curbs. This was a grandstand play. The democrats conceived of, wrote, orchestrated and passed the BIGGEST TAX INCREASES IN OREGON HISTORY.

Here’s his canned response to several listeners:

From: Sen Hass hass.sen@state.or.us>

Date: Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 6:02 PM

Subject: Clearing the air about HB 3405 – How we’ve helped the Rainy Day Fund

To: Sen Hass hass.sen@state.or.us>

I would love to clear the air about my votes on HB 3405 – the corporate tax increase.

As you may know by now, I voted for both the personal and corporate measures today. But what this package will include today that it didn’t include last night is a permanent distribution from corporate taxes into the Oregon Rainy Day Fund. Many people are surprised to learn our current fund is made up of a one-time distribution from the corporate kicker in 2007. It will be depleted this year and no one has any idea of how to fund it after that.

The new measure will generate $70 million a year into Oregon’s Rainy Day Fund.

I drafted this as an amendment for HB 3405 on Monday after discussing it with my carpool partner, Rep. Tobias Read. (You might be surprised how many bills are created at 70 mph on I-5.) I had hoped this language could be adopted in the Senate.

But there were no hearings in the Senate. The measure came straight to the floor from the Joint Ways & Means Committee. In other words, no hearings, no testimony. When I was a minority member in the House, we used to rail at Republicans for this very thing.

…So, what do you do? Do you go along with the crowd, even though your gut tells you it’s wrong?

Or do you stand on principle?

As I mentioned on the floor of the Senate [AS I VOTED IN FAVOR OF THE LARGEST TAX INCREASES IN OREGON HISTORY] today, sometimes people can stand on principle and end up standing in different places. But when Oregon works best, these people find ways to come together.

Today we did that. Thanks to Rep. Read, we can amend the compromise language into a House bill. I’m glad I stuck to my guns. We have a better package – the process worked and Oregon is moving forward .

Mark