Free Republic

SALEM, Ore. (KATU) — Two Democratic Oregon Senators will introduce a bill that would change how the state’s personal income tax “kicker” is distributed when revenues exceed forecasts. The resolution would amend the Oregon Constitution. Under current law, when state revenues exceed projections by at least 2%, most of the excess personal income tax revenue is returned to taxpayers as the kicker. Under the resolution, that system would largely remain in place, but with a new threshold. If the total personal income tax surplus exceeds $300 million in a biennium, only half of that excess would be returned to taxpayers....

Oregon gun owners cheered by the demise of Sen. Ginny Burdick's proposals to ban large magazines and scary-looking semiautomatic weapons should leave the Champagne in the fridge for the time being. The Legislature's gun-control advocates are still hard at work, and the direction in which they're heading would create problems for law-abiding citizens over the long term and, perhaps, do nothing to enhance public safety. We're leery of slippery-slope arguments, but two concepts supported by Burdick and Sen. Floyd Prozanski, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, could grease the transformation of concealed-handgun policy into something resembling smoking policies around the...