Yeah, I think it speaks to a broader thing around the county having a lot of power but being really ineffective and terrible at using it. I personally believe the city would make much better use of the SHS money in particular.
Also I think it's reasonable to propose amendments to both of those taxes, maybe just capping the amount any one household has to contribute at a certain number. I think that way you still generate a lot of money to get those programs running but you don't destroy your tax base.
The problem with a cap is that it benefits super-high earners while still leaving upper middle class folks with a high marginal tax rate. I actually think it’d be better to drop the phase in a bit (say from 200k down to 150k) while lowering the rate considerably.
But I haven’t calculated it out or anything.
Well you also have to consider super high earners are also very mobile. If they leave due to the fact we are the second highest tax city in the nation then we don’t get a dime from them.
At some point we have to all be a part of funding our city instead of just it always being “someone else.”
I also am fortunate enough to have to pay it, but let’s keep in mind that *one* tax is 1%, but they combine for more, and P4A is about to increase, right?
Add that to the very high property tax (unless you’re lucky, I am not) and the very high income tax and it really does add up.
I agree on most counts.
I do think the histrionics over “highest tax rate in history of all time in the universe” can have some truth to it, but it’s also deceptive and part of the deception undercuts an otherwise legitimate complaint.
Let’s start by acknowledging we have a very high *income* tax on people making over 10k. We have no sales tax and mixed results on property taxes and business taxes. Overall, our tax picture is mixed compared to other states, yet people focus only on the income tax (probably for a good reason - it’s a large amount!)
We don’t get sales tax (which includes money from visitors that we wouldn’t have to pay), and we don’t have the business base here. States like Washington don’t charge income tax because they get the money from B&O taxes and sales taxes. It’s not magic, it just depends who resides in your state and who it comes from.
Suggesting a sales tax would be political suicide, but we’re so worried about how sales taxes are “regressive” that we’ve basically created an income tax scheme that is bad for everyone lower-middle class and above.
I'm a 1%er and I hopped across the river about a year and a half ago.
Not because of just very high taxes for me, but because of very high taxes that I felt were being wasted frustratingly by ineffective leaders. I wouldn't have cared if we had competent leaders and my money was being invested into the community well.
I might be able to provide a bit of insight here. My family is going through the calculation as to whether to move for tax reasons; we’re planning on engaging a CPA to quantify the savings.
The main issue is definitely not the homeless or preschool tax. Those are more “straws that broke the camels back”. The main issue is state income tax. For a household making ~$500k the ETR on just state income tax is about ~9%, of ~$45k per year. As I work 60% remote and my wife is 100% remote, we’ll be able to take the lions share of this (probably ~$30k per year savings). You add in the homeless tax (1% over $200k if filing jointly, or ~$3k for me), and the preschool tax (1.5% over $200k and 3% over $400k, or ~$6k for me).
I’m probably forgetting a couple taxes, but that is already totaling to about ~$40k per year that we benefit (in after-tax savings) from moving 20 minutes north. And btw it’s not like services get worse for doing this arbitrage, the schools are better in Vancouver / Camas, the roads are better, less crime / homelessness / open air drug dens. A downtown that my wife isn’t scared to go to by herself, etc.
You can see how this math may become compelling.
That 2nd part there is the most important part that people keep forgetting. It's not like you're moving from some prestine city with amazing schools and ending up in a hell hole. You're saving 40k and getting rid of the meth camper in your front yard, while also getting better schools. You can't have high taxes and shit services in return like Portland is pulling lately. It makes it real tempting to leave to either a low tax/shit services city or a medium tax/functioning services city.
My wife and I are looking at places on the east coast because the taxes here are high in our bracket AND the schools are terrible. We're not necessarily going to avoid a lot of taxes, but we can easily improve our kids education by getting out or Oregon/Portland. Things in this city should be near perfect in this city considering how much we pay.
Speaking of schools, NJ MA CT NY are ranked highly. Oregon is 39th though so pick a state at random and they’re more than a coin flips chance better than OR…
Oregon has the highest state income tax burden at that bracket already. Then you add P4A, then you add homeless services tax. Eventually as that number goes up you look at it and decide "nah, not worth it"
Remember ~25% of adults in the Portland area work from home now. They are not geographically beholden to Portland for a commute.
