"hundreds of dollars" went to Dudley? how irrelevant is that? Everyone knows the big corporations give the maximum contributions to both sides, that way they end up owning the winner, regardless of political party.

Relevant: http://www.alternet.org/economy/148339/lef…

I can understand why McMenamins would want to give money to someone who has as part of his platform eliminating the OLCC, Kitzhaber should join him. Getting rid of that agency should be a non-partisan issue.

What is worse is I have to, no choice, do business with the state and thus support the candidates that the union chooses. The state is required to collect donations thru payroll deductions. I don't vote for any of the two named, one party candidates, just find it funny how the Merc is always trying to paint one side as more bad.

pro-business (read: Republican): i am ashamed that for the first time in my life i am going to vote republican. there is a mindset in oregon that business is bad. small businesses fund our economy. measures 66 and 67 made it sound as though businesses were paying $110 per year in taxes, when in fact both measures raised taxes on a business earning $200-300K by two to three thousand dollars per year. as always taxes were raised in the name of saving our schools, but went to funding our state's bloated government employee sector. i will vote my ideals federally, but locally i need to cover my ass.

The truth is a little more complicated,

http://www.blueoregon.com/2009/03/oregon-b…

If you are voting locally supporting the Republican agenda of lies,shipping jobs to other countries, unwarranted wars, and class warfare on the poor and middle class don't be surprised when it starts effecting you nationally as well.

Odihnson is right. National politics start local. An idiot like Dudley gets elected in a blue state and his name starts coming up nationally as an up and coming star in the GOP.

i have never liked McM's beer or fries (greasy & burnt). i only go when others go. now i have a reason to talk them out of it.

bokchoy, the mindset is that BIG business is bad, particularly the corporations that screwed the economy, that ship jobs overseas, that pollute, that avoid paying their fair share of taxes. since most Oregonians work for a business or some kind, saying that we think "business is bad" is nonsensical. supporting Dudley means supporting the kinds of businesses/corporations that harm the state. you give more power to the Phil Knights of the world; is that what you want?

Kitz is business-friendly; he just isn't bending over backwards to help the most wealthy & powerful get even more wealth & then ship it out of state.

@Bokchoy:

as a business owner of a company that generates 2x's the revenue you suggest. My taxes increased a whole 1500%!!!! oh yeah... it went from $10 to $150 (a whole $140) enough to make me consider shutting down and flipping burgers.

Seriously? where are you getting your info? If you are talking about net profits and not revenue permit me to give you an example. most companies operate on low single digit margins. But for the sake of this I'll assume a business is working on a 10% margins. So that means that a company that generates $3M per year would have to pay $3k more in your world. 1/10% more in taxes. Tell me that you know of a company, any company that is leaving Oregon or not hiring because they are paying 1/10% more in taxes?

In Washington they have no tax on profits. They take a different approach, they businesses like mine on a percentage of gross revenue. for me that percentage is 1.9% OR if I was your fictional company instead of an increase in taxes of $3k I would be paying about $50k for the same business.

You make a blanket statement with nothing to support it: "there is a mindset in oregon that business is bad." that is simply not true. Oregon currently ranks 14th nationally for best business climate.

business climate rank: http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/…

tax burden rank: http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/…
(note that under our last GOP gov, Atiyeh Oregon went from 6th highest to 3rd highest tax burden, since dems have run government we have dropped to 26th)

As a transplant from another state I can attest that moving here was the best thing that ever happened to our business. Our taxes have NEVER been lower (thank you Oregon, Obama, and and yes even the GOP), Our profits have never been higher and our revenue has never been better.

Just for fun I did a bit of checking, did you notice that Nevada has the 4th best business climate in the nation? they have low taxes, low regulation, AND a 14.4% unemployment rate.

you said "as always taxes were raised in the name of saving our schools, but went to funding our state's bloated government employee sector." You know if I looked at Oregon in a vacuum I might make the same assumption. So I did a bit of checking on the US gov spending website, here's what I found...

http://bodiegroup.posterous.com/think-oreg…

Further if you are concerned about spending you need to look closer at Kitz. in 2002, the GOP legislature pass ed a budget that included $400M in deficit spending. Kitz threatened to veto it because it wasn't paid for... do you know how the GOP wanted to pay for it? they wanted to raid the school fund. Kitz vetoed their budget. in fact he vetoed 5 GOP budgets over his tenure as a result of deficit spending that was not paid for.

If you want to cover your ass, I'd suggest you get yourself a bit more information. It's all out there is you are willing to look.

bodiebruce for the win! And T.A., I agree wholeheartedly. See you at all the fine non-McM establishments in the hood!

"Big Business"s choices are forced or forged in reaction to government regulation and interference and the market only responds to supply and demand.

If you like where Oregon is and is heading in the next 20 years economically, keep doing the same thing you've done for the past 20 years.

