The American Spectator

Reader Mail

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p> FIRE AWAY br> Re: Patrick Basham and Chris Edwards's Oregon's Anti-Tax Trail : /p> p>Your article on the defeat of Oregon's Measure 28 is spot-on! The editor of Oregon Magazine , a lonely conservative voice in our state, notes that few commentators talked about the impact of conservative talk radio, local and national, on these tax-rise schemes. br> -- Margaret Whitcomb br> Salem, OR /p>

The local press/media outlets were deeply involved in attempting to scare Oregon voters into supporting more taxes. Anything looking like a public-services loss, due to the pending revenue "crisis," was on the front pages of the only major daily newspaper, the Oregonian. The same stories were pushed on each local nightly news broadcast. The last reports from most media outlets, just before the vote, were "positive" regarding the public supporting the tax increase. Huh? Says who? They were polling at the colleges again, I guess. Note: Most local/regional topics on this area's TV evening news is reported in the daily morning paper -- a bunch of crack investigative reporters & super sleuths! They must like to "speak with one voice'.

The public-funded schools, especially higher education and community colleges, were deeply involved in the push to raise taxes with active campaigns to get adult students/voters to pass the increase. As an example, one of the state-funded colleges in downtown Portland and the area's largest university, Portland State University, helped the "raise taxes" cause by putting out pink slips for ALL part-time instructors. That would be a cut of 25%, or more, of classes underway. Oh, by the way, they were to go into effect on January 31, that is, unless the tax increase was passed on January 28. Hmmm. That press release came out right after January 1, which is just about the time the vote-by-mail ballots started arriving in homes. I don't expect many follow-up stories on exactly how many of those part-time professors actually were let go. The local community colleges buzzed within the e-mail users group, sent to all staff members, of the need for the new taxes and the drastic cuts pending if taxes were not raised.

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