The eyes of the nation are indeed on Oregon. It was interesting timing for two network reports featuring President Obama ... and coverage of a speech he gave on joblessness.

The first, ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer interviewed President Obama where he reiterated his position that raising taxes in the midst of a recession is ill-advised and then he made a rather startling admission that being a one-term president would be okay by him.

The second, NBC Nightly News ran a special segment the chronicles the plight of 26,900,000 Americans who can't find full-time work, and dove down into the real pain behind the headline numbers.

In a speech earlier in the day, he called joblessness in America "an Epidemic."

President Obama: Declares Joblessness An Epidemic. Reaffirms No New Taxes Pledge

In a speech earlier in the day, he called joblessness in America "an Epidemic."

So, if anyone really gives a damn, we can start with the real jobless numbers. 1 in 4 males is underemployed or unemployed. That is on a par with the Great Depression. Record numbers of banks have failed. Will it take seeing the neighbor in a soup line for most to grasp what that cocksucker Bush has done to us?

Little details can make a big difference. Personally, I've had it with the insulting tone that implies you have all the answers, with some refusing to even engage in debate. Chuch hasn't responded to a comment (and there have been many that start with "Chuck..") since November 23, and that was to the woman at Gresham Ford. Before that I got tired of looking. It was probably last summer. You have paid contributors bitching on Facebook about what a bummer the readership is, and t.a. and Pat routinely cursing us for disagreeing with them.

I was prepared to vote yes/yes, but after reading the latest round of know-it-all Blueoregon contributors telling us what we are too stupid to get, I just tore my ballot up.

This used to be a good blog. Today? I still can't get over the "revelation" that a commercial wasn't shot on location, and the frenzy that followed, as if that were a revelation. If this is what it takes to pay the bills, then Oregon deserves to starve. You've devoted over 75 posts to this, while Copenhagen got one. The failure of the measures (one at least) will be a headache. The failure of Copenhagen will mean that your children can never hope for the mediocre quality of life you enjoy, at best. Meanwhile Obama breaks every campaign promise. Not to worry, I doubt you'll have me reading ANY politics until at least 2012, and by then the world will end.

"I believe that Massachusetts wasn't at all about the rise of the anti-tax crowd. Rather, Massachusetts showed us what happens when we allow Republicans to take on a populist veneer and hide who really supports them. It's especially bad when it's aided and abetted by a Democratic candidate who delivers all the wrong subconscious cues."

If we want to diagnose why Brown won, you have to look at the voters who historically voted democratic but voted for Brown or just didn't show up. Why did they vote Republican or not vote at all? The data I've seen infers that this voting block was disappointed w/ democratic corporatism. I think this was the primary reason we lost Massachusetts. We knew the tea-baggers wouldn't be voting democratic and we knew they would be fired up. It's tough to "take on a populist veneer" when you have people like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner on your economic team.

It's obvious that we need to get this election done: people are starting to lose their wits. A yes vote would be good if only to pave the way for the most obvious solution to our national debt: raising revenue and paying it down. The rich have simply not been doing their share. That needs to be reversed. We don't need to get overblown about this.

I am pretty left leaning, and have read loads and loads on these. And i just do not think it is "progressive" or in anyway fair for the burden to fall on the "rich" only. If something is worth doing everyone should be involved and take ownership. Im kinda sick of the type of politics that tries to put the burden on certain unpopular groups such as the "rich" or smokers etc etc. That is not Progressive at all its the politics of jealousy . Vote No on both.

Tell me which candidate looks more like the working-class Democrat and which one looks like the wealthy Republican.

Good point. Brown looks much more like a person of, with and for the people. And they did it without looking phony.

Also, don't kid yourself. This special election is not a national referendum on higher taxation on business and individuals. It's an anomaly. Especially when Obama is out there every single day telling us that raising taxes now is a bad move.

e.g. last night on ABC:

"I can guarantee that the worst thing we could do would be to raise taxes when the economy is still this weak." - President Barack Obama to Diane Sawyer.

"Brown looks much more like a person of, with and for the people."

Especially during that campaign stop when he smiled at the guy who screamed the comment about his opponent to "shove a curling iron up her butt." A real regular Teddy Roosevelt you have there.

"...telling us that raising taxes now is a bad move."

Because lowing taxes during a time of war and foriegn occupation really worked out well for us, didn't it Ricky.

