Here’s Andrew Theen in the Oregonian on PSU’s efforts to tax Metro payrolls. The PSU Foundation has donated $100K to lobby for the ballot initiative:
Supporters are proposing a payroll tax of one-tenth of one percent on wages paid by Portland metro business owners. If approved, the tax would produce up to $35 million to $40 million for PSU scholarships, student services and faculty jobs annually.
Some business donors are predictably unhappy.
In comparison UO focuses its lobbying on sports. The $25M Track Town / IAAF subsidy was annoying enough, but Andrew Theen has the story on another piece of Duck legislation that UO pushed through the legislature last month, here.
Kazoos. Not every legislator thought this was a good use of scarce legislative time, during a short session where substantive legislation could not be debated because of the time crunch:
Two of Oregon’s most high-profile House members voted against the measure. Rep. Tina Kotek, the Speaker of the House and a UO alum, voted against the proclamation. Rep. Knute Buehler, an OSU alum, also voted against the bill.
Thanks to an anonymous reader – yes, from Corvallis – for the link. I’m sure OSU, PSU, and the TRU’s will get even with us next year by taking a still larger chunk of the legislature’s scarce bond money for new academic buildings, while UO sends lobbyist Hans Bernard chasing after some new sparkly sports thing.
Why is UO wasting its slim political capital on this nonsense? Is the board intentionally trying to annoy the legislature and ruin UO’s ability to get state funding for academics, in order to increase the power of the Duck boosters? That would be consistent with the the “Starve the Beast” argument the documentary of the same name is making about right wing efforts to reduce public funding for higher education:
I don’t think too many people are happy with PSU trying to get its own payroll tax in metro Portland — I’m sure the other campuses can’t be.
The rightwing think tank and billionaire attacks on public higher education are real, but so far pretty much a fringe phenomenon. Actually, they are probably more of a libertarian than conservative phenomenon. Have the blue states done more to maintain public higher education funding than the red states? I don’t know — it would take a bit of work to find out — but certainly not Oregon!
But the universities have certainly been working overtime to raise the ire of the right. Their ire hasn’t had much effect so far, but look at what has happened at Mizzou. The next freshman class down by 25% in the wake of the disturbances there, a big budget deficit, $32 million. That is not the Koch Brothers or Jeff Sandefer — it’s ordinary, normal people in a swing state. They are not amused, they are p—–. That’s peeved, in case the children are listening. If the enrollment declines continue in future years, that place will really be fucked. You heard me right. And the legislature there is threatening to cut funding to Mizzou. There are other campuses in Missouri to support. The “regional” Truman State, for instance. Which, following reforms somewhat favored on part of the right, allegedly, something of a return to traditional liberal arts education, now has higher test scores than Mizzou, maybe the highest of any public campus in Missouri.
Could it be that our own local UO board is not pleased with UO? The union perhaps, the Deady Hall stuff maybe, the fossil fuel sit-ins? Is it possible that our Uncle Phil has not calmed down all these years after the WRC business? How would I know, maybe a FOIA would get it out of them!
We are not living in the world even of the recent past. Ask Donald Trump and if you don’t like that notion, ask Bernie Sanders.
As that young singer said, “The times they are a-changin’.”
I don’t think the PSU tax is unjustifiable, regardless of what the other campuses think. PSU is in many ways more like a gigantic CC on steroids than a university that expects to even come close to breaking even on tuition. It’s also far more tightly integrated with the city than any other campus and does far more for the general public. Although I am unaffiliated with PSU, I’m using their wifi and online databases right this moment. UO is.not this generous.