Portland’s regional planning agency, Metro, has put a measure on this November’s ballot to tax all firms with 25 or more employees in order to pay for the region’s latest light-rail scheme. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, the scheme appears to be foundering on the weight of lies told by Metro and the measure’s supporters.
To start, Metro wanted to call the tax a “business tax” even though it would be actually a 0.75 percent tax on payrolls. In other words, it would be an income tax on employees, but it would be invisible because it wouldn’t show on paystubs as a withholding like most income taxes. Portland’s transit agency, TriMet, has used this kind of a tax to pay for its operations and always called it a “payroll tax.” But Metro wanted to call it a “business tax” on the ballot title because it believed Portlanders would be more likely to support taxes evil businesses than poor downtrodden employees.
When challenged, a judge ordered Metro to take “business tax” out of the title but didn’t order it to use the term “payroll tax.” Despite not getting the ballot title they wanted, opponents have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the measure. This includes large contributions from major employers including Nike, Daimler Trucks, Comcast, and Tillamook Creamery.
As of September 28, opponents had actually outraised supporters. Contributions to the pro-rail campaign came from rail contractor Stacy & Witbeck, the International Union of Electrical Workers, and engineering consulting firm David Evans & Associates. The Evans firm is the company that got the contract to write the environmental impact statement for building a light-rail bridge over the Columbia River and then spent the money lobbying the Oregon and Washington legislatures to build the bridge.
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With TriMet’s July ridership down 59 percent from July 2019, now would seem to be a bad time to ask voters for money for more light rail. Metro’s supporters are compensating by emphasizing not the project’s transportation benefits but that it would create 37,500 new jobs. But once again it was caught in a lie. The analysis done for Metro found that the project would require 37,500 worker-years of employment. If the light-rail line takes five years to build, that means it would require only 7,500 new jobs for those five years. Of course, the jobs would disappear as soon as the project was completed, while the payroll tax would probably cause long-term reductions in the region’s employment.
Rail supporters have also tried to portray the measure as a referendum on climate change. In fact, considering that the last light-rail line to open in Portland was followed by a drop in transit ridership, it is clear that the huge amount of greenhouse gases that would be emitted during rail construction will never be made up for by any operational savings. It’s sad to see that environmentalists have lost all of their analytical skills.
I’ve previously said that the term light rail should be changed to lie rail because everything its supporters say about it is a lie. This year’s election in Portland is proving that.
Don’t fool yourself, Antiplanner. Environmentalists have not “lost all their analytical skills”. Rather, many of them have found a way to misuse their analytical skills for political gain.
Where I live, environmentalist endorse candidates who propose lowering carbon emissions by introducing diesel powered passenger trains that are predicted to run mostly empty, most of the time.
I think a lot of these people are just astro-turfing for the rail contractors, frankly. There’s a lot of money at stake. How much did the rail thugs grease around to “win” ST3 in King County? Several million, around 4 I think, most from contractors and unions, compared to 10% that amount for the NO campaign.
While they steam full speed ahead on the useless ST3 empire building, the US 2 trestle between Everett WA and Lake Stevens, in desperate need of replacement, is scheduled for “sometime” in 2045 (!!!).
Special intereststs are pouring money into the Caltrain Sales tax also. In an article I can’t find online, special interests are spending $1.3 million.
Sales taxes already contribute into making the Bay Area a horribly expensive place to live; especially for people of modest means, who must pay the greatest percentage of their income in these regressive taxes and fees. Each increase by itself does not amount to much, but the cumulative effect is to add to the unaffordability of the region. The tax proposal fails to take into account that residents are taking an economic hit from the never-ending lockdowns. Recommending a sales tax increase during these difficult times is simply tone deaf. Since the shutdowns began, government has shown little sympathy to residents who have been ruined financially.
A better idea is to do a top-to-bottom review of Caltrain’s spending and figure out how they can participate in the sacrifices demanded of normal residents. If voters feel Caltrain must have more money despite increased working from home, the solution is diverting existing funds from the overpriced BART extension to San Jose (eliminate the Santa Clara portion and/or expensive tunneling alternatives) or high speed rail. Better yet, raise taxes on the rich tech companies that are responsible for the congestion problem. Either way, say “no” to the special interests and stop the sales tax increases.
Even Metro Councilor Bob Stacey says it WILL NOT reduce congestion:
2 minute clip of Metro Commissioner, Bob Stacey saying that the upcoming $4-5 Billion bond measure will not reduce congestion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onHi1hFTGr8
This is a clip from the full video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZBkxNchK98 at about the 19 minute point.