"Im kinda sick of the type of politics that tries to put the burden on certain unpopular groups such as the "rich" ...

You mean like the burden Bush put on the middle class with his tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001 and 2003?

Scott. On Bush,yes. But what really annoys me is that those in the Lege here do not think I am capable of paying my share. Im lower middle class and find it offensive that they think I am not capable of makeing a contribution to our State. This is some weird reverse feudalism were our rich masters pay everyones way ,keeps the peasants happy. If this crisis really is a crisis it should be all hands on deck. Every oregonian should be involved in finding a way out, not just pinning everything on one class. If we want true participation in our demorcacy all should understand the obligations as well as rights.

Kari, if you wouldn't say "kike" or "n*gger" then you shouldn't say "teabagger" -- it's deliberately insulting, disrespectful, and contrary to the stated values of BO.

"Im lower middle class and find it offensive that they think I am not capable of makeing a contribution to our State."

So you haven't actually read the measures you are voting against?

"This is some weird reverse feudalism were our rich masters pay everyones way ,keeps the peasants happy."

So you're ok with the fact that Nike, Intel, and Columbia Sportswear all have off shore bank accounts where they can park their profits from oversea sales (legally), earn interest, and not pay a dime of federal, state, or local taxes? It's ok with you that on the last $10 million Phil Knight earns he pays less as a percentage in taxes than you do? You're comfortable with the fact you didn't get jack #$%^ during the Bush years but Timmy Boyle at Columbia pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in his own personal checking account.

Glad we got that all cleared up.

President Obama is a very nice bland moderate republican; not in his soul a Democrat or a Progressive. Sure he acted like one on the campaign trail but almost everything he has done in the White House since his election could of been done by a moderate republican (if you could find such an endangered creature) and we wouldn't of noticed a bit difference.

I think he has surrounded himself with advisors who are giving him so very, very bad advice. He is listening to all the wrong voices. Rahm, I'm talking to you.

Just today, the White House has floated a trial balloon of the 'three year discretionary spending freeze.' That's an absolutely horrible policy to implement in the middle of economic downturn. It's really the worst thing he could do at this point in time but............ there he goes again, determined to stick it to the very people who voted for him and who desperately need help.

I have to hand it to the republicans; when they get elected they do everything within their power to pass bills that their voters like. Democrats-when they get elected President they seem to get this crazy idea that the path to success is to piss off the very people who voted for you in the first place. Crazy I tell you.

OregonScot says: "Im kinda sick of the type of politics that tries to put the burden on certain unpopular groups such as the "rich" ...

Actually, Measures 66 and 67 are more in the nature of a tax on the upper middle class than a tax on the rich.

Measure 67, in particular, will have no effect on the larger, more wealthy corporations in Oregon

A few years ago the large corporations convinced Salem to exempt them, for all intents and purposes, from paying Oregon income tax. This was accomplished by revising the "apportionment formula."

Under the new apportionment formula, a multi-state corporation, such as Nike or Intel, first computes its Oregon tax liability like any other corporation, but then it multiplies its Oregon income tax liability by a fraction, where the numerator is sales within Oregon and the denominator is worldwide sales. The result of this calculation is the amount of tax the corporation actually has to pay to Oregon.

A company such as Nike, with an extremely small percentage of its sales within Oregon, pays virtually no Oregon income tax.

Prior to the new apportionment formula, corporations contributed nearly 20% of all Oregon income tax. After the new tax law was fully phased in 2008, corporations pay only 5% of all Oregon income tax (individuals pay 95%). As you can see, the great majority of the corporate income tax came from the large multi-state entities.

Measure 67 affects the mid-size corporations whose operations are mainly in Oregon.

I support Measure 67 and certainly the mid-size corporations can do more to support state government, but it's disappointing to see large multi-state corporations escape taxation in Oregon, and to know that Measure 67 will not have any material effect on them (the new apportionment formula assures that).

"ALL Eyes are on Oregon"

Good! This should attract people of wealth to Oregon! I bet wealthy business owners across the nation will be looking to Oregon to setup shop. What a brilliant economic strategy - especially when we need JOBS!

You Progressive Socialists must be proud!

"then you shouldn't say "teabagger" -- it's deliberately insulting, disrespectful, and contrary to the stated values of BO."

Au contraire, the term's growth in the political arena earned attention by the Oxford American Dictionary, and the word "teabagger" achieved finalist status for the OAD Word of the Year.

