Ending one tax exemption would add $83.7 million revenue for education
OLYMPIA – The state House of Representatives late this afternoon passed the biennial budget, 53-43, which slashes more than $4 billion from state spending – and which, according to Rep. Jim Moeller, “is the best we can do in the face of our Republican colleagues’ refusal to hear common sense and listen to reason.
“Frankly, their inflexibility severely limits options in this hardest-times budget,” Moeller said.
House Speaker Pro Tempore Moeller and more than a few other lawmakers are very open to eliminating many of the state’s 500 tax loopholes. But a supermajority-vote requirement – a mathematical impossibility without at least some minority-Republican support – essentially stifles talk of reforming the tax-exemption system.
Moeller pointed to one such exemption, a sales-tax exemption that Oregonians currently enjoy when purchasing products in Washington.
“This is an $83.7 million loophole,” he explained. “This revenue could go to our schools, which, no less than other vital programs assailed in this budget, are being drastically shortchanged.
“Our colleagues in the House Republican Caucus argued against this budget – and then voted against it, all the while criticizing the cuts to vital state programs which they themselves proposed in their budget rolled out on Wednesday.
“I do not understand why these folks, who profess such concern for state programs, are refusing to help us close tax loopholes – as recommended by the bipartisan Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee,” Moeller said.
Moeller said the House-passed budget does preserve at least a portion of a number of essential programs such as the Washington Basic Health Plan and the Disability Lifeline, for instance, “which are two programs that help the working poor and the most vulnerable citizens amongst us. We also maintain levy-equalization for our school districts, as well as the Highly Capable Students Programs.”