It happened fast. Almost as soon as it was announced that state revenues were up and might trigger a $570 million kicker tax rebate, there were calls to suspend the taxpayer rebates or do away with the kicker.
Editorial: Legislature failed the public on kicker bill
and sometimes members of the public gather round Brown at a desk. She is often pictured smiling herself, holding up a bill framed by the smilers in the background.
But we didn’t see a photo released with all those smiles for House Bill 2975. It reduces the kicker tax rebate Oregonians were due.
Editorial: Stop the Legislature from taking kicker money
Oregon taxpayers may have heard they would be getting a big, fat kicker check on their 2019 taxes. The tax credit would be worth about $180 for people making between $35,000 and $36,000 and more for people making more.
But what happens when Oregon lawmakers face the prospect of returning money to taxpayers? The Legislature’s unofficial maxim — thou shalt not give taxpayers their money back — blazes brightly enough to make the Capitol dome glow.
There’s a proposal this session to essentially do away with the kicker. And there’s a proposal to shrink the 2019 kicker check. Both should be rejected.
Editorial: Kicker grab must be part of larger plan
While Republicans in the Oregon Legislature may seem to be the only members of that body seriously interested in filling the state’s huge and growing unfunded liability in the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, Democrats have come up with at least one idea. By itself, it’s a doozy.
Editorial: Stop the kicker heist
The re-election of Gov. Kate Brown and Democratic control of the Legislature means a special kind of progress for the state — progress in the amount Oregonians pay in taxes.
Brown is aiming for a $2 billion increase in a state that will already be bringing in record revenues. And just as bad, her allies in the Legislature are planning to swipe the kicker from Oregon taxpayers.
Big kicker likely coming — in 2020
Editorial: Tweak, don’t cancel, kicker
Once again the idea of repealing Oregon’s income tax kicker is being chatted up in Salem. That’s no surprise: The 2019 Legislature may face as much as a $1 billion revenue shortfall, and raising taxes is far easier than cutting programs or bringing reason to the state’s underfunded Public Employees Retirement System.
Ditching the kicker does not solve the problem, and while changes to it might make sense, elimination of the program does not. It is one of the only ways Oregonians have of trying to keep state spending under control.