What to call Measure 48 is first salvo in campaign.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

Opposing camps aren't just trying to persuade voters whether to pass or reject Measure 48. They're also battling over what they want Oregonians to call it.

The measure, which imposes a cap on state spending growth based on the rate of inflation and population increases, is being promoted as a way to protect public services in the next economic slump by establishing a rainy day fund.

Measure 48 opponents would rather that Oregonians regard it as a cut-and-paste version of Colorado's recently suspended Taxpayers Bill of Rights, or TABOR, spending limit.

The battle over Measure 48's unofficial handle is important enough that the pro-Measure 48 campaign is calling its political action committee the "Rainy Day Amendment Committee." It recently e-mailed news media offering "teach-ins" on the differences between the Oregon and Colorado spending-limit measures.

Meanwhile, the Oregon Center for Public Policy, which has been critical of Measure 48, has put out a pair of briefing papers called `It Ain't No `Rainy Day Amendment' ' and "Measure Quacks Like a TABOR Duck."

Political scientist Jim Moore said there's plenty at stake in the Measure 48 naming-rights fight.

"The meaning in people's heads, no matter what the ballot title is, is crucial because that's going to set the tone for the campaigns as they try to connect with people," said Moore, who teaches at Pacific University in Forest Grove.

So is Measure 48 really a "Rainy Day Amendment?"

Nowhere in the initiative does it establish such an account, although it does allow money to go into such a fund without being counted toward the spending limit.

The campaign's spokesman, Matt Evans, acknowledged that before unspent dollars could be squirreled away for a rainy day, the Legislature and voters would have to take a pass on two other Measure 48-allowed options.

"If the Legislature chooses not to ask voters to spend that money and they don't rebate it to taxpayers like they do the kicker, then that money is going to be available to spend in some future when there's a deficit because of slower economic activity or whatever," Evans said.

Critics, such as the OCPP's executive director, Chuck Sheketoff, said it's not realistic to think the money would ever end up growing into a sizeable rainy day fund. For one thing, he said, the Legislature has a long history of accommodating lobbyists by putting unspent money into tax breaks, but has yet to establish a rainy day fund for state services.

For another, when the next economic "rainy day" arrives, it's probable that increased spending from just one state fund - the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund - would push overall state spending close to the Measure 48-imposed cap, limiting any increase in spending in remaining state funds.

Consider the experience of the last economic slowdown, in 2002-03: general-fund revenue plunged by more than $1 billion while the state paid $1.3 billion more in unemployment claims than it had the previous two years.

Evans disputed that the payment of unemployment insurance claims would not be considered part of the total spending limited by Measure 48.

Fiscal-policy experts say it's a stretch to suggest that money constitutes a rainy day fund.

In a 2005 policy brief titled "A Primer on State Rainy Day Funds," the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, D.C., listed four important features of rainy day funds: rules on how money is deposited, limits on how large it can grow, restrictions on how and when money can be withdrawn, and rules for replenishing those withdrawn funds.

Matt Gardner, the institute's state tax policy director, said Oregon's Measure 48 didn't establish any of the features of a rainy day fund.

"It sounds more like window dressing than anything else, absent the language of a rainy day fund," he said.

While opponents are trying to discredit the "Rainy Day Amendment" argument, they're also trying to associate Measure 48 with the measure Coloradans passed in 1992 and voted in 2005 to suspend for five years. That measure, dubbed TABOR, shares several common elements with Oregon's Measure 48. Most notably, both constitutional amendments limit state spending through a formula based on the rate of growth in each state's population and inflation. Both require a vote of the people to override the spending limit.

Measure 48's author, Don McIntire, who also championed the 1990 tax-limiting initiative Measure 5, made references to Colorado's TABOR last year while discussing his own proposal. But since then, his group has been referring to the measure as the "Rainy Day Amendment."

The full name of the Colorado initiative - Taxpayer's Bill of Rights - may have a positive connotation. But in recent years, as Colorado's revenue declined and the prospect of $400 million in cuts loomed, TABOR has lent itself as a tool in sullying the image of the Oregon version.

"We have no problem continuing to call it TABOR because TABOR has been so devastating in Colorado," Sheketoff said. "That's why they're the ones running from the name TABOR."

Evans said the problem with calling Measure 48 "TABOR" is simply that despite their common elements the two are different in important ways. Among them:

The Colorado measure limited revenue and spending at the city and county levels as well as for state government. The Oregon version applies only to state spending.

Colorado's TABOR forced the return of surplus dollars to taxpayers. And while it required governments to reserve 3 percent of their general fund, any of the dollars used from that reserve fund had to be repaid the next year. Oregon's doesn't require tax refunds or prevent a rainy day fund.

The Colorado TABOR reached beyond spending, also requiring voter approval for all new state and local taxes.

"If we had simply changed every `Colorado' to `Oregon' in the measure, then sure, call it TABOR," Evans said. "But it's so dissimilar that it's confusing to try to call it that."