“Did they forget about the Great Recession?” From OCPP

Liberal think tank Oregon Center for Public Policy has an unsettling spin on Oregon’s budget problems and Measure 66, the personal income tax increase passed by voters last year.   In opinion pieces and in fundraising letters, OCPP Executive Director Chuck Sheketoff has been saying that the recession is the cause of our current budget crisis, something Republican legislators refuse to acknowledge.

In a Salem Statesman Journal article on the nearly 30% shortfall in revenue from the tax increase, Sheketoff said that tax collections were off “because the recession was deeper than thought in 2009.  But the measure is doing what we thought it would do.”

I guess “we thought” shows that the left-leaning group helped craft the tax increase for high-income earners and small businesses.  Does the “recession was deeper than thought in 2009” mean that OCPP wouldn’t have supported the tax increase if they new the economy was in such bad shape?

Likely not since Sheketoff also notes the tax increase “is doing what we thought it would do,” albeit at a 30% reduction.