A "no" vote on 66/67 suggests a similar attitude to the one that supported a "yes" vote on California's Pro. 13.

@thinkoregon -- timing is not curious, these people are looking for any reason not to look at the repudiation of the national progressive statist agenda embodied by Brown's win (which had national implications clearly apparent to the thouands of people nationwide that gave time and $ to the Brown campaign). If the measures go down, count on media silence in the MSM and here on BO. If they pass, statists will try to inflate it nationally (though the national implications aren't nearly as clear as Mass) and use it as propoganda -- "see, the people are in favor of progressive solutions ..."

I don't know. I don't buy that the results of this election, if yes on 66/67 is the outcome, that it'll snap the teabagger's strings, so to speak. I get the feeling they'll use it as ammunition if either 66 or 67 fails, but if 66/67 passes, they'll shrug and say "well, it's just Oregon, they're all crazy liberals anyway" like they always do and move on. Nothing will really split them short of a major economic depression brought on by a wary government that decides to freeze spending and reinvestment into the economy. If enough of them are out of work and teetering on the edge of starvation, that might be enough to make them wake up and realize how important that government support and reinvestment really is. There aren't a lot of tea partiers that are starving...it doesn't take much more than a casual glance at one of their rallies to confirm that.

@Jeff alworth -- by my non-scientific polling most tea party folks are independents -- not really one in the same with those that smeared D's with name calling.

Jus sayin'

Abby,

Take a Zoloft, drink a glass of wine and chill. You're losing it.

Makes you proud to be an Oregonian! I will happily walk the five miles to a drop-off spot to cast my bit of history. Hey, thinking about it...voluntary exercise is fine, but why not fund Tri-Met to give anyone that requests it, one free pass on Election Day? A bus project drive through the under represented areas, drop-off wise, might be a decent idea as well, no?

Posted by: Jeff Alworth | Jan 26, 2010 10:37:08 AM

The teabag "controversy" is amusing. After spending decades popularizing names like "the Democrat Party," "Defeatocrats," etc., Teabaggers are now complaining that liberals are calling them by a name they gave themselves.

It sucks to have chosen unwisely, but the teabaggers are going to have to live with that mistake.

They could disband. I'll gladly be corrected, but I've only heard them refer to themselves as TEA party or TEA protesters. I think they object to teabagger as it sounds like d-bag. That and they eventually learned what "to teabag" meant. It's pretty rich, that folks that went out in public with tea bags hanging from their glasses would complain about being made fun of. We can't touch their self parody.

What's sad is that neither side seems to know very much history at all about the actual, historic event that took place in Boston Habor.

Kari, I still don't buy your logic. Even though there is ample evidence of African-Americans using the "n-word", it still isn't OK to use it. (and I submit the collective works of Snoop Dog as my back up).

Or even closer, there are many instances of Homosexuals using the "f" slur. Doesn't make it OK for me to use it.

What I find most amusing is that I can NEVER find someone on the left who is willing to use the term to my face.

I tell you what. When I run into you, I will invite you to call me a teabagger in person. If you have the guts to do it, I will donate $50 to John Kitzhaber's campaign.

Funny, Darth. I don't know one of my friends (or myself) that would fail to call you that. I don't believe I've ever used it unmodified, though. Kind of like "yankee" to an old school Southerner. In fact, I seldom use fewer than three adjectives with it. Care to guess what they are?

For those that say that at least they're engaged, I would compare their efforts to your six year old daughter putting on her mother's formal. It's cute, but it doesn't work and it certainly isn't sexy.

So, you ARE Bill Spadea in real life?

"What I find most amusing is that I can NEVER find someone on the left who is willing to use the term to my face."

Oh oh oh oh pick me! Pick me!

The point, O'Scott, is that you ARE already paying your fair share. The argument breaks out, O'Scott, when the wealthy and utterly buffered are asked to pay a proportionate share to yours.

The Gatekeepers depend upon serfs living in earnest orthodoxy such as the one you espouse. I agree, all should shoulder, but it's like you are begging off on master's behalf!

