Former Gov. John Kitzhaber parted ways with Gov. Kate Brown and two other former Democratic governors Sunday night issuing an anti-Measure 97 manifesto on his new website and on Facebook.
Business could and should contribute more, Kitzhaber said. But the new revenue generated by Measure 97 is too much and won't necessarily fix anything, he added.
"There is no question but that we need more money in the general fund to close a $1.4 billion structural budget deficit and to better support important public services," Kitzhaber wrote in the Facebook post. "And, yes, I believe that corporate Oregon can afford to contribute quite a bit more to support these priorities.
"The problem," the former governor said, "is that BM 97 proposes to spend an additional $6 billion a biennium on current programs regardless of whether those programs are actually producing the outcomes we want... The sheer magnitude of the new revenue being proposed (a thirty-one percent increase in the general fund) will eliminate any motivation for fixing the "education funding disconnect," created by Ballot Measures 5 and 50."
Measure 97 would create a new gross receipts tax on specific kinds of Oregon businesses with sales of $25 million or more. It has become one of the most expensive political fights in state history with opponents and proponents raising more than $32 million.
Kitzhaber has been moving slowly back into the public eye since he resigned under fire in February 2015 after an influence-peddling scandal involving former First Lady Cylvia Hayes. He put up a new website on Oct. 12, which he said will deal primarily with environmental and healthcare issues.
Kitzhaber's opposition to the new tax measure is no secret. He said in his Facebook post that he wanted to publicly explain his opposition "because many of my friends and former political allies support it."
One of those allies, veteran Legislator Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, said Kitzhaber was wrong. "We've had 25 years as a state to come up with options, and M97 is the first proposal I've seen that provides a viable choice for progress," Buckley commented.
-- Jeff Manning
jmanning@oregonian.com
503-294-7606