To be fair this situation is six of one, half a dozen of the other. People are going to be affected if taxes go up and they’re going to be affected if taxes don’t go up. The simple matter is that when taxes go up some of that money is going to programs of which nearly all Oregonians can take advantage and not continuing to benefit the few and (sometimes) wealthy.

Let’s look at this “shoe string budget” in perspective. This is, at most 0.1%. Let’s say that your family brings home $50,000/year and you get hit with a 0.1% tax “all of a sudden”. That’s $50. You’re saying that $50 would push your family to ruin, or is incentive to pack up and move out of state? Really? In what business model does that make sense? My wife would slap me silly if I told her we were going to move out of state to avoid paying an additional 0.1% tax.

Many, many small businesses are running on a shoe string and they just got hit with a tax on receipts, not profit! These businesses employ people who pay their bills and feed their families because of that employment. Those tight businesses have limited choices. Fire some people, Fire everyone and close or take on even greater debt and overhead in order to hope they can outlast these market conditions. Debt that increases the likelihood of future failure.

You really have to be a business moron not to understand that not all taxes on business can just be passed along to consumers as a defacto sort of sales tax. There will be many who are out of work and many more who move their business out of state after these initiatives. Making light of them as if they somehow are beneath you because they weren’t Nike to begin with defines elitist snob.