Yesterday, our good blog friends at Blue Oregon disagreed with my article on Rep. Jeff Merkley voting to raise billions in new taxes. They say that I “fail to mention the tax breaks that Jeff Merkley helped shepherd through in 2007.”
I suppose if you try to raise billions in new taxes you can call yourself merciful by handing out a few million to select target groups. Rep. Jeff Merkley grew the state budget by 21%, and now we are supposed to thank him for not growing the budget 22%? Interestingly enough, Rep. Jeff Merkley held a press conference during the 2005 Legislative Session attacking the concept of billions of dollars of runaway tax breaks that are poking holes in our state budget.