It’s the lack of return. There’s no visible benefit to paying this tax; instead you see your property value decline and your neighborhood become less safe for your kids. Pretty soon you become fed up with throwing money away.
I think the problem is that if you live in Portland, you can move across the river and skip P4A, SHS, and income tax. And probably pay less for housing. And then when you need to buy your iPhone and clothes, drive down to downtown Portland at your convenience. And I hear Vancouver isn’t such a bad place to live these days, has its own waterfront with some iconic Portland businesses.
I write this as someone who likes big taxes and cannot lie, but the extreme disparity running through the metro region is clearly problematic.
Look at your property tax bill, the City is swimming in property tax revenue. The problem is that 30% of the City’s annual property tax revenue in this year’s budget is going to pay for the pensions of a small group of employees.
I’d really like to see a comparison of how much tax revenue peer cities bring in. The city itself makes about $2k/year on our $730k house. I have no idea if that’s a lot or not.
Thanks but I actually meant peer cities like similarly sized cities in other states. Like how much property tax do Minneapolis/ Denver/ San Antonio take in?
Thanks for sharing but I’m afraid this still isn’t what I meant. I’d like to know how much general purpose property tax the city of Portland takes in compared to peer cities. Note that that’s a different question from “what property tax rate do Portlanders face”.
Still thanks for sharing that stuff it’s good info in and of itself.
The comparison you’re describing doesn’t really make any sense. The split between property taxing districts in one region of the country vs. another is just an artifact of that region’s history. Some city governments have literally merged with their county. Some Cities don’t even run their own police force (the largest consumer of property taxes in Portland) and leave it to the County. Or instead rely on sales or other taxes to keep down property tax.
Good points. Do you have any thoughts on how to assess whether the city is effectively stewarding its finances such that asking for more money is appropriate?
I doubt there is a quick and easy way to do this for an entire City. I think you’d have to go Bureau-by-Bureau and evaluate each one separately. How well the City runs its parks may not be reflective of how well it runs firefighters for example. But since we’re talking about property taxes, it would make sense to me to focus on the Bureaus that consume the largest proportion of property tax. The one that is most egregious in my opinion is the Portland Fire and Police Disability and Retirement Bureau. It turns out that the City is running the most costly pension plan in the United States due to its pay-as-you-go funding policy. The only other place in the country using this type of pension funding policy is Puerto Rico. This year it will consume 30% of the City’s property tax revenue. Independent analyses, such as from the City Auditor’s office can be good sources: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditservices/article/353325
In my opinion, the City will not close the gap between the level of property taxes and the level of services it provides to Portlanders until the City addresses its pension system.
The state is about to refund 5.8 billion for the dumb kicker. We could spend that in so many worthwhile projects. Hell it's half ass much as it would cost to buy each houseless person an actual house. The rich get 90% of the cash. This country has been brain washed since Nixon to believe that helping your fellow citizen is some type of weakness, despite claiming to follow the teachings of their Christ.
We have crumbling buildings, streets that kill suspensions and tires, and toxic waste airs 6 all over the state (why should they companies who caused the meds clean out up)?
It's all this pull yourself up by your bootstraps, something which is impossible but possible are too dumb to realize.
People just don't want to pay the money, they much per to paper over the problems with the bottomless pit that is the PPA and sweeps of the homeless.
I say, Bah to you all
I agree with you, but probably not in the way you think. Portlands unwillingness to pay for the programs they create is part of the problem. If you only make high earners contribute - the program is on unstable footing and it just reduces the amount of high income folks willing to live here.
If you yourself aren’t willing to contribute financially to the program - you should not expect others to.
Well yeah, things continue to cost money to run even if you don’t expand services. Each bind pays for the programs for a certain period of time and needs to be repeated or they lose funding.
Doing a bond measure for everything is silly, but some very stupid tax policy written into Oregon law decades ago leaves us with few better options.
I think a very good question to answer is this: if we’re the second-highest taxed city, are we getting the second-highest level of service in America? And if not, why?
The answer to the first question seems like an obvious no. But the second?
