The election results thread

[barfo]

barfo I'm curious what you liked about Kitz's first two terms. What did he do that you thought was successful? I'm genuinely curious.

Eh, well, same question. What do you think was unsuccessful about it?

barfo

 

[Haakzilla]

...has anyone discussed why they voted against Measure 74 in Oregon?!

 

[barfo]

...has anyone discussed why they voted against Measure 74 in Oregon?!

Not that I've seen. I voted for it, so I don't have anything to contribute.

barfo

 

[Haakzilla]

Not that I've seen. I voted for it, so I don't have anything to contribute.

barfo

...I was shocked to see such a reversal in the "official numbers" vs. any of the polls leading up to yesterday, the bogus propaganda machine must have been really cranking up there?!

 

[barfo]

...I was shocked to see such a reversal in the "official numbers" vs. any of the polls leading up to yesterday, the bogus propaganda machine must have been really cranking up there?!

Ah, actually I wasn't paying attention. What did the polls say?

barfo

 

[maxiep]

Eh, well, same question. What do you think was unsuccessful about it?

barfo

Me thinks this is your way of not answering a direct question. For the record, you do it quite often.

 

[barfo]

Me thinks this is your way of not answering a direct question. For the record, you do it quite often.

Oh noes!

Do you want me to tell you about your method of avoiding questions you don't want to answer?

For the record, Northwest Salmon Plan, Oregon Health Plan, would be a couple of Kitz accomplishments.

barfo

 

[maxiep]

Oh noes!

Do you want me to tell you about your method of avoiding questions you don't want to answer?

For the record, Northwest Salmon Plan, Oregon Health Plan, would be a couple of Kitz accomplishments.

barfo

See? Was that so hard?

Edit: BTW, I noticed a couple of things from your post.

1. You admitted that deflecting with another question was a "method of avoiding questions you don't want to answer". Why don't you want to answer why you support Kitzhaber and want to see him elected?

2. You listed his past accomplishments, not anything he was running for this time 'round. Again, what specifically this time running causes you to support Kitzhaber?

 

[Natebishop3]

Eh, well, same question. What do you think was unsuccessful about it?

barfo

He talks about jobs, but Oregon unemployment was above the national average for 80 consecutive months during Kitzhaber’s 96 months as Governor, and remains above the national average to this day (Oregon Labor Market Information System http://www.qualityinfo.org/olmisj/labforce)

He constantly pushed for a sales tax. This is a big one for me. Oregonians have voted down the fucking sales tax how many times? I find it interesting because we already have a property tax here, and an income tax, but they want to do a sales tax. I took this from an article in Forbes on the ten most taxed states in the union, "Thanks to California, the West Coast has a reputation for heavily taxing businesses. Washington, however, likes to spread the burden around, making it the leading Western state for taxes. There are low property taxes in the state, and no personal income tax, but just try and buy something. Sales taxes--which come out to $2,181 per person--account for 85% of personal taxes paid." Oregon isn't in the top 10, but if we added a sales tax ON TOP OF what we already have, I can guarantee we would make that list.

 

[Shooter]

Eh, well, same question. What do you think was unsuccessful about it?

Yikes. That's your idea of a strong retort? I actually felt sorry for you there, barfo.

 

[barfo]

He talks about jobs, but Oregon unemployment was above the national average for 80 consecutive months during Kitzhaber’s 96 months as Governor, and remains above the national average to this day (Oregon Labor Market Information System http://www.qualityinfo.org/olmisj/labforce)

All that says is basically that Kitzhaber used to be governor. Oregon unemployment has been above the national average for almost all of the last 35 years. It was significantly better under Kitzhaber than it was under the last Republican governor. If anything, the unemployment rate is a reason to vote for Kitzhaber, not against.

