LET’S FACE IT—politics costs money. What can we do
besides wring our hands in concern? We need to get more regular people
to donate just a little bit of cash to political groups and campaigns,
so the politickers can rely less on self-interested corporations and
richy-pants individuals.
Just in time for the season of holiday giving, a special tax
write-off comes to our attention that allows just this kind of
regular-person political donating. An obscure section of Oregon
political contribution law says that individuals who donate up to $50
to a political action committee (PAC) can knock that amount, dollar for
dollar, off their taxes. So you can either pay the state $50 more in
April, or you can donate it now to a cause you actually care about.
In 2006, only 5.2 percent of Oregonian taxpayers took advantage of
this write-off. This year, the Mercury did the homework for you:
Here are three great local PACs you should cut a $50 check to before
January 1, 2010. Just keep the receipt. You’re welcome.
STAND FOR CHILDREN
For shame: Only 68 percent of Oregon students graduate on time from
high school. But it’s no surprise why our schools suck despite the good
intentions of parents and teachers—Oregon’s tax structure screws
the schools out of the money they need. Stand for Children’s PAC
endorses and supports politicians who are working to get public schools
a fair chunk of the pie.
Where to give: stand.org/or/pac
BUS PROJECT
This homegrown group is devoted to getting more Oregonians involved
in politics and more progressive candidates into Salem seats. Plus they
know how to have a good time. During 2008, their 1,000 volunteers and
handful of paid staff knocked on 50,000 doors campaigning for
progressive candidates. They’re building a well-connected coalition of
untraditional political powerhouses: Of the 8 Oregon representatives
under age 35, three now sit on the Bus Project’s board of directors.
Watch your back, old conservatives.
Where to give: busproject.org
BASIC RIGHTS OREGON
Right now, only about 45 percent of Oregonians support the idea of
full same-sex marriage rights. But if anyone can get the bigotry out of
our ballot box, it’s Basic Rights Oregon, which has already launched a
campaign to amend the Oregon Constitution in 2012 to allow same-sex
marriage. They’re a tough lobbying group on other LGBT issues, too: The
legislature passed all three of the bills Basic Rights Oregon supported
last session.
Where to give: basicrights.org
Where is the PAC to fight the homophobes who want to recall the Mayor?
It is http://www.basicrights.org
If you leave off the www, it doesn’t go anywhere. I’ll give them money in the hope that they’ll find a webmaster that can fix that, since some people (including some newspaper reporters,) tend to be lazy about actually typing that bit in.
However, in the meantime, the Mercury should fix the online article so that it points at the real website.
Also: Make sure you are contributing the money to the right place for your goals.
1) If you contribute money to BRO directly, it doesn’t count towards the $50 state tax credit, it doesn’t count as anything, except that BRO has the money and you don’t. I mean, BRO is a great organization so that is good too, but if you were doing this to lower your taxes, that won’t.
2) The Basic Rights Education Fund is a 501c3 organization which is run by BRO, and so counts as a charity, which means it is deductible from your income, which lowers your (state&federal) taxes by 25% or whatever bracket you are in. There isn’t a limit, (beyond lowering your taxes to zero,) on how much you can contribute, so if you want to reduce your taxes by $1000, you can give them $4000, (or whatever bracket you are in.)
3) Basic Rights Equality PAC and Basic Rights Measure PAC mainly do lobbying and so they both qualify for the $50 tax credit.
(I gave someone the $50 back in March. He’d lost a close race, and the winner was saying very dumb things in the press, so even though he isn’t in my district I gave him money. Or more accurately, I decided that he should have the money instead of the state legislator, who had the very dumb things guy in it.)
It would have been nice to know how much money this works out as being out of state tax revenue. Does the Mercury know how to access this information? I believe that Novick was trying to get rid of this because he saw this as a tax credit for higher income earners, although, in a way, it does foster more of a political discourse in this state. Thoughts, Mercury? It would have been nice to have seen this article a little bit more fleshed out with different insights into the actual existence of this tax credit.