Crazy Oregon Voters Choose Higher Tax Rates

While most political observers are paying lots of attention to the stunning Senate race in Massachusetts, there were two important ballot initiatives in Oregon on Tuesday and in both cases 54 percent of voters decided to impose higher tax rates on some of their neighbors. This is a disturbing development since voters rarely get tricked into supporting such measures. The corporate tax initiative is somewhat of a nuisance initiative, boosting the minimum annual tax from $10 to $150, but the ballot initiative on personal income tax rates is much more significant. Oregon already has a 9 percent top tax rate on individuals, which is one of the highest in the nation, yet voters were willing to boost the rate even higher (11 percent for 2009-2011 and 9.9 percent thereafter). This will be good news for neighboring states with no income tax, such as Nevada and Washington, but it is a worrisome sign that government employee unions were able to fund a campaign that generated such a disappointing result. Here's a brief blurb from the state:

It looks like Oregon corporations and high-income earners will pay higher state taxes as voters weighed in Tuesday on two hotly debated measures. ...Measure 66 raises the income tax paid by households earning at or above $250,000 a year or individual filers who make $125,000 or more. Measure 67 raises the state's $10 minimum corporate income tax. ...The tax measures were strongly supported by the state's teachers and other public employee unions. ...Pat McCormick, spokesman for the opposing campaign, "Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes" described the results as "disappointing and discouraging."