He constantly pushed for a sales tax. This is a big one for me. Oregonians have voted down the fucking sales tax how many times? I find it interesting because we already have a property tax here, and an income tax, but they want to do a sales tax. I took this from an article in Forbes on the ten most taxed states in the union, "Thanks to California, the West Coast has a reputation for heavily taxing businesses. Washington, however, likes to spread the burden around, making it the leading Western state for taxes. There are low property taxes in the state, and no personal income tax, but just try and buy something. Sales taxes--which come out to $2,181 per person--account for 85% of personal taxes paid." Oregon isn't in the top 10, but if we added a sales tax ON TOP OF what we already have, I can guarantee we would make that list.

The idea isn't to add sales tax on top of what we've already got. The idea is to use sales tax to reduce the current tax rates. Relying heavily on income tax (ours is one of the highest in the country) means that when we hit a recession, we have a state budget crisis because revenue drops suddenly. Sales tax revenue drops off less sharply in bad times (and grows more slowly in good times).

I will admit I have mixed feelings about the sales tax myself. It's annoying for consumers and businesses. It's very regressive - it hits poor people much harder than income tax does. On the positive side, Oregon gets a lot of tourists, and they'd pay sales tax. That's new tax revenue that we don't have to pay ourselves. And my total taxes would go down hugely.

barfo

 

[andalusian]

I personally would rather have sales tax than income tax. It seems silly to me to tax people for working but not for consumption. It's saying - you work, we "punish you" - but if you spend money you borrowed on stuff you do not need - go ahead, do it...

 

[barfo]

See? Was that so hard?

Edit: BTW, I noticed a couple of things from your post.

1. You admitted that deflecting with another question was a "method of avoiding questions you don't want to answer". Why don't you want to answer why you support Kitzhaber and want to see him elected?

Why do you ask?

The actual answer is that I'd had several beers by that time and was feeling rather lazy.

2. You listed his past accomplishments, not anything he was running for this time 'round. Again, what specifically this time running causes you to support Kitzhaber?

The question was specifically about his last tenure as governor.

barfo

 

[BGrantFan]

Looks like Kitz has a 50-50 state House and a 50-50 state Senate. It will be difficult for him to get his big "weatherize the schools" stimulus plan passed. I wonder if he'll throw his arms up, call Oregon "ungovernable" again, and ride off into the sunset after this gridlocked first term.

 

[BGrantFan]

I personally would rather have sales tax than income tax. It seems silly to me to tax people for working but not for consumption. It's saying - you work, we "punish you" - but if you spend money you borrowed on stuff you do not need - go ahead, do it...

I disagee. A sales tax is as regressive as any tax proposal out there.

 

[maxiep]

Why do you ask?

The actual answer is that I'd had several beers by that time and was feeling rather lazy.



The question was specifically about his last tenure as governor.

barfo

Cool. The beer was all I needed to know.

 

[maxiep]

If I knew that other taxes would be reduced, I'd be all for a sales tax. However, I fear that our government would treat it as another revenue source and our overall taxes would go up. Also, there is a benefit to Oregon businesses (especially those in Portland) who have Washington buyers purchasing items in Oregon rather than Washington to avoid the sales tax.

 

[andalusian]

Also, there is a benefit to Oregon businesses (especially those in Portland) who have Washington buyers purchasing items in Oregon rather than Washington to avoid the sales tax.

There is always up/down for every decision. It just seems to me that the number of Oregon businesses that benefit from this is much smaller than the number of Oregonians that would probably benefit from a sales tax over employment tax. It's not as if Portland is a huge retail center.

Let's look at Clark County - it has 400K residents, and while they certainly purchase stuff in Portland - big taxable expenditures like cars are not tax-free for them (they will pay tax for their version of the DMV even if purchased in Oregon, they should, technically pay tax on everything via their "use-tax" provision), let's remove people under 18 and people over 65 (low mobility) - we are looking at 300K residents that are likely to be doing some of their purchases in Portland. Now, let's try to put a percentage of their purchases on the Portland vs. locally - I would suspect that not even 10% of their purchases (after taking out the big-ticket items and figuring that even in Vancouver there are only 30% of the resident homes that work in Portland) come from Portland. So we are talking about removing 30,000 "customers" for retail purposes from the Portland retailers - where just the city of Portland itself (ignoring the metro area residents from the Oregon side) has 400K "customers" (leaving over 65 residents, removing under-18 residents).

