Grasshopper finance.Byline: The Register-Guard Aesop told the fable of the ant and the grasshopper grasshopper, name applied to almost 9,000 different species of singing, jumping insects in two families of the order Orthoptera. Grasshoppers are long, slender, winged insects with powerful hind legs and strong mandibles, or mouthparts, adapted for chewing. : The grasshopper spent all summer singing, while the ant was busy storing food. Then winter came, and everyone knows how the fable ends. Fables are meant to be instructive, but Oregon hasn't learned the lesson. In its public finances, Oregon is constitutionally required to behave like the grasshopper. Oregon is now in the warm summertime of an economic expansion, with strong job growth, declining unemployment and rising incomes. These welcome conditions are generating higher-than-predicted income tax revenue for the state. In 1979, the Legislature passed a law requiring that when income tax revenues exceed projections by 2 percent or more, the entire surplus must be rebated to taxpayers. Voters placed the "kicker Kicker A right, warrant, or some other feature added to a debt instrument to make it more desirable to potential investors. Notes: The ability to trade a bond or other debt instrument in for stock may entice investors, if they feel the stock will appreciate. " law in the Oregon Constitution The Oregon Constitution is a U.S. state constitution, the governing document of the U.S. state of Oregon. It was ratified on November 9, 1857, and took effect when Oregon achieved statehood on February 14, 1859. Differences from U.S. in 2000. Current projections show that the kicker law will trigger personal income tax refunds Tax refund Money back from the government when too much tax has been paid or withheld from a salary. totaling $460 million next year. Corporate income tax payers tax payer n → contribuyente m/f tax payer n → contribuable m/f tax payer n → contribuente , most of them headquartered out of state, will receive an estimated $205 million. Both are record amounts. If Oregon behaved more like the ant, it would set at least some of that money aside for the economic winter that will surely follow. Yet Oregon is one of a handful of states without a general budgetary reserve fund - a deficiency that is routinely noted by bond-rating agen- cies. Ants are better credit risks than grasshoppers Grasshoppers may refer to one of the following:
Memories of the consequences of a lack of a budgetary reserve should still be fresh. Just as income tax revenues can spike in an expansion, they can crash in a recession. Four years ago, Oregon lost nearly a quarter of its projected income tax revenue, and without a rainy day fund, deep budget cuts were required. Schools, health care, public safety and other state services are still reeling reel·ing n. Maine Sustained noise, as from hammering: "Hark that reeling, now, you'll wake the baby!" Anonymous. from the consequences. That trauma could have been avoided if earlier surplus revenues had been placed in a reserve rather than rebated as kicker checks. The vocabulary of modern politics, however, makes a change in Oregon's grasshopper finances difficult. House Revenue Committee Chairman Tom Butler, R-Ontario, says that taking away the kicker would be regarded as a "tax increase." The higher-than-expected revenues that trigger kicker rebates do not flow from tax increases, but from increases in economic activity. Describing a laid-off worker or an unprofitable business as having received a tax cut is no more sensible than Butler's tax-increase termino- logy lo·gy adj. lo·gi·er, lo·gi·est Characterized by lethargy; sluggish. [Perhaps from Dutch log, heavy or variant of English loggy, heavy, sluggish, from log . The moral of Aesop's tale: In times of plenty, provide for want. It's an old piece of wisdom, one that Oregonians should have taken to heart by now. |
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