By REES LLOYD 
Oregon is becoming the center of national attention concerning the tax-hiking ballot measures “66” and “67.” More is at stake than increased taxes. What is at stake is freedom. Indeed, the reason that Oregon is being watched nationally now is because Oregonians by their vote will be defining who and what they are, and what they will tolerate, in this age of ever expanding government.
That is, by this vote Oregonians will decide whether they will remain citizens who employ others as public servants, or whether Oregonians will opt in the Age of Obama to be transformed into subjects of government, servants of taxpayer-paid government employees who have become “public masters,” not “public servants”
Government employees who once were “public servants” are spending millions of dollars through wealth-consuming “public sector unions,” SEIU, AFSCME, NEA, buying politicians and advocating increased taxes to be imposed on private sector, wealth-producing citizens, taxes from which government employees exempt themselves and by which they will be the prime beneficiaries, overworked propaganda that it is “for the kids” or “the poor” not withstanding. Evidence of the national focus on Oregonians is an editorial in the Wall Street Journal which states in part:
“The battle in Oregon is a case study in the political drama now unfolding in many states. Essentially, it’s about whether a state’s wealth belongs to its public employee unions, or to everyone.”
The editorial points out:
“The public unions are the primary drivers behind the Oregon tax hike campaign. In recent weeks, national powerhouses AFSCME and the SEIU have poured close to $1 million into the state campaign to secure passage. Oregon’s public employees have one of the sweetest deals in America. Their average pay is about one-third higher than that of private Oregon workers, and Oregon public employees don’t have to pay anything toward their health-care benefits.”
Citing the fact that “[i]n the last three years, the state has added 25,000 new public employees while losing 40,000 private sector jobs[,]” the WSJ notes that even
“[T]he liberal Portland Oregonian has editorialized against the new taxes, which it says would target ‘the very businesses and employers that Oregon is depending on to lead an economic recovery’.”
Characterizing the policies of Oregon as “testing whether it is possible for a state to tax its way from deep recession to prosperity,” the editorial concludes:
“If Oregon enacts these tax hikes to fund its rising public payroll after a severe recession and amid a slow recovery, we’ll revisit the state in the future to see how many private workers are still there to pay the taxes.”
That is a question worth pondering. So is the entire question of whether free citizens, descendants of the American Founding Fathers, will vote to be transformed into cowed subjects to be milked by an ever expanding government, and by government employees transformed from public servants into the public’s masters, better paid, better benefitted, and enormously better pensioned than the citizens on whose taxes they feed.
[Rees Lloyd is a longtime civil rights attorney]
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