A Triumph of the Middling? Derrick Kitts ponders Mayoral Race October 10, 2007

Former state Representative Derrick Kitts of Hillsboro, who in 2006 lost an unspectacular race for Congress against Rep. David Wu, is considering a run for Mayor. This after he nixed his initial inkling to move to Wilsonville and run for the seat held by retiring Rep. Jerry Krummel (R).

Kitts, whose 2006 campaign relied heavily on the presence of RVs and American flags and the absence of just about everything else, says he’d be a good fit as Hillsboro’s Mayor because he’s “Joe Average”. Even more interestingly, Kitts thinks he ran a pretty good race in 2006, despite doing virtually no actual campaigning and eventually losing by 30 points.

But then again, this is the same Derrick Kitts who twice won a state legislative race in Greater Hillsboro’s House District 30. Though that district does contain a big chunk of territory outside of Hillsboro city limits, it’s probably fair to say that Kitts represented at least half of Hillsboro’s population in the Oregon House. Unless you consider the quality of Kitts’ legislative service, that’s a political advantage.

But the Boundary is not so sure that high-tech Hillsboro is the right place for a ‘Joe Average’ campaign anymore. No, this city, home to Intel, TriQuint Semiconductor, Lattice, FEI and many other successful corporations needs a business-savvy leader to champion economic development. This can’t be done by just any normal guy off the streets, or someone who pretends to be one.

But if he wants to provide his name as an alternative to the already-declared candidacy of Jerry Willey for the sake of competition, who’s to stop him? No one cried when he left Salem to be the name opposite Wu on the ballot for Congress–in fact, that move helped deliver House Democrats the majority for 2007. And look at all the good things that happened there.

Perhaps only good can come out of Kitts’ ambition, though not in the ways he would intend.

One More Nail in the ‘Oregon-is-Tax-Hell’ Coffin October 10, 2007

Just when you thought the anti-tax crowd over at Oregon Catalyst couldn’t look more out of touch with mainstream politics, and reality in general, there goes the Tax Foundation saying that Oregon’s tax burden on businesses is pretty damn low.

OPB’s Kristian Foden-Vencil bears the bad news to Jason Williams, et al:

The ‘Tax Foundation,’ a nonprofit, D.C. think tank, has been monitoring state and local taxes since 1937.

Each year it ranks states on how much corporate tax they levy. Oregon came in 10th, with Wyoming, South Dakota and Nevada in the top three places.

Chuck Sheketoff of the Oregon Center for Public Policy, agrees that the state has low taxes, but says it’s wrong to suggest low taxes are good for the business climate.

Chuck Sheketoff: “What Oregon businesses need are good investments and public structures to thrive. They need the courts open five days a week, they need good transporation systems, bridges that don’t collapse.”

He says businesses also need good schools and healthy social services. The four states with the highest business taxes were Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York and California.

This might be a good time to raise that corporate minimum tax substantially.  Also, citations like this might help a more permanent diversion of the corporate kicker into a rainy day fund.

With news like this, and state Senator Ryan Deckert officially taking the helm of the Oregon Business Association this month, a change in Oregon’s revenue structure might be on the table very shortly.   That makes even more sense when you consider that Deckert expects to resign from the Senate this month and that Mark Hass is a leading candidate to replace him.  Hass, as you’ll recall, became the Democrats’ go-to-guy for revenue matters in the Oregon House, and says he’s getting back in the game so that he can reduce the volatility of the current tax system.

We’ll just have to wait and see whether the House and Senate leadership puts this on the table for the February session.