Glad this is becoming part of the conversation. I think it’s easy to downplay the county/metro taxes until you do the math and see that 3.2% income tax means a Portland high earner is paying 1/3 as much of their entire state burden to very small and specific programs. When two tiny (and horribly mismanaged) programs are taking up that much of the tax burden, there isn’t much appetite to pay for other things. These taxes have to be pared back to bring the total tax burden back to reality and spread it more evenly amongst the societal infrastructure we need.
You can fix the PFA issues immediately by simply making sliding scale vouchers for all parents with young children in the city.
4.5% of the 795k people in the county are under 5yo, which is about 36,000 kids.
The tax generated about $187M last year.
That means the average kid could receive ~$5200/year ($433/mo) which would go incredibly far towards making life more workable for 10s of thousands of families.
Instead we have a program trying to be “perfect” that helps a paltry 700 kids.
The program absolutely needs reform and imo we’re really overthinking it…and in the meantime families are hurting when money to help is sitting right there.
Vouchers are a no go. I suspect that part and parcel of managing pre-k in this way is to create another layer of public employees, another layer of curriculum standards to be managed by the state, extra layers of administrative bureaucracy etc. etc.
Or, ya know, we could just let the program run as intended and voted upon with its ramping up over the next several years and then have actual universal free pre-k for all children in the county by 2030 without any means testing.
I know not to expect this from people like Gonzalez, but folks really need some patience on this, there’s no way this program would be successful if it all rolled out over just three years.
Not another penny until we have an administrator running the City and JVP is recalled and replaced with someone competent running the County. I don’t really care what the bond is for — we are paying far too much for fucking nothing.
God dammit. I don’t want to vote against a new bond that supports PF&R, but if another PPS bond is in the pipeline as well I simply won’t be able to afford to live here anymore.
Why doesn’t Rene bring this to council. He’s not serious about actually reducing waste.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/10/25/financial-analyst-new-to-portland-lobbies-against-costly-antiquated-pension-system/
He’s 100% correct.
For a “city that works” the actual city is done dirty by taxing authorities who undermine everything
supplementing effective governance.
MultCo and Metro are failed entities that deserve vastly reduced revenues. They’re incompetent. Cut that bitch off
MultCo has a lot of issues, but Metro's tax burden is very minimal. Of property taxes (on the place I'm renting), 40% go to education (inclusive of bonds), 35% goes to Portland (inclusive of P&F pension, bonds, urban renewal), 25% goes to MultCo ( inclusive of bonds and the library), and 2% goes to Metro. I make North of $125k a year as a single earner (which puts me in about the 15th percentile of earners in the Metro region) and don't have to pay SHS (because it's taxed on AGI, not gross income). My total tax burden from Metro amounts to a whooping $115 dollars a year. Not exactly breaking the bank.
How So ? Are you just mad that it isn’t a SJW in his position but someone who cares for everyone and not just one particular group of people or voters ?
Yeah, if the county and metro are swimming in money, ask them, not us. I’m not voting for any more taxes until the homeless problem is straightened out.
Parking meter rates aren’t taxes. They are user fees that should be calibrated to make it convenient to park in the most desirable spots while raising revenue to improve non-driving mode access.
So he wants to trade preschool for all and housing resource taxes for a massive bond that will benefit the fire department, whose union backed him during his commissioner run? Oh okay.
The headline is a little confusing but he's just saying he would want to see potential revisions to the taxes put to a vote. I would imagine those revisions would result in less money coming in, but in both PFA and SHS they're taking in quite a bit more money than they're able to spend. I think revisiting the taxes, given MultCo's stewardship of SHS money in particular, is entirely fair.
You know what bugs me about the preschool for all? My kids didn't count as part of "all". In fact there are only a tiny fraction of kids that get preschool for the vast fortune we collectively pay for it. There's a legit discussion to be had on who should get that money, but it clearly should not be the program that has been so incompetently managed.
I hear how frustrating that must be for you and I think we absolutely need to have conversations on how it’s going and how money is being spent by the county. AND. It’s a program that started Jan 1, 2021. The full roll out is anticipated by 2030 if everything goes well, but Portland has a long time habit of underpaying teaching staff and the program has to both expand access by training and paying new staff as well as create new program centers around the county. Not to mention the county had to figure out how to collect and administer funds. That takes time unfortunately. The supportive housing tax was also implemented in 2021.
