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Fair Taxation Campaign

Oregon Action continues Oregon Fair Share's long history of supporting progressive taxation — opposing regressive tax schemes such as the sales tax, while supporting adequate funding for society's needs with progressive taxes that are based on ability to pay.

Oregon Action opposed the Administration's economic stimulus plan because it was overloaded with tax cuts and tax refunds for America's large corporations and offered little to Oregon workers. In fact, since Oregon's unemployment rate is so high, Oregon's workers already had extended unemployment benefits. For Oregon workers, the stimulus package had no benefits, but plenty of breaks for the wealthy.

We supported a stimulus package that included subsidies to help cover the COBRA insurance benefits for laid off workers. This did not pass, but the combined effort of grassroots leaders across the country did put an end to the Republican stimulus plan that was purely a tax giveaway to the wealthy.

The Republicans attempted to completely eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax - the tax that corporations who made a profit would pay if other tax write-offs and subsidies eliminated all their corporate income taxes. Even with the AMT, some corporations, such as Enron, paid no income tax. Enron, for example, paid no taxes from 1996 to 2000, even with the Alternative Minimum Tax. Beyond eliminating the AMT, Republicans intended to refund all taxes paid in since 1986 -- the chart below lists the amount certain corporations would receive under their plan.

To illustrate the skewed priorities in the stimulus package, OA activists dressed up in business suits and panhandled the unemployment line at the North Portland unemployment office. Shaking our cans, we asked, "Brother, can you spare a billion?" and "Alms for the Rich!" Needless to say, the folks in the unemployment line saw the ridiculousness of the Administration's proposal and pledged to call Senators Smith and Wyden to demand that the House Republican plan be defeated.

This action was such fun that folks in Missouri, North Carolina and other states used our placards and materials to do the same thing around the country. Below are some highlights from our research. At the action, folks work placards identifying them as a specific CEO, listing their salary, how many people they laid off and how much the Republicans were trying to give them in tax refunds.

Thanks to our work and that of people across the country, the House Stimulus package was defeated and unemployment benefits were extended in a separate bill, not loaded down with giveaways for the wealthy.