The Central City Task Force--packed with corporate interests and aligned with the Portland Metro Chamber (PMC, aka the Portland Business Association, PBA)--has continued arguing that taxes on the wealthy and corporations are bad, and continued attacking voter-approved measures like the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF), Preschool for All (PfA), and the Metro Supportive Housing Services (SHS) programs.
But as economist Mary King has argued, and as Institute for Policy Studies research supports, the solution to economic woes is not to cut the already low taxes on the very wealthy, but instead to invest in workers and young families. States that have raised taxes on high-income earners have seen wealth expand for everyone, and Portland's voter-approved taxes have coincided with increasing numbers of high-income households in Multnomah County.
Frann Michel talks with Mary King about taxing the rich, maintaining program reserves to balance swings in income, and reorienting city policy.
Mary King is Economics Professor Emerita at Portland State University, a columnist with Portland's Street Roots newspaper, a former candidate for Oregon State Treasurer with the Working Families Party, and an activist and organizer here in Portland. She has previously appeared on the Old Mole discussing improving taxation & taxes, transit fares, eviction representation, and employment scheduling.
Defend Preschool for All
Monday, December 8, from 11:30-1 at the Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd
Join a protest to demand Preschool for All be rolled out as approved 2:1 by voters! The governor just launched her re-election campaign by offering cuts to the Preschool for All program to cater to billionaires like Tim Boyle, pretending that downtown’s woes are due to the PFA tax. It’s just the latest excuse for why the wealthy shouldn’t pay their fair share of taxes. They’re still spinning the “downtown doom loop” story, no matter how many times it’s been debunked.
Kotek is speaking at an Oregon Business Plan summit; this is a chance to show her and the anti-tax business lobby that they can’t get away with undoing behind closed doors what the voters overwhelmingly approved.
The truth is:
- There are more and more wealthy people in Multnomah County every year
- It’s the work-from-home revolution pulling down the value of downtown office buildings, not taxes
- The legion of wealthy Californians are paying higher income taxes than anyone in Oregon
- PFA has no “surplus” – all of that money (— and likely more) — is needed to expand to full universality
- Universal preschool programs are FAR BETTER for the local economy than business tax cuts, and raise everyone’s incomes
Image: Photo "Tax the Rich" by Jon Evans, CC by 2.0, cropped, showing a wall painted with those words and colorful flowers.
- KBOO