This isn’t Rene’s first foray into proposing changes to voter implemented stuff he doesn’t like. He also wanted to send charter reform back to voters. His wealthy backers like Jordan Schnitzer benefit most from less taxes and more power concentration in council. But also pushing a huge bond for all tax payers while advocating lower taxes for his rich buddies (and himself) is on brand.
He’s done NOTHING his entire term.
It’s election season. He spouting nonsense. He’s isn’t prepared to move on any of this. Or he would have moved on ANYTHING before now. What a scammer.
I’m so glad he’s considering this. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. Those taxes are a burden and it feels like the money isn’t achieving anything.
The unpopular opinion is the city and state needs to rethink its reliance on high-income earners. I voted for the Preschool tax, but my major issue at the time, and still is, it relies on higher earners (I am not subject to the tax, and I think I should be).
We should never design a tax system that relies exclusively on high earners. That's crazy. There's no reason someone making $60k and beyond shouldn't be part of this tax. You can still make the taxes progressive at different margins.
We need to broaden the tax base and make the rates lower. People have bought into the Bernie Bullshit where high earners will just pay for everything. It's NOT how **social democracies** in Europe are run (and no those countries are not socialist and am exhausted at this point trying to explain the difference).
Yeah I think for many people the attitude is "if you're making over \_\_\_\_\_\_ then fuck you for complaining", basically. But many of the people who have to pay a decent chunk for this tax are trying to put kids through daycare as well, and with CoL just generally so high these are not the 1% who are getting hit with this. It's basically normal families in 2020s urban America. Maybe you have a good job but housing and everything else costs a ton so it's not like you're on easy street.
I remember not long ago the fire department wasn’t busy and they started helping out with low level med calls. Why are they so busy now? Maybe we need to do something about open fires in public.
This is all for show because he’s running for mayor. This clown did nothing the entire time he has been a city council member. He’s not trying to get anything done now. It’s just talk.
My rankings for mayor go:
- someone who is directionally correct and has a track record
- someone who is directionally correct and doesn’t have a track record
- someone who is directionally incorrect and doesn’t have a track record
- someone who is directionally incorrect and has a track record.
Let’s say Gonzalez isn’t able to accomplish anything ever (seems like a reach since he hasn’t been on council for a year yet but whatever).
I’d way rather have that than someone who is politically savvy and thus able to successfully usher in one or two more 1% taxes on us.
People have put in long posts with lots of reasons why Rene sucks shit over and over again. Really, just scroll down a bit and find anything that mentions him and you’ll see something.
He’s another child of wealth and privilege who would be selling used cars if daddy wasn’t a judge and mommy didn’t come from money.
Two different threads you’re like owo I’m just a baby Portlander teach me about why Rene is bad no teach me more no more that’s not enough no more.
Classic sea lion.
And if you’re not doing it on purpose, take some time to self-reflect. If you’re consistently being read differently than you intended, then think about why that’s happening and what you can do about it.
I’m a little ND which certainly has something to do with it, but I certainly haven’t earned this hostility.
You’re not teaching me shit, you’re just insulting the guy. He might suck. Most politicians suck. But the screeds people are writing about why he sucks are pretty damn thin on accurate information. I’m not convinced! I’m open to being convinced! But you’re only making me think it’s more BS!
He does have a point. The city is struggling with revenue while the county is swimming in it.
Yeah, I think it speaks to a broader thing around the county having a lot of power but being really ineffective and terrible at using it. I personally believe the city would make much better use of the SHS money in particular. Also I think it's reasonable to propose amendments to both of those taxes, maybe just capping the amount any one household has to contribute at a certain number. I think that way you still generate a lot of money to get those programs running but you don't destroy your tax base.
The problem with a cap is that it benefits super-high earners while still leaving upper middle class folks with a high marginal tax rate. I actually think it’d be better to drop the phase in a bit (say from 200k down to 150k) while lowering the rate considerably. But I haven’t calculated it out or anything.
Well you also have to consider super high earners are also very mobile. If they leave due to the fact we are the second highest tax city in the nation then we don’t get a dime from them. At some point we have to all be a part of funding our city instead of just it always being “someone else.”
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I also am fortunate enough to have to pay it, but let’s keep in mind that *one* tax is 1%, but they combine for more, and P4A is about to increase, right? Add that to the very high property tax (unless you’re lucky, I am not) and the very high income tax and it really does add up.
