February 02, 2003
Taxes
I never wrote about Measure 28. I voted for it. Thought it was a no-brainer. It failed. Life sucks.The thing is, I just don't understand the people that voted against it. For people in my income bracket, which is the mean income level (I don't know about median), it was something like an extra hundred bucks a year. That's nothing. And if that extra hundred bucks isn't there, school days are chopped off, teachers get laid off, community colleges have less classes, we all get impacted.
The most common reasonable-sounding argument is "The economy sucks, why make us pay more?" Well, duh - if you're laid off, you aren't earning money, so YOU AREN'T GETTING TAXED.
The other common argument is "We rich people pay most of the taxes so why should our taxes be raised the most?" As if $1,000 means exactly the same to them as it does to someone in poverty.
The other argument is that republicans think that democrats are pulling fear tactics "if you don't give us money then we'll release people from prison!" when ACTUALLY the democrats could probably just throw less three less toga parties a month and save the money that way, or something like that.
Meanwhile I won't be able to get into my continuing ed class in the spring, my friend in Eugene won't be able to continue with her degree program at the community college, her mentally-disabled patients are having their caretakers' positions cut, two teacher friends of mine are about to be laid off, and I have an extra hundred bucks in my pocket. How do I help them with my hundred bucks, or even twice that? Take them out to dinner?
This was a real wake-up call to me about Oregon. For all the pseudo-liberal stuff around here there's a lot of selfishness. Slightly more than half of us are selfish enough to sacrifice education and needed social programs in favor of an extra two or ten bucks a week.
Posted by Curt at February 2, 2003 02:27 PM