Looking at the September unemployment numbers (most recent available on the website) two things stick out.
First you have this:
"Oregon’s seasonally adjusted nonfarm payroll employment rose by 3,900 jobs in September."
"In September, two major industries – government (+2,500) and professional and business services (+2,400) – had seasonally adjusted job gains of more than 2,000."
So government was the biggest "industry" that was hiring and it taxpayers are funding more than half the new hires in the month of September. Nice.
The other number from September is this one:
"In September, 90,938 Oregonians were unemployed..."
Rewind to earlier in the year and we have the same guy who prepares the unemployment reports saying this:
"While we don't have data at the city level, we have been able to estimate that 70,000 to 88,000 unauthorized immigrants were working or looking for work (i.e., in the labor force) in Oregon in 2005."
Now forgive my public school math but 90,938 > 88,000 right? So our fellow citizens are looking for work but can't find it because they are squeezed out by enough illegal alien workers that they amount to more than our unemployed.
Maybe if we call them "guest workers" it will help our fellow citizens get jobs.
8 comments:
Teddy's state government is going to increase the budget on the state program to help people quit smoking. He also wants a higher tax on tobacco products.
HUH?!?!?!
We want you to help you quit smoking but we don't want you to actually do it because then we'll lose the tax dollars...
Add that to the fact that he wants to increase government spending by 10% a year and it's enough to make me want to move to Vancouver, though, it's not really much better in WA.
Seems like we got the exact opposite of what we (and by we I mean Saxton voters) voted for. No spending limit, no cutting of waste, instead, we're going to raise our budget by 20%!
Are you getting a 20% raise? I know I'm not. 3.5% if I'm LUCKY...
"Teddy's state government is going to increase the budget on the state program to help people quit smoking. He also wants a higher tax on tobacco products.
HUH?!?!?!
We want you to help you quit smoking but we don't want you to actually do it because then we'll lose the tax dollars..."
Oh come on! Increasing a tax on something is a classical political strategy to discourage people's use of it. Tariffs work the same way.
I GUESS THIS OLD POST OF MINE STILL APPLYS, THE "TEACHERS" COULD ESPOUSE THE FOLLOWING:
Anonymous said...
YOU WANT RACIST??? here it is:
5. SELF-DEFENSE of the community must rely on the combined strength of the people. The front line defense will come from the barrios, the campos, the pueblos, and the ranchitos. Their involvement as protectors of their people will be given respect and dignity. They in turn offer their responsibility and their lives for their people. Those who place themselves in the front ranks for their people do so out of love and carnalismo. Those institutions which are fattened by our brothers to provide employment and political pork barrels for the gringo will do so only as acts of liberation and for La Causa. For the very young there will no longer be acts of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts.
Hey libbers, this didn't come from a bunch of WHITE GUYS!!!
9:26 PM
WAIT A MINUTE..they already are in Eugene at U of O.
Wow, anon, that's a hasty generalization.
Back to UO MEChA homepage
HEY BRYAN/LEGAL MIND OF ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE, SEE ABOVE!
Teddy is going to spend some $34 million on anti-smoking and not on public safety, such as more state troopers and/or better roads and bridges, and opening jails already built. It just goes to show where his priorities really lie.
That is not to say that stopping smoking is not good (I have never smoked). But public safety is surely more important, is it not?
"Oh come on! Increasing a tax on something is a classical political strategy to discourage people's use of it. Tariffs work the same way."
No, it's not, and no, they don't!
Tariffs represent a government's effort to protect domestic growers, manufacturers, etc. from foreign competition - not to discourage the use of any specific product. There are always strong political undercurrents involved. The basic intent of tariffs is not to discourage the use of something as it is to subsidize "necessary" business activity. The product or service thus subsidized is still "used".
Taxes, in general, are NOT primarily used to discourage behavior - unless you consider working for wages or salary, investing, owning property, etc. as behaviors which governments wish to discourage. Taxes, in general, are levied to cover costs of government services. Politics are, of course, involved to a greater or lesser degree; but the basic notion of government taxation is apolitical.
So, characterizing cigarette tax inceases as a "classical political strategy to discourage people's use of (them)" is not only a "hasty generalization", but simplistic and blatantly incorrect.
And, even if you were correct, it would be "classic" not "classical" (today's vocab lesson)
As chris pointed out, the irony of taxing something to discourage its use (as you assert), while at the same time benefiting from its use, is exquisite. You don't seriously think that Gov. Nesbitt and his hand puppet Teddy would renounce the income from cigarette taxes on moral grounds, do you? They just play the game for show - trying to balance the reduced income from fewer smokers with the higher rate. All on the backs of a demographic least able to afford it. How progressive!
The fact that you don't get it doesn't surprise me.
The assault on wages and employment is no longer limited to those of us with meager education and job skills. As we are simultaneously absorbing hordes of low skill workers deluting the job market, The Assc. of American Immigration Lawyers is busy lobbying congress to greatly increase the number of H-1B visas to saturate the skilled market as well.
In 2004 In San Francisco alone hundreds of employers used H-1B visas to fill jobs ranging from accountant to preschool teacher to hotel clerk. In not one of these instances was the employer required to consider qualified U.S. workers prior to hiring the H-1B worker. The salaries on the LCAs reveal that most of these H-1Bs were used to hire foreign workers at below the prevailing wage of U.S. workers, thus harming U.S. workers:
Bryan, perhaps the following will allow you to see the irony in proposing a tax increase to fund an ever increasing budget by discouraging the source of that income:
When asked to comment on a proposed cigarette tax increase to fill budget gaps in 2002, then-gubernatorialcandidate Ted Kulongoski remarked "that such an increase would be ineffective because it would only discourage cigarette consumption." Four years later, it appears he has changed his mind.
By using funds from cigarette taxes and the tobacco companies’ Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) to pay for health care, education and law enforcement, Oregon has created a tremendous moral hazard. With so many essential state programs dependent on cigarette taxes, it has become in the state’s interest to keep smokers smoking. By issuing bonds backed by future payments from the MSA, the State of Oregon must see to it that people are smoking years down the road.
Ask yourself is it fair to increase the tax paid by a few to support the program available to everyone? Is it fair to tax a small portion of the population in order to pay for health care of people that are here illegally? Is it a progressive tax that taxes those with the least ability to pay just because you perhaps don't indulge in that activity and won't have to pay your share?
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