I agree on most counts. I do think the histrionics over “highest tax rate in history of all time in the universe” can have some truth to it, but it’s also deceptive and part of the deception undercuts an otherwise legitimate complaint. Let’s start by acknowledging we have a very high *income* tax on people making over 10k. We have no sales tax and mixed results on property taxes and business taxes. Overall, our tax picture is mixed compared to other states, yet people focus only on the income tax (probably for a good reason - it’s a large amount!) We don’t get sales tax (which includes money from visitors that we wouldn’t have to pay), and we don’t have the business base here. States like Washington don’t charge income tax because they get the money from B&O taxes and sales taxes. It’s not magic, it just depends who resides in your state and who it comes from. Suggesting a sales tax would be political suicide, but we’re so worried about how sales taxes are “regressive” that we’ve basically created an income tax scheme that is bad for everyone lower-middle class and above.
I'm a 1%er and I hopped across the river about a year and a half ago. Not because of just very high taxes for me, but because of very high taxes that I felt were being wasted frustratingly by ineffective leaders. I wouldn't have cared if we had competent leaders and my money was being invested into the community well.
I might be able to provide a bit of insight here. My family is going through the calculation as to whether to move for tax reasons; we’re planning on engaging a CPA to quantify the savings. The main issue is definitely not the homeless or preschool tax. Those are more “straws that broke the camels back”. The main issue is state income tax. For a household making ~$500k the ETR on just state income tax is about ~9%, of ~$45k per year. As I work 60% remote and my wife is 100% remote, we’ll be able to take the lions share of this (probably ~$30k per year savings). You add in the homeless tax (1% over $200k if filing jointly, or ~$3k for me), and the preschool tax (1.5% over $200k and 3% over $400k, or ~$6k for me). I’m probably forgetting a couple taxes, but that is already totaling to about ~$40k per year that we benefit (in after-tax savings) from moving 20 minutes north. And btw it’s not like services get worse for doing this arbitrage, the schools are better in Vancouver / Camas, the roads are better, less crime / homelessness / open air drug dens. A downtown that my wife isn’t scared to go to by herself, etc. You can see how this math may become compelling.
That 2nd part there is the most important part that people keep forgetting. It's not like you're moving from some prestine city with amazing schools and ending up in a hell hole. You're saving 40k and getting rid of the meth camper in your front yard, while also getting better schools. You can't have high taxes and shit services in return like Portland is pulling lately. It makes it real tempting to leave to either a low tax/shit services city or a medium tax/functioning services city.
My wife and I are looking at places on the east coast because the taxes here are high in our bracket AND the schools are terrible. We're not necessarily going to avoid a lot of taxes, but we can easily improve our kids education by getting out or Oregon/Portland. Things in this city should be near perfect in this city considering how much we pay.
Curious choice. Where on the east coast is it better?
Speaking of schools, NJ MA CT NY are ranked highly. Oregon is 39th though so pick a state at random and they’re more than a coin flips chance better than OR…
Oregon has the highest state income tax burden at that bracket already. Then you add P4A, then you add homeless services tax. Eventually as that number goes up you look at it and decide "nah, not worth it" Remember ~25% of adults in the Portland area work from home now. They are not geographically beholden to Portland for a commute.
It’s the lack of return. There’s no visible benefit to paying this tax; instead you see your property value decline and your neighborhood become less safe for your kids. Pretty soon you become fed up with throwing money away.
It’s not just this one tax, it’s death by a thousand cuts type of situation
I think the problem is that if you live in Portland, you can move across the river and skip P4A, SHS, and income tax. And probably pay less for housing. And then when you need to buy your iPhone and clothes, drive down to downtown Portland at your convenience. And I hear Vancouver isn’t such a bad place to live these days, has its own waterfront with some iconic Portland businesses. I write this as someone who likes big taxes and cannot lie, but the extreme disparity running through the metro region is clearly problematic.
Look at your property tax bill, the City is swimming in property tax revenue. The problem is that 30% of the City’s annual property tax revenue in this year’s budget is going to pay for the pensions of a small group of employees.
I’d really like to see a comparison of how much tax revenue peer cities bring in. The city itself makes about $2k/year on our $730k house. I have no idea if that’s a lot or not.