So, overall, I would argue that the impact of removing the sales-tax advantage for Washington residents on Portland's retailers is not going to be very big, especially when you realize that many of the Clark County people that purchase stuff in Portland will continue to do so simply because they will still work in Portland...

 

[SlyPokerDog]

If I knew that other taxes would be reduced, I'd be all for a sales tax. However, I fear that our government would treat it as another revenue source and our overall taxes would go up. Also, there is a benefit to Oregon businesses (especially those in Portland) who have Washington buyers purchasing items in Oregon rather than Washington to avoid the sales tax.

If we were to do a sales tax I'd like to see it broken down very clearly for dummies like me. 1 cent goes to schools, 1 cent goes to roads and infrastructure, 1 cent goes to the general fund, etc. etc.

And only the voters can adjust or change how the money is distributed. When I'm paying my 6 or 7 cents tax per dollar I want to know exactly where each penny is going. I'm not interested in turning over a boat load of money to our politicians and letting them figure out the best way to spend it.

 

[andalusian]

If we were to do a sales tax I'd like to see it broken down very clearly for dummies like me. 1 cent goes to schools, 1 cent goes to roads and infrastructure, 1 cent goes to the general fund, etc. etc.

And only the voters can adjust or change how the money is distributed. When I'm paying my 6 or 7 cents tax per dollar I want to know exactly where each penny is going. I'm not interested in turning over a boat load of money to our politicians and letting them figure out the best way to spend it.

Do you get this with your income tax?

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Do you get this with your income tax?

I would say no on that.

 

[BGrantFan]

Do you get this with your income tax?

Kinda ... at least in terms of the tax hikes that were voted in last January.

Looking at it another way, state agencies' new PERS costs next biennium would equal nearly 60 percent of the $733 million in corporate and personal income tax increases that voters will be asked to approve in January.

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/10/looking_down_the_barrel_of_per.html

When the PERS bomb explodes in the next few years, things are going to get reaaallll ugly here.

 

[maxiep]

Murray was confirmed to be the winner of Washington's Senate race.

 

[maxiep]

An historic number of state legislative seats were taken by the GOP. Given that it's a redistricting year, that's bad news for the Democrats and will make it much harder to retake the House.

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/11/devastation-gop.php

 

[barfo]

An historic number of state legislative seats were taken by the GOP. Given that it's a redistricting year, that's bad news for the Democrats and will make it much harder to retake the House.

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/11/devastation-gop.php

I had no idea that NH had 400+ people in their state legislature. That's crazy, especially for such a small state.

barfo

 

[barfo]

I thought this Jeff Mapes piece in the O was good analysis...

Highlights:

Thanks to mail voting, they had nearly two weeks to call and visit --repeatedly -- the homes of Democratic-leaning voters with an iffy record of voting. "We tried to choose the right people to annoy and we quite frankly annoyed the heck out of them" until they voted, said Kevin Looper, one of the architects of the turnout campaign.

I guess I can give some confirmation on that. I'm a known democrat, I vote in every election (unlike, uh, Dudley), and for the first time ever, nobody came to my door to urge me to vote. Which, if it was by design, was the right decision, since I need no prompting and I mailed my ballot in the day after it arrived.

Democratic operatives tried to drive anti-abortion voters away from Dudley and to Kord. One example: NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon sent out mailings proclaiming that Kord was the only "firmly anti-abortion" candidate in the race.

Kord was the Constitution Party candidate. Sneaky, sneaky. Hard to say if it was effective, who knows why the people who voted for Kord voted for Kord.

