This just in: The Oregon economy is doing great. We are roaring back from the Great Recession. The Oregon economy is doing so great that Oregon will exceed its projections for tax revenues and this will animate the notorious “Kicker”. Oregon will refund these “extra” taxes back to the taxpayers as a paltry pro-rated, per capita check - maybe enough to pay your Comcast bill for one month.
Of course if this “extra” money just stayed in the treasury - or was pigeonholed into an interest-bearing “rainy day” account- we could build a reserve. We'd be able to weather the storm and not have to strangle the schools during the inevitable hunger games phase of our feast-or-famine economy.
The Kicker is very popular in Oregon. Only piecemeal reform has been successful to plug this drain on the treasury. The corporate kicker was repealed by a ballot initiative in 2012. Corporate income tax rebates no longer gush to huge out-of-state corporations when times are flush here in Oregon.
So when your kicker check comes, you’ll be able to take your friends out for pizza and beer - once, maybe twice. When we run out of money to fund the schools, we’ll worry about that next time.
Reagan did the same thing when he was governor of California – we all got a $600 check which was some real money back then. The economy in California has done so well in recent years that we too have a budget surplus. The democrats, who hold supermajorities in both legislative houses, are wrangling amongst themselves on how to spend it. One thing is sure though – it’s not going to kick back to the taxpayers this time.
ReplyDelete$600 in the 1980s is a nice windfall. Our kicker will be chump change - but multiply it by a few million and it could make a difference in the class room.
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