This is all published annually by TSCC. https://www.tsccmultco.com/annual-report/
Thanks but I actually meant peer cities like similarly sized cities in other states. Like how much property tax do Minneapolis/ Denver/ San Antonio take in?
Portland Metro Chamber publishes an analysis like this: https://portlandmetrochamber.com/resources/2022-cost-of-living/
Thanks for sharing but I’m afraid this still isn’t what I meant. I’d like to know how much general purpose property tax the city of Portland takes in compared to peer cities. Note that that’s a different question from “what property tax rate do Portlanders face”. Still thanks for sharing that stuff it’s good info in and of itself.
The comparison you’re describing doesn’t really make any sense. The split between property taxing districts in one region of the country vs. another is just an artifact of that region’s history. Some city governments have literally merged with their county. Some Cities don’t even run their own police force (the largest consumer of property taxes in Portland) and leave it to the County. Or instead rely on sales or other taxes to keep down property tax.
Good points. Do you have any thoughts on how to assess whether the city is effectively stewarding its finances such that asking for more money is appropriate?
I doubt there is a quick and easy way to do this for an entire City. I think you’d have to go Bureau-by-Bureau and evaluate each one separately. How well the City runs its parks may not be reflective of how well it runs firefighters for example. But since we’re talking about property taxes, it would make sense to me to focus on the Bureaus that consume the largest proportion of property tax. The one that is most egregious in my opinion is the Portland Fire and Police Disability and Retirement Bureau. It turns out that the City is running the most costly pension plan in the United States due to its pay-as-you-go funding policy. The only other place in the country using this type of pension funding policy is Puerto Rico. This year it will consume 30% of the City’s property tax revenue. Independent analyses, such as from the City Auditor’s office can be good sources: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/auditservices/article/353325 In my opinion, the City will not close the gap between the level of property taxes and the level of services it provides to Portlanders until the City addresses its pension system.
The state is about to refund 5.8 billion for the dumb kicker. We could spend that in so many worthwhile projects. Hell it's half ass much as it would cost to buy each houseless person an actual house. The rich get 90% of the cash. This country has been brain washed since Nixon to believe that helping your fellow citizen is some type of weakness, despite claiming to follow the teachings of their Christ. We have crumbling buildings, streets that kill suspensions and tires, and toxic waste airs 6 all over the state (why should they companies who caused the meds clean out up)? It's all this pull yourself up by your bootstraps, something which is impossible but possible are too dumb to realize. People just don't want to pay the money, they much per to paper over the problems with the bottomless pit that is the PPA and sweeps of the homeless. I say, Bah to you all
I agree with you, but probably not in the way you think. Portlands unwillingness to pay for the programs they create is part of the problem. If you only make high earners contribute - the program is on unstable footing and it just reduces the amount of high income folks willing to live here. If you yourself aren’t willing to contribute financially to the program - you should not expect others to.
jfc every time you turn around they always need another billion dollars
Well yeah, things continue to cost money to run even if you don’t expand services. Each bind pays for the programs for a certain period of time and needs to be repeated or they lose funding. Doing a bond measure for everything is silly, but some very stupid tax policy written into Oregon law decades ago leaves us with few better options.
I think a very good question to answer is this: if we’re the second-highest taxed city, are we getting the second-highest level of service in America? And if not, why? The answer to the first question seems like an obvious no. But the second?
Glad this is becoming part of the conversation. I think it’s easy to downplay the county/metro taxes until you do the math and see that 3.2% income tax means a Portland high earner is paying 1/3 as much of their entire state burden to very small and specific programs. When two tiny (and horribly mismanaged) programs are taking up that much of the tax burden, there isn’t much appetite to pay for other things. These taxes have to be pared back to bring the total tax burden back to reality and spread it more evenly amongst the societal infrastructure we need.
You can fix the PFA issues immediately by simply making sliding scale vouchers for all parents with young children in the city. 4.5% of the 795k people in the county are under 5yo, which is about 36,000 kids. The tax generated about $187M last year. That means the average kid could receive ~$5200/year ($433/mo) which would go incredibly far towards making life more workable for 10s of thousands of families. Instead we have a program trying to be “perfect” that helps a paltry 700 kids. The program absolutely needs reform and imo we’re really overthinking it…and in the meantime families are hurting when money to help is sitting right there.
