Sales tax best cure for our ailing schools.

Byline: Bob Cassidy For The Register-Guard

Is it time to rethink Oregon's tax structure? Right now, a little publicized measure, House Bill 3608, sits in the House Revenue Committee that would establish a general sales tax for Oregon. This tax would raise revenue that would be dedicated to education at the pre-kindergarten through grade 12 and community college levels.

It's time to stop the short-lived, Band-Aid solutions and start thinking realistically about an acceptable tax structure that would provide long-term, substantial funding for our schools. Instead of inadequately funding our schools with diminishing property tax revenues, we have the ability to properly fund our education system with a robust, equitable funding mechanism: a consumption tax.

Undeniably, property taxes no longer provide for even the most basic school needs.

There are several well-known causes for this growing insufficiency: the effects of Measures 5 and 50, the equalization of school funding, the shifting of property taxes from businesses to homeowners, and the increased cost of the Public Employees Retirement System. These have all contributed to the educational funding crisis.

The numbers that accompany a 5 percent consumption tax are very promising.

The proposed tax would raise as much as $7.35 billion per year, providing our teachers and schools with the ability to perform the important job we ask of them.

This revenue also would cover all costs of collecting the tax, as well as create a rainy day fund that would insure against any fluctuations in the sales tax revenues.

Importantly, this tax would relieve the excessive burden of demand on the general fund, allowing more revenues to be freed up for human services such as the Oregon Health Plan. Then, surplus money could be allocated to other state services, giving lawmakers the option of either making property or income taxes more progressive, or refunding the surplus money in the form of a kicker. Instead of the perennial argument of whether to cut another half-billion dollars vs. another billion dollars from our schools - money we don't have anyway - wouldn't it be delightful to be deciding how to return our surpluses?

This tax would, in fact, be regressive. But a strong educational system benefits all, particularly the lower income members of our community.

There has been much talk about growing the economy, but how can this truly be achieved? Wouldn't it be to our advantage to attract growth businesses to Oregon by being nationally recognized as the "Education State"?

Critical to the success of this tax is the guaranteed assurance that the money will not go into the state's general fund, and that the rate will not be increased. Experience with the state Legislature has taught us this lesson. To protect this funding resource and guarantee its use for education only, it needs to be accomplished through a constitutional amendment.

Only this way can we ensure that such an important resource is directly controlled by the vote of the people.

Oregonians, including myself, have traditionally opposed a sales tax. But tradition offers little remedy or hope for the economic and educational well-being of Oregon. While it's hard to break from the approaches of the past, to persist on a course that is failing is simply irresponsible, to ourselves, our children and our future.

As Laurie Wimmer Whelan of the Oregon Education Association has asked, do we want to continue our long tradition of innovation, or do we want to become a "Mississippi with fir trees?"

Bob Cassidy of Eugene is a retired credit union consultant and a member of Fund Oregon's Future Today, a statewide group that seeks to educate Oregonians on tax reform. His e-mail address [e-mail].