Posted on 10/23/2016 9:49:08 AM PDT by reaganaut1
If you had to choose one story that shows why American workers are not wild about unions these days, public or private, look to Portland, Oregon. Voters statewide are set to decide on a ballot initiative there in November that could do more to kill jobs than most category 4 hurricanes.
Targeted at big businesses, Measure 97 would impose a new 2.5 percent tax on companies that gross over $25 million a year. The trick is, the tax would not be on net profits but on gross revenues after the $25 million mark. In other words, companies are not taxed on how much money they actually make after expenses but on how much money comes through the door.
For high-volume, low-margin business, the tax could be crippling. Emily Powell, owner of Portlands beloved Powells Books, has a hard time sleeping some nights because of the measure. I say this without trying to be dramatic. I dont know how we are going to pay this bill, she said in an interview.
Though certain businesses such as Powells Books would bear the legal incidence of the tax, all Oregonians will pay more for goods, services, and even utilities, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. Its number-crunchers estimate that the cost per every man, woman, and child in the state would be about $600 a year, for a total annual tax hike of about $3 billion.
You cant squeeze that much money out of a state the size of Oregon without also killing or stopping the creation an awful lot of private sector jobs. Tom Potiowsky, the former state economist, calls it a hidden sales tax on steroids, which is a big deal in part because Oregon attracts all kinds of business from nearby Washington and California by not having a sales tax.
(Excerpt) Read more at nginx.spectator.org ...
Typical socialistic thought: They’ve got enough, so why shouldn’t we help ourselves to some of theirs? Grocery store example cited by others is a good example. It won’t be long until you are penalizing success and encouraging businesses to go elsewhere. Besides that, you are eliminating resources to be used for future expansion and job growth.
high volume; low margin enterprises also to hire low skilled workers. Therefore, this measure attacks the poor, minorities, the young, and the disadvabtaged
Democrats taxing their way to prosperity.
Democrats - because we deserve your money more than you do (and can spend it faster too)
What a joke.
Is Ms Powell a true believer, in which case she oughta put her money where her mouth is. Is she ignorant about how socialism works and is now finding out the hard way? Or has she always been a capitalist, but has kept her trap shut because she thought opening it might harm her business? If it’s the third, that’s a pity.
Seems that all that liberal states do is come up with new ways to tax.
Powell’s should be a lesson to remaining indy booksellers everywhere. Hopefully the lesson will not go unheeded. Especially by the indy bookstore I walked by yesterday that had the stylized, Soviet propaganda style Hillary Clinton poster in the front window.
Just wait for the money halt to sanctuary cities when Trump gets in office. Those states will tax to make up
This will become a federal tax, if that vile woman manages to slither her way to the presidency.
Move all corporate hq out of Peoples Democratic Republic of Oregon. e.g., to Texas. Spin off operations in Oregon into many individually incorporated franchises. Replace one $25 million exemption with many such exemptions.
“Emily Powell, owner of Portlands beloved Powells Books, has a hard time sleeping some nights because of the measure.”
That must be one heckuva bookstore if they sell more than $25 million a year! Must be the coffee and danish...
As mentioned in related threads, a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that Congress is prohibited from appropriating taxes in the name of state power issues, basically any issue that Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States. Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.If the citizens of Oregon were to put pressure on their state lawmakers to lead the rest of the states to put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that Congress cannot justify under its Section 8-limited powers, then all the states would probably find billions of dollars in recovered state revenues that they wouldnt know what to do with.
They are! A major online bookseller in addition to bricks-and-mortar. A great source for used research-level science and math books.
Businesses are free to leave Oregon. That’s the beauty of a free republic.
One thing that never ceased to amaze me when I was traveling a lot was how any bar where guys in the Mineworkers and Steelworkers unions gathered was constantly full of loud conversations complaining about how "their" union was run and why they couldn't get control of their union back from the SOBs running it.
Just a personal observation
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