Debating sales taxes but treating the flag with respect

People can get excited about how the flag is treated. I was surprised to read that anyone in Malheur County, Oregon, is lapsing in that regard. Still, for some I’d guess it’s not so easy to find money for a new one.

But that's not what's really bothering people in Ontario. It’s any plan to raise taxes that can really get people going. Currently, letter writers and bloggers at The Argus Observer site are getting very irritated with each other over a proposal to raise the sales tax one percent. I wouldn’t use some of the names they call each other, but you can read them at the link below.

Tax debates are as old as this country, as we all well know. I recently uncovered a clipping that shows how, at the end of 1946, the Ontario Argus reacted to a state plan to raise revenue. The problem then, statewide, was much the same as the problem in Ontario today. The state and its counties, cities and school systems were looking for an additional $8 million to $12 million. The Argus editorialist at the time liked some of the ideas for adjusting the tax structure in hopes of raising the money. And others not so much.

Here’s how the newspaper then responded to five of the revenue raising ideas:

1. Abandon the property tax as a source of state revenue. The Argus then said: “Since counties, cities and school districts have no other direct source of revenue, this suggestion has merit.”

2. Lower exemptions under the state personal income tax producing an estimated $4 million in additional revenue. The Argus then said: “Hardly in tune with the times. Low income people are having tough sledding.”

3. Levy a business excise tax of one and one half percent for an estimated $7.5 million in additional revenue. The Argus then said, “Don’t be kidded. It will be passed on to the consumer, but what tax isn’t? If the revenue is needed, this is better than a sales tax.”

4. Eliminate the tax on tangible personal property. The Argus then said, “That would suit us fine personally, but it reduces total revenue instead of adding to it.”

5. Tax cigarettes and tobacco, amusements and soft drinks, and increase the motor vehicle tax. The Argus then said: “Amen, except for the last item if it is proposed to divert any motor vehicle tax from road and street purposes.”

http://www.argusobserver.com/articles/2008/06/03/opinion/doc484579ed5c318967212796.txt

The Argus Observes --- “It’s the atom bomb explosions in Nevada that caused all this rain.”

From the June 4, 1953 edition of The Argus-Observer:

Man is full of curiosity with a penchant for the mysterious and unusual.

I suppose that’s why people like sensational explanations for unusual phenomena.

For instance, at every turn these days you hear people say, “Haven’t you heard, it’s the atom bomb explosions in Nevada that caused all this rain.”

I thought maybe this explanation was one that occurred just in Malheur County, but it must be a fairly general idea, because the (Portland) Oregonian ran a feature story Sunday explaining that there is just no basis for blaming wet weather on the atom explosions.

The weather has been just as unusually wet in Portland as in Malheur County and in Portland that is a lot of rain. The rose city had 28 inches of rain in the first five months of 1953 compared to 8 inches in Ontario.

Is this really unusual? Not at all says the weather man in Portland. Although it is the wettest first five months for any year since 1916, there have been seven wetter springs in the history of recording weather in Portland, and 1879 was much wetter with 39 inches of rainfall in the first six months.

So there you have the official weather viewpoint: “Nothing very unusual about this rainfall. Why it happened just like this only 37 years ago.”

But here in Malheur County where we have been keeping weather records for only ten years, it looks like a wet spring.

Is this blaming of the weather on atom bombs the first time that people have fought to explain away the weather by something new in the atmosphere?

Not at all, according to Col. Eckley S. Ellison, head of the Portland weather bureau office.

He says the ruckus over the atom bombs spoiling the weather is nothing compared to the storms of protest that swept the county when radio stations first began broadcasting. The radio waves were blamed for drought, flood, hail, lightening and rings around the moon. – By Don Lynch