Don't be such a lackey, dear! Nobody believes you are unwilling to pay what is yours to pay and more - but you can best believe that those impugning the little sliver of a point oh percentage point do not share your earnest willingness to do what must be done for self and all.

to geoff lundt

i am so glad that you are back. i have another question. my brother and i want to throw a tea party. not just a tea party meeting but a real tea party where we get to throw tea. the problem is we don't live near a harbor or anything. so my question is can we throw a tea party in a mill pond? my sister who thinks she's all that says we can't because the tea will kill the endangered pond turtles in the mill pond. i told her she's wrong and not a patriot because there is nothing in the constitution about protecting pond turtles. is this the right answer? anyway we have a canoe. what do you think? i am trying to be self-reliant but i need some help.

luis (not immigrant)

@Lou Fleming -- Look, I made your day! Again.

Scott in Damascus commented: You mean like the burden Bush put on the middle class with his tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001 and 2003?

Scott, fyi:

IRS Releases Data on Burden of Income Tax

The IRS has recently released data showing that the share of the federal income tax borne by taxpayers in the highest income tax brackets has increased under the Bush Administration. The data lays to rest the myth that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 amounted to tax cuts for the rich. The data reveal that the share of total federal income taxes paid by the wealthiest 1 percent of tax filers (those with adjusted gross income over $388,806) increased to 39.89 percent in 2006 (up from 37.42 percent in 2000). In 2006, the top 5 percent accounted for 60.14 percent of all federal income tax revenue, and 97.01 percent of all federal income revenue was paid by the top 50 percent of income tax filers.
Alternatively, in 2006, the tax burden on the bottom half of tax filers (those with adjusted gross income under $31,987) stood at an all-time low of 2.99 percent. The IRS data also reveals that the share of income generated by the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers increased from 14.23 percent to 20.81 percent from 1992-2000, coinciding with the Clinton Presidency. Under the Bush Administration, the rate of growth of the share of income generated by the wealthiest 1 percent declined substantially, only increasing to 22.06 percent in 2006. Source: IRS, 2006 Tax Data.

"then you shouldn't say "teabagger" -- it's deliberately insulting, disrespectful,"

Well I am sorry to say that I am a member of the Democratic party, no' the "Democrat" party so go f yourself, you teabaggin republican moron.

@Steve -- feel better now?

albatross:

You really should read you own cut 'n paste before you, uh, cut 'n' paste.

A comparison of real dollars doesn't mean squat. The poor got poorer, the middle class lost ground, and the wealthly suddenly became the uber-wealthy. So yeah, in real money they paid a percent or two more compared to some other number. Whatever.

FYI, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts reduced the TOP four marginal income tax rates as follows:

39.6% became 35% 36% became 33% 31% became 28% 28% became 25%

Oh, and don't forget the reduction on capital gains and dividends. They also phased out the estate tax, repealing it entirely in 2010.

In addition, the tax cuts included three components often referred to as “middle-class” tax cuts, though many higher-income families benefit from them as well. One provision created a new bottom income tax rate of 10 percent for some of the income previously taxed at a 15 percent rate. Another provision increased the Child Tax Credit from $500 to $1,000 per child and made many low-income working families eligible for the credit. The third provision was “marriage penalty relief” — a set of changes that reduced taxes for some married couples.

But Scott from Damascus, how much did they cost?

Thanks for asking.

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts added about $1.7 trillion to deficits between 2001 and 2008. Because they been financed by borrowing (let's give a shout out to China!) —which increases the national debt — this figure includes the extra interest costs resulting from that additional debt.

This figure also includes the cost of “patching” the Alternative Minimum Tax to keep the tax from hitting millions of upper-middle-class households, a problem the tax cuts helped cause.

Over the next decade (2009-2018), making the tax cuts permanent would cost $4.4 trillion, assuming that the tax cuts remain deficit-financed.

Now pay attention, this is where it gets interesting:

A very large share of the value of the tax cuts flows to high-income taxpayers. In fact, the top 1 percent of households — a group with incomes over $450,000 in 2008 — would receive 31 percent of the tax cuts’ benefits.

Let's repeat that last sentence for emphasis:

THE TOP 1 PERCENT OF HOUSEHOLDS WOULD RECEIVE 31 PERCENT OF THE TAX CUTS' BENEFITS!

Here's an MSNBC interview w/ Dave Hunt and Tim Boyle, President of Columbia Sportswear. The best part is at the very end when Boyle warns that if these measures pass people will "vote with their feet" and leave the state. We all know how better schools, public safety, and healthcare really send people running for the hills. We can only dream that the greedy right-wing anti-government tea-baggers would actually leave. I hear Texas is pretty awesome conservatives!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35086061#35086061

Teabaggers/to teabag

As an observer at the teabag demonstration at the Capitol in Salem last year, I saw plenty of teabags strung from hats and top shirtbuttons, and signs saying "teabag" this or "teabag" that.