Freeze the minimum wage! Because what McMenamin's really needs is even *shittier* service.

Side note: I'm definitely not going to vote Republican or anything, but I too was taken aback by the implication that business is bad.

gasp! oregon business is supporting the pro-business candidate! stop the presses!

What's that smell, you say?
"Banding together to lobby for more higher education funding, or business-friendly tax policies, could be seen as a tradeoff for also attacking the minimum wage."
OH, it's BULLSHIT.

There can be no justifiable 'trade off' for taking away the small bit of livelihood that people are already struggling to live off of, many of which have to take several of these jobs to make ends meet. To take away tips from servers is simply wrong, they just want to get out of paying the minimum wage. Growing up, my mom was a waitress. She was single, but she was a damn good waitress/bartender, and she was able to support the family on the (much smaller) minimum wage, plus her tips. Had she not had her tips, we'd have been in line at the soup kitchen. Dud wants poor people to be more poor, to line his pockets. Absolutely NOTHING to justify making poor people poorer. Higher education funding and 'business-friendly' anything isn't going to help these people put food on the table, and probably won't actually do anything for education, either.

I invite anyone who wants to vote for Dud to try to live on minimum wage for 2 months. If you want to make it more fun, give them even just ONE kid they have to clothe, feed, and care for on that wage. Make them do the walk of shame up to the welfare counter, take a number, BE a number, and say 'I can't do it on my own'.

People who vote for evil leaches like this don't know what they're doing to people. Would you walk up to your neighbor, take the food from his table, and then yell out the window as you speed off "Hey, we reduced taxes to businesses now, so you're sure to get a better paying job! Buck up!"? Because that's pretty much what you'll be doing if you vote for Dudley.

I understand contributing to politicians during an election in order to get favors or kickbacks. What I don't agree with is giving away $15k during a recession in which all your faithful employees have been held hostage by a mandatory wage freeze put into effect in January of 2009. rather than investing in potential favoritism fro politicos, why not reinvest in your most valuable asset? Your employees, next time maybe you'll understand when you get your typical subpar mcemployee service.

Progressive, since when is McMenamins a progressive establishment. It would not surprise me if they intentionally put the money into the republican candidates pocket during a lunch. Just because they brew beer and have a hippie motif does not mean that they, too, have not cut wages, put freezes on raises and bonuses, cut the working poor's hours, etc... in the name of making a far larger profit to keep going on vacation themselves.

Dudley's a corporate puppet with no experience governing anything. What a tool.

Faithless- I couldn't agree more with what you said! I have been employed at Mc's for over three years and have been held victim to this raise freeze. You are completley right, they need to take care of the backbone of thier company first rather than donating money and building new hotels and pubs just to pay thier employee's shit and treat them like it as well. All the while cutting ovehead as much as possible to fatten thier own pockets. I like to reffer McMenamins as the Applebee's for hippies.

I am outraged at Mcmenamins... Since January of 2009 (almost 2 years) they have had a wage freeze! Yet they can afford to open new locations like the crystal hotel and donate 15K to organizations (ORLA) that openly support lowering Oregon minimum wage and counting an employee's tips as apart of their wage and a "training wage" that enables Oregon employers to pay an employee below MINIMUM WAGE! That's outrageous! I am ashamed to admit that I worked at McMenamins through college as a server part-time. I barely paid my bills even with schools loans and now that same company which I believed was a progressive, open minded Oregon company only wants further hurt the people that have made the Mcmenamins brothers deca-millionaires!

I will NEVER visit or support McMenamins until they can support their employees and the community!

As a member of both the restaurant and lodging industries with 47 locations in the state of Oregon, McMenamins is a member of the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association. McMenamins has paid ORLA for annual dues and a sponsorship opportunity. McMenamins does not endorse any political party or political candidate and has not paid additional funds to support any political party.

Regarding the restaurant minimum wage initiative, McMenamins does not support the referendum allowing restaurants to count tips as part of a server's minimum wage; the creation of an entry-level "training" wage, lower than the minimum wage. This new minimum wage proposal would be detrimental to the hundreds of staff who work for McMenamins.

Renee Rank- McMenamins Director of Marketing

BokChoy is not well informed. Sole propietors paid NO extra taxes. LLCs and S-Corps saw a total increase of $140, regardless of sales volume or profits. Only C-corps, a tiny fragment of Oregon's business community, paid higher gross receipts taxes than that, and in order for a business to have taxes raised by "two to three thousand dollars per year," you'd need to PROFIT way more than $250-300K...especially since the marginal rate only STARTS at $250K. A C-corp earning $300K last year paid more in taxes than they did in 2008...by $650. That's likely not even enough to cover one month's electricity.

The facts:
ihttp://www.ocpp.org/2009/20091102Measure67DecisionTree_fnl.pdf