AN ANTI-TAX CAMPAIGN letter that Oregonians Against
Job-Killing Taxes recently mailed out to 950,000 voters brought a nasty
backlash last week to the family farmer held up in the letter as an
anti-tax poster child.
“Milk prices are plunging and it’s harder than ever to keep our
business afloat,” reads the emotional form letter from dairy farmer
Carol Marie Leuthold, who asks voters to reject Measures 66 and 67
during this January’s special election. The two measures increase taxes
on corporations and Oregonians making over $125,000, which, Leuthold
writes, will force small businesses to lay off workers.
But tax proponents jumped on Leuthold’s claims, spilling to media
that the supposedly struggling family traveled extensively last year:
Leuthold took cooking classes in the South of France and her husband
went on safari in South Africa.
Politico Steve Novick went even further, posting a snapshot on
political blog Blue Oregon of 15 rather different signatures penned
above Leuthold’s name on the letter. “The letters were hand-signed to
look authentic, but all in different handwriting,” Novick wrote.
Hours after Novick tore into Leuthold’s letter, a
farmer-of-the-month profile of the anti-tax dairy farmer disappeared
from the Tillamook County Creamery Association website—at
Leuthold’s request.
“She had contacted us and said her family had some concerns about
[the profile] being up, because the measures are such an emotional
issue,” explains Tillamook spokesperson Heidi Luquette. Leuthold did
not elaborate to Tillamook what her “concerns” were, but the profile
contained details about the farming couple’s world travels.
Spokesman for the Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes campaign Pat
McCormick says the criticisms of Leuthold’s letter are “mean
spirited.”
“She expressed her personal opinion, we helped her express her
opinion,” says McCormick, who adds it’s unrealistic to assume Leuthold
would have signed all 950,000 letters herself. Instead, the farmer and
a crew of paid campaign workers signed the stacks of letters in a Salem
warehouse, says McCormick.
The anti-tax group has spent more than $1.8 million so far on its
anti-Measures 66 and 67 campaign, six times the amount of the tax
supporters.
Ummm, I think the point of the “backlash” is that she claimed the taxes were going to hurt her farm, but the truth is that her farm is only going to be paying $150 per year. Which happens to be 0.16% of the $92,000 the farm got in federal subsidies. In other words, her letter is a fraud.
I don’t feel bad for Carol, and I don’t blame her. I think she was genuinely hoodwinked by an aggressive campaign of obfuscation. I work with small business owners for a living and many of them have no idea, still, how the measures will affect them.
It is absurd and anti productive for Oregon to increase taxation during a recession. Oregon’s public employees are compensated much higher than the private sector but have felt little of the layoffs and business closings that the private sector has weathered. Oregon’s political elite just does not understand that increasing taxes on those that provide private sector employment will only inhibit job and business groath.
The State Of Oregon should bring public sector compensation and benefits in line with the private sector and not seek to widen the gap at the private sectors expense.