It's too bad that this movement, whatever it's called, was started by millionaires behind the scenes and radio shouters, because at the demo I saw lots of working people like those I grew up with, being deeply deceived by those haranging them. I would love to see their anger directed at the banksters and corporate bosses and corrupt pols who deserve it. Maybe that day will come, and I'll march with them.

So the new BO position is that derogatory terms are okay as long as they aren't racial. So "kike" and "wop" are in (ethnicity != race)? Or just lifestyle words like "faggot"? Or personal insults like "dipsht" and "d*chebag"?

I'm not questioning the right and duty of BO to fly the double standard -- I expect it. I just want the rules clarified. Is that so difficult?

(And I'm loving this repository of Obama's new politics of respect. Definitely one way to be the change you want to see.)

If you find "teabagger" demeaning, T.O, then I have no problem regarding it so. Fine. Only use it to demean. I really don't get though, how each side can't see they're acting against their principles, just to be pissy. Moderate liberals are the most surprising. I'm talking the "who feels it knows it party" (with apologies to RNM- bday in a week,btw). The original preachers that "words hit as hard as a fist", saying, basically, that you are stupid to be offended. Personally, I would tend to agree. But then I am often despised by them because I don't have the correct reaction to the plight of whichever group they've decided to "help" this week. Every time that happens, we're told to lay facts aside and concentrate on the one important fact, that those people really, really, feel poorly about whatever. This is hypocrisy of the first magnitude. On the other side, conservatives are the "suck it up", "sticks and stones" crowd, and they're carrying on like ninnies. It has very much the ring of, "we really hate your constant molly coddlying idiots that should have known better, but while we're at it, we'd like a serving, thank you"! On the final day of the campaign deciding measures 66/67, this is an absolutely fitting penultimate scene.

I hear Texas is pretty awesome conservatives!

Not. It's a good place to be from, as myself and Jenni S. can attest. Good you don't care much about livability and sustainability. Austin is nice. Oh, look. It just happens to be the most liberal city in Texas. San Antone is nice, but good conservatives would probably wince at the large non-anglo population. I won't even mention the Big Onion. Dallas fits your demographic. Very livable. If you're a piece of asphalt. And the surrounds are worse. The only reason Texas doesn't fall off into the Gulf is because Oklahoma sucks so much. Next time you want to do one of those mindless right wing "I know you are, but what am I"s, you might want to look into Oklahoma Democrats.

The only way I was ever able to make a difference for the environment was to tell building maintenance they could turn off the AC on New Year's Day, when only I was working in the building. It was physically impossible to cross the street for lunch. You had to drive. Lloyd Doggett, one of the best potential political leaders alive got 24% of the vote against Phil Fuuureaking Graham. Ann Richards paid her debt for being different by working for big tobacco the remainder of her years. Hey, you should like that. "Say 'no' to M66/M67. Want more school funding, encourage more smoking!" She always was the friend of education. So was Shurb. Ed. is big in Texas. I will concede that one point. UT university system is the best value for money in the US.

Jobs situation is much better though. And you know why (besides the aforementioned university system)? Because there are places you work and places you play. Unemployment is endemic in those places you play. Was talking to a guy from Lille, France, the other day, and he was saying the exact same thing, about south France v north France. Some Penn supporter was trying to make some voodoo economic point about why the north was better, just like conservative Texans would say vis a vis Oregon.

I think you have officially lost it.

Darth,

Considering you are using a pseudonym we don't have much chance to take you up on your dare to call you a teabagger to your face, do we? Convenient. Tell you what...leave your real name and contact info and I'll be glad to take you up on it.

In the meantime---Darth Spadea, you are a teabagger.

"And if low taxes create jobs, where the hell are the damn jobs already?" - Kari Chisholm BO "Intellectual"

In government you buffon! That's where the job growth is. That's where the sweet retirement packages and raises are.

"What I find most amusing is that I can NEVER find someone on the left who is willing to use the term to my face." - Redneck in Damascus

That's because your head is always up your ass.

Posted by: Del | Jan 26, 2010 9:24:28 PM

I think you have officially lost it.

Wonderful. Link spammers commenting on my mental health.

<h2>Uh Jeff, I'm not sure it was wise to use "It sucks" and the "t" word in the same sentence.</h2>