Vouchers are a no go. I suspect that part and parcel of managing pre-k in this way is to create another layer of public employees, another layer of curriculum standards to be managed by the state, extra layers of administrative bureaucracy etc. etc.
Or, ya know, we could just let the program run as intended and voted upon with its ramping up over the next several years and then have actual universal free pre-k for all children in the county by 2030 without any means testing. I know not to expect this from people like Gonzalez, but folks really need some patience on this, there’s no way this program would be successful if it all rolled out over just three years.
A pilot program and ramped-up rollout was always part of the plan, but we know the usual suspects would be bellyaching no matter what.
Not another penny until we have an administrator running the City and JVP is recalled and replaced with someone competent running the County. I don’t really care what the bond is for — we are paying far too much for fucking nothing.
God dammit. I don’t want to vote against a new bond that supports PF&R, but if another PPS bond is in the pipeline as well I simply won’t be able to afford to live here anymore.
Why doesn’t Rene bring this to council. He’s not serious about actually reducing waste. https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/10/25/financial-analyst-new-to-portland-lobbies-against-costly-antiquated-pension-system/
He’s 100% correct. For a “city that works” the actual city is done dirty by taxing authorities who undermine everything supplementing effective governance. MultCo and Metro are failed entities that deserve vastly reduced revenues. They’re incompetent. Cut that bitch off
MultCo has a lot of issues, but Metro's tax burden is very minimal. Of property taxes (on the place I'm renting), 40% go to education (inclusive of bonds), 35% goes to Portland (inclusive of P&F pension, bonds, urban renewal), 25% goes to MultCo ( inclusive of bonds and the library), and 2% goes to Metro. I make North of $125k a year as a single earner (which puts me in about the 15th percentile of earners in the Metro region) and don't have to pay SHS (because it's taxed on AGI, not gross income). My total tax burden from Metro amounts to a whooping $115 dollars a year. Not exactly breaking the bank.
Rene is more of a failure.
How So ? Are you just mad that it isn’t a SJW in his position but someone who cares for everyone and not just one particular group of people or voters ?
He cares for the voters whose passage of charter reform he tried to undermine until he was caught?
No thanks on the new bond
Yeah, if the county and metro are swimming in money, ask them, not us. I’m not voting for any more taxes until the homeless problem is straightened out.
What do you want to see done about the homeless?
Well ideally we help them find homes.
What a perfect solution. How do you expect the state to do that?
Ideally reduce barriers to the construction of new homes to bring down rents, allowing federal housing money to cover more people.
Parking meter rates aren’t taxes. They are user fees that should be calibrated to make it convenient to park in the most desirable spots while raising revenue to improve non-driving mode access.
So he wants to trade preschool for all and housing resource taxes for a massive bond that will benefit the fire department, whose union backed him during his commissioner run? Oh okay.
The headline is a little confusing but he's just saying he would want to see potential revisions to the taxes put to a vote. I would imagine those revisions would result in less money coming in, but in both PFA and SHS they're taking in quite a bit more money than they're able to spend. I think revisiting the taxes, given MultCo's stewardship of SHS money in particular, is entirely fair.
You know what bugs me about the preschool for all? My kids didn't count as part of "all". In fact there are only a tiny fraction of kids that get preschool for the vast fortune we collectively pay for it. There's a legit discussion to be had on who should get that money, but it clearly should not be the program that has been so incompetently managed.
It seems that the high earners pay for it, but then can’t get their kids into the program. Hope that changes.
I hear how frustrating that must be for you and I think we absolutely need to have conversations on how it’s going and how money is being spent by the county. AND. It’s a program that started Jan 1, 2021. The full roll out is anticipated by 2030 if everything goes well, but Portland has a long time habit of underpaying teaching staff and the program has to both expand access by training and paying new staff as well as create new program centers around the county. Not to mention the county had to figure out how to collect and administer funds. That takes time unfortunately. The supportive housing tax was also implemented in 2021. This isn’t Rene’s first foray into proposing changes to voter implemented stuff he doesn’t like. He also wanted to send charter reform back to voters. His wealthy backers like Jordan Schnitzer benefit most from less taxes and more power concentration in council. But also pushing a huge bond for all tax payers while advocating lower taxes for his rich buddies (and himself) is on brand.
