A Taxed System - Why Public Servants Sponsor Ballot Measures
This week, as the citizens of Oregon go to the polls to vote on two ballot measures attempting to dramatically increase taxes upon the state’s only revenue generators (private employers) and upon its hard working families, Reason magazine brings to light, in an informative article titled ‘More Than Zero’, the driving force behind the state legislature’s pursuit to redistribute wealth.
The intentionally obfuscated purpose for trying to raise taxes under the guise of “won’t someone think of the children” is fully exposed in the following statement from this Reason article:
Wherever you see a politician or public servant warning about “draconian” cuts to public services, you almost certainly are witnessing an agency whose employees have negotiated a sweetheart pension deal within the last decade.
As Reason thoroughly details, public-sector unions are “are brazenly gobbling up two, three, and even 20 times the amount that they were taking just a few years ago—on guaranteed contributions to their pension plans alone”. However, advocates of the two tax increasing measures in Oregon claim that the reason for raising taxes during these challenging economic times is to ‘protect schools, health care, and public safety’.
Never mind the fact that sponsors of these measures fail to identify specific solutions that will be achieved through these tax increases. They also won’t admit that the state’s bloated Public Employee Retirement Systems (PERS) pension obligations are the real reason for extracting more assets from its revenue-producing businesses and its struggling families.
I encourage you to take a few minutes to read this eye-opening Reason article: More Than Zero.