You have got to hand it to them.

Two members of the legislature wrote an op-ed piece in the Oregonian today.  They were decrying Oregon's decades long inability to solve our school funding problem.  We have, they say, the shortest school year in the nation because we cannot solve the problem.  Taxes get mentioned, when we try to solve this problem, and that's the poison pill.

The real problem is the commonly held opinion about the tax burden of Oregonians.  Research (as opposed to propaganda) shows that the share of Oregonian's income that goes to taxes supporting state and local government is actually lower than it was twenty five years ago.  That bears repeating:  lower than it was twenty five years ago.

Research (again, as opposed to propaganda) shows that Oregonians, compared to tax payers in other western states, have a light tax burden.  With our (effectively) flat income tax, no sales tax and limited property tax, we make the final cut in the "libertarian paradise" competition among all fifty states.  (Not, of course, that the libertarians would acknowledge that).  Again, it bears repeating:  light tax burden compared to other western (or even eastern) states.

The real problem, and our esteemed legislators know this,  is that the multi million dollar drumbeat of propaganda from our home grown tax groaners (subsidized and supported by out of state think tank tax complainers) has  convinced us that we are over taxed when, in fact (do the research, stop listening to talk radio and Clapper ads) we are by no stretch of the imagination over taxed.  We are, compared to our own past and to other states, under taxed.

The resources available to our schools are certainly over taxed.  Every aspect of the infrastructure upon which our lives and prosperity rely in this state are overtaxed.  But our paychecks?  Not a chance. 

As Casey Stengel used to say, "You can look it up."  Go ahead, look it up.  No, no--don't ltake the word of the propagandists (not even me)--do the research for yourself.  You're not overtaxed.  They just want you to think they are.  And you just want to think you are.  Human nature. 

It's not at all amazing that no politician dares to tell us this truth.  So many of us have been so sold on the so oft repeated big lie of overtaxation that we are unfit for self government.  Self government requires and understanding of what's going on.  And so it's not at all amazing, given our unfitness, that the current crew is here to relieve us of that burden.

8:19:07 PM