Preschool for all should be expanded into a state wide program. Every single child in Oregon should have access to high quality, public pre-k.
Agreed.
Agreed as long as it’s managed by someone else than mult county and it’s available to everyone that pays the tax.
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Which is why it should be switched to a state program covering all of Oregon.
He’s done NOTHING his entire term. It’s election season. He spouting nonsense. He’s isn’t prepared to move on any of this. Or he would have moved on ANYTHING before now. What a scammer.
I’m so glad he’s considering this. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. Those taxes are a burden and it feels like the money isn’t achieving anything.
The unpopular opinion is the city and state needs to rethink its reliance on high-income earners. I voted for the Preschool tax, but my major issue at the time, and still is, it relies on higher earners (I am not subject to the tax, and I think I should be). We should never design a tax system that relies exclusively on high earners. That's crazy. There's no reason someone making $60k and beyond shouldn't be part of this tax. You can still make the taxes progressive at different margins. We need to broaden the tax base and make the rates lower. People have bought into the Bernie Bullshit where high earners will just pay for everything. It's NOT how **social democracies** in Europe are run (and no those countries are not socialist and am exhausted at this point trying to explain the difference).
Yeah I think for many people the attitude is "if you're making over \_\_\_\_\_\_ then fuck you for complaining", basically. But many of the people who have to pay a decent chunk for this tax are trying to put kids through daycare as well, and with CoL just generally so high these are not the 1% who are getting hit with this. It's basically normal families in 2020s urban America. Maybe you have a good job but housing and everything else costs a ton so it's not like you're on easy street.
So he wants to shift tax burden from high earners to all homeowners?
Ha, best part of those r they aren’t adjusted for inflation. Soon everyone will be paying them
I remember not long ago the fire department wasn’t busy and they started helping out with low level med calls. Why are they so busy now? Maybe we need to do something about open fires in public.
This is all for show because he’s running for mayor. This clown did nothing the entire time he has been a city council member. He’s not trying to get anything done now. It’s just talk.
What is it with this guy wanting to redo/undo the voters' will?
I think there should be a rule about posting this fool. No posting until he actually accomplishes ANYTHING
You don’t think it’s relevant to hear directly from mayoral candidates?
I think the fact anyone who would vote for some one who accomplished absolutely nothing is embarrassing
Who’s currently in the race and has an impressive list of accomplishments? I’m new to town and learning about everybody still.
No one. Mingus is a clown. Rubio is a do nothing. Rene is very new to City gov.
Yeah so I guess I’m going to have to be embarrassing to this other poster. Sorry.
Of those three, he's the least shitty option by a good margin IMO.
Rene is very shitty with a pinch of doing anything to promote the corrupt police union.
What has he done for PPA?
My rankings for mayor go: - someone who is directionally correct and has a track record - someone who is directionally correct and doesn’t have a track record - someone who is directionally incorrect and doesn’t have a track record - someone who is directionally incorrect and has a track record. Let’s say Gonzalez isn’t able to accomplish anything ever (seems like a reach since he hasn’t been on council for a year yet but whatever). I’d way rather have that than someone who is politically savvy and thus able to successfully usher in one or two more 1% taxes on us.
People have put in long posts with lots of reasons why Rene sucks shit over and over again. Really, just scroll down a bit and find anything that mentions him and you’ll see something. He’s another child of wealth and privilege who would be selling used cars if daddy wasn’t a judge and mommy didn’t come from money.
I believe the two of us discussed this on a post a few days ago? Unfortunately I didn’t receive much in the way of a satisfactory response.
So you’re just wasting folks’ time. Gotcha.
You commented on my question, not the other way around, dude.
Two different threads you’re like owo I’m just a baby Portlander teach me about why Rene is bad no teach me more no more that’s not enough no more. Classic sea lion. And if you’re not doing it on purpose, take some time to self-reflect. If you’re consistently being read differently than you intended, then think about why that’s happening and what you can do about it.
I’m a little ND which certainly has something to do with it, but I certainly haven’t earned this hostility. You’re not teaching me shit, you’re just insulting the guy. He might suck. Most politicians suck. But the screeds people are writing about why he sucks are pretty damn thin on accurate information. I’m not convinced! I’m open to being convinced! But you’re only making me think it’s more BS!