“Kicking” Education Funding Around―Why Measure 85 may not do what you think

This November, Oregon voters will be asked to direct a highly uncertain, highly volatile, and relatively small amount of income tax money into the state’s General Fund, supposedly to help school children.

If Measure 85 would surely benefit kids, we might have a serious debate about it. But it won’t.

Measure 85 was placed on the ballot by several public employee unions. It would take any future corporate kicker money from businesses that paid those taxes and redirect it into the state’s General Fund to “…provide additional funding for public education, kindergarten through twelfth grade.”

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