Dueling spending limits.

Byline: The Register-Guard

If FreedomWorks were offering Oregonians a tuna sandwich that the Oregon Education Association believed was unhealthful, the teachers' union might be expected to give voters a warning: Don't eat it, or you'll be sorry. Instead, the OEA is contemplating offering another choice: a tuna sandwich, but without the tuna and the bread. Oh, and hold the mayo, too.

The OEA would be better off saying what's wrong with FreedomWorks' lunch rather than offering a nothingburger alternative.

FreedomWorks is the Oregon arm of the national anti-tax organization headed by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, which is promoting Colorado-style state spending limits across the country. Colorado's limit, called the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights and adopted by that state's voters in 1992, limits the growth of spending to the rate of inflation plus the rate of population growth. If the Consumer Price Index rises by 3 percent and population increases by 2 percent, state spending can grow by no more than 5 percent.

Colorado's leash on spending has become a noose. As in Oregon and most other states, a recession earlier in this decade forced Colorado to reduce spending levels. Now that the state's economy is growing again, recession-era budgets are used to calculate permissible spending increases. Colorado's schools and highways, in particular, are being strangled by their inability to recover.

Colorado voters will consider a pair of proposals in November to suspend the spending limit. Among the proposals' supporters is Gov. Bill Owens, who was once a fervent evangelist for state spending limits. Colorado's fiscal crisis forced Owens to exchange the halo of a true believer for the heavier responsibilities of leadership - responsibilities that include finding ways to pay for schools and roads.

FreedomWorks, untroubled by the Colorado experience, hopes to gather signatures on initiative petitions to place a Taxpayers' Bill of Rights on Oregon's November ballot. The organization has proved its capabilities in Oregon: After the 2003 Legislature balanced the budget with the help of a package of tax increases, FreedomWorks, then called Citizens for a Sound Economy, successfully petitioned to refer the tax hikes to the ballot. Voters rejected the increases last year when they defeated Ballot Measure 30.

The OEA, rightly recognizing FreedomWorks as a politically competent foe with a proposal likely to appeal to many voters, has filed a pre-emptive countermeasure. The OEA's initiative would exempt schools, social services and public safety programs from any voter-approved spending limit. Spending in those three areas consumes more than 90 percent of the Oregon's general-fund budget. Voters might be asked to adopt a spending limit, then render it meaningless - though it's likely that conflicts between the two measures would have to be resolved in the courts.

Oregon voters would be better served by a direct response to FreedomWorks' proposal. Rather than suggesting that a spending limit is a good idea as long as certain state services are exempt, the OEA should attempt to persuade voters that it's a bad idea, period.

And it is a bad idea, with Colorado's experience standing as a clear cautionary example. FreedomWorks can't guarantee that Oregon will never endure another recession in which a Colorado-style spending limit would ratchet spending down and prevent the restoration of services after a recovery.

Even if it could make such a guarantee, the economy and public demands for services tend to grow at a greater rate than inflation plus population growth. What's more, Oregon already has a spending limit - by law, state spending can consume no more than 8 percent of Oregonians' personal income.

To offer an alternative to FreedomWorks' proposal is to accept the group's premise that a new spending limit, tight or porous, is needed in Oregon. It isn't, and by suggesting otherwise the OEA will only cloud the message it hopes to send.