Toler has budgetary fix-it plan
From our weekly issue dated December 17, 2008
When the Oregon Legislature convenes in January, it will face an estimated $1.2 billion budget shortfall for the coming 2009-11 biennium.
But Dave Toler, chairman of the Josephine County Board of Commissioners, said that he might have an answer to help overcome the deficit.
In 2005, when Toler was a member of the Three Rivers School District Board of Education, he tried to lobby legislators to eliminate some of the state’s many tax expenditures. Toler said that he was inspired to examine the issue after the Legislature’s 2003 session. That was the longest in the state’s history, largely because of partisan bickering over budgetary issues.
The Budget Accountability Act of 1995 requires the governor’s office to publish a report every biennium on the state’s tax loopholes. It includes a provision requiring them to be regarded as expenditures because they cause revenue to be uncollected.
When Toler went to Salem during the 2005 session with the expenditures suggestion, his pleas fell on deaf ears among Republicans and Democrats.
“I really wasn’t able to get much traction,” Toler admitted.
But despite his initial cold reception among lawmakers, Toler again is pursuing the expenditures issue, but with a slightly different approach. Rather than eliminating the expenditures outright, Toler proposes reducing them by 5 to 10 percent during only the next two years.
Toler said that tax expenditures represent $9 billion in total taxes not collected. The state’s total budget is around $13 billion.
“The bottom line is that the state of Oregon is only collecting 50-cents to 60- cents of the tax dollars that it would otherwise bring in,” Toler said. “If we reduce our tax expenditures, you can balance your budget and you don’t have to do any new taxes for Oregonians. They have enough taxes as it is. Here’s a way to balance your budget by reducing expenditures.”
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During his 2005 trips to the capitol, Toler’s biggest obstacle was the fact that several of the state’s current tax loopholes represent the work of some of Salem’s top lobbyists. Those same lobbyists, and several lawmakers, were reluctant to change the status quo. However, Toler is hoping that the current state of things may inspire legislators to rethink his proposal.
“You could probably come up with at least $600 million to $700 million of that $1.2 billion gap and you’d probably be three-quarters of the way there just by shaving 5 to 10 percent off of these tax loopholes,” Toler said. “I just think that politically and economically it’s the most viable solution that’s out there for our Legislature.”
Toler already has discussed the issue with Rep. Ron Maurer (R-Grants Pass) and Rep. Peter Buckley (D-Ashland), who will co-chair the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee. He also plans to bring it up as a member of the Association of Oregon Counties (AOC) Board of Directors and its Tax Policy Committee.
“On that level, I’ll be really pushing this to try to get AOC to back this to try to get support for our legislators, both Republicans and Democrats, who want to look at tax loopholes as a way to balance our budget,” Toler said.
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