But the same poll gave Kitzhaber a 47-36 edge on who was best qualified to be governor. Moore said Dudley might have been able to close that "qualified" gap by aggressively taking Kitzhaber on in a series of debates, a risky strategy that could have cut either way. But Dudley, a newcomer to politics, wound up agreeing to just one real debate with the former governor.

This I think was a big factor. You can't be afraid if you want to be a leader, and Dudley seemed afraid of Kitzhaber. Probably for good reason, but it might have been a better strategy to meet the problem head on and challenge Kitz to debate every day from labor day to election day.

A video surfaced showing Dudley sympathetically explaining to a business group that restaurant owners didn't think it made sense that "our waitresses are getting tips plus the highest minimum wage in the country."

And that sealed the deal. A more experienced politician would have avoided that. Multi-millionaire saying waitresses make too much? Not good politics.

barfo

 

[barfo]

Anyone have any thoughts on the governor race 4 years from now? My bet is that Kitz runs for re-election, and very likely wins (4 years from now the economy will - I hope and predict - be improved, and Kitz should benefit from that even though it will primarily be due to effects outside of Oregon). I'd say there is a good chance that Dudley runs again. If he does, he loses by a larger margin, assuming he makes it out of the primary. If he doesn't run again - who does? I don't have a good sense of who is on the bench for the Republicans. Alley again? A teapartier? Sizemore, running from jail?

barfo

 

[HailBlazers]

Thanks to mail voting, they had nearly two weeks to call and visit --repeatedly -- the homes of Democratic-leaning voters with an iffy record of voting. "We tried to choose the right people to annoy and we quite frankly annoyed the heck out of them" until they voted, said Kevin Looper, one of the architects of the turnout campaign.

Great, so they didn't vote because they believe in their candidate, they voted because they were annoyed by their party into it. But not annoyed enough to actually vote non-partially.

Democratic operatives tried to drive anti-abortion voters away from Dudley and to Kord. One example: NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon sent out mailings proclaiming that Kord was the only "firmly anti-abortion" candidate in the race.

Tried Very hard. I attended the Obama rally and every other point was about the Women's right to choose, and it was the only statement that really incited the crowd. No wonder they proclaimed it so much.

But Dudley, a newcomer to politics, wound up agreeing to just one real debate with the former governor.

Two sides to every story, Kitz wouldn't even leave Portland for a debate.

A video surfaced showing Dudley sympathetically explaining to a business group that restaurant owners didn't think it made sense that "our waitresses are getting tips plus the highest minimum wage in the country."

I applaud Dudley for trying to understand all points of view. I was disgraced by the Kitz's campaign who promoted this statement more than any of their own campaign promises or ideas. They even made this lovely bright blue bumper sticker that they handed out at the rally, very distasteful.

Overall I would say that if he runs again he has a much better chance with some more experience under his belt.

 

[Natebishop3]

There's no way they lower other taxes to add a sales tax. Government doesn't work that way. They don't get rid of taxes to add other taxes. If they add a sales tax, it will be on top of the income tax and the property tax, thus making us one of (if not the) highest taxed states in the union. Sorry, but my message to Salem is that they need to do a better job accounting for, and budgeting, the money we already give them.

 

[barfo]

There's no way they lower other taxes to add a sales tax. Government doesn't work that way. They don't get rid of taxes to add other taxes. If they add a sales tax, it will be on top of the income tax and the property tax, thus making us one of (if not the) highest taxed states in the union. Sorry, but my message to Salem is that they need to do a better job accounting for, and budgeting, the money we already give them.

You are a bit too cynical on this, I think. There are lots of people - probably the vast majority of people - who would only vote for a sales tax if the plan required a decrease in other taxes. Therefore any sales tax plan is likely to include a mandatory decrease in other taxes. And by people, I mean either legislators or voters, or both, whichever is doing the voting.

barfo