Cook Medical shelves Midwest expansion plans

Cook Medical Inc. had been planning to open five new manufacturing plants over the next five years in small communities around the Midwest, including Indiana, but has shelved those plans because of the hit it will take from a new U.S. tax on medical devices.

The Bloomington-based medical device maker estimates it will pay between $20 million and $30 million once the tax takes effect in January, Pete Yonkman, executive vice president of strategic business units at Cook Medical, said this week.

Read more at Indianapolis Business Journal Read More......

A Tax Unlike Any Other

Chief Justice John Roberts ruled Thursday that Barack Obama used “magic words” to characterize a multi-billion dollar tax increase on middle and low income earners as a “penalty.”

“‘Magic words or labels’ should not ‘disable an otherwise constitutional levy,’” he wrote, citing a 1992 sales tax case. “This process yields the essential feature of any tax: it produces at least some revenue for the Government … $4 billion per year by 2017.”

The 5-4 ruling upholding Obama’s chief legislative achievement undermines the president’s claim that he would never raise taxes on Americans making less than $250,000 per year.

Read more at the Washington Free Beacon Read More......

The One-Termer We've Been Waiting For

In February of 2009, President Obama​ went on the Today Show to discuss a variety of issues, including his plan to turn the economy around. When asked about the consequences of failure for his presidency, he replied with unusual frankness: "I will be held accountable.… If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition."

Read more at American Spectator Read More......

Do We Need a National Strategy on Manufacturing?

JEC Hearing: Manufacturing in the USA: Why We Need a National Manufacturing Strategy?

Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee (JEC), chaired by Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) will hold a hearing titled, “Manufacturing in the USA: Why We Need a National Manufacturing Strategy?,” on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 at 10:15 am. The hearing will explore recent progress in the manufacturing sector and examine strategies and policies that will further bolster U.S. manufacturing growth in the future. Recent growth in manufacturing has played a key role in the economic recovery. Economic activity in the manufacturing sector has increased for 22 consecutive months and manufacturing employment has rebounded from its low, adding almost 250,000 jobs since December 2009. Read more at Jec.senate.gov...

Hasn't government done enough already to drive manufacturing off-shore? --bc Read More......

IBD: Don't Diss Small Biz

INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY, 08/25/2010 - Employment: We try not to comment on opinions expressed on our own op-ed page, but Wednesday's On The Left column asserting that small businesses are not major job-creators mustn't go unanswered. ∴ 'The myth of small business as the engine of job creation is largely that — a myth," Ruth Marcus wrote in support of higher taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year. "Small businesses create new jobs when they start and take off; they also lose jobs when they crash and burn." ∴ With all due respect to Marcus, who is syndicated through the Washington Post Writers Group, we're in deeper trouble than we thought if this is what passes for conventional wisdom in our nation's capital. ∴ It's bad enough that President Obama, and even the U.S. Small Business Administration, low-ball the number of new jobs created by small businesses. Both put it at around two-thirds, when the real number, we believe, is around 85%. Read more at IBD... Read More......

Could Nike swoosh into Idaho?

IDAHO STATESMAN, 2/20/2010 by Dan Popkey - Nike founder Phil Knight is hopping mad at $727 million in tax increases on corporations and the wealthy in Oregon. Idaho leaders long to catch their rich neighbor's eye. ∴ Idaho has wooed Nike before - a revelation offered by Lt. Gov. Brad Little, who salivates at the prospect of landing one of the world's best-known brands. ∴ "Phil Knight was up front: Don't change the tax code, and if you do, we're going to do something," Little said. Knight hasn't expressed interest yet, Little said. "But we're gonna call him." Read more at the Idaho Statesman... Read More......

Nike Co-Founder Speak out Against 66 & 67

Published in the Benton Co. Republicans 1/17/2010 e-Newsletter [Excerpts from Phil Knight, co-founder and chairman of Nike, who wrote a guest column in the Oregonian on January 16, 2010] - “Measures 66 and 67 should be labeled ‘Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law II’. They will allow us to watch a state slowly killing itself,” said Phil Knight, co-founder and chairman of Nike. ∴ Knight points out that Nike is now the only Fortune 500 company left in Oregon. Headquarters for other big companies that used to be in Oregon (The First National Bank, U.S. Bank, Pacific Power, Willamette Industries, Georgia-Pacific, Jantzen, White Stag, G.I. Joes, Monaco Coach, and Meier and Frank have fled Oregon. They are now headquartered elsewhere, are controlled by non-Oregonians or no longer exist. ∴ “We are way too anti-business. [Measures 66 and 67] are anti-business, anti-success, anti-inspirational, anti-humanitarian, and most ironically, in the long run, they will deprive the state of tax revenue, not increase it. ∴ There are words to describe what we are doing with 66 and 67: It is called a death spiral.” Read More......

WSJ: Oregon at the Tax Crossroad

Published in the Benton Co. Republicans 1/17/2010 e-Newsletter - “The battle in Oregon [over Ballot Measures 66 & 67] is a case study in the political drama now unfolding in many states. It’s about whether a state’s wealth belongs to its public employee unions or to everyone." [Snip] “The public unions are the primary drivers behind the Oregon tax hike campaign. In recent weeks, national powerhouses AFSCME and the SEIU have poured close to $1 million into the state campaign to secure passage." [Ed.note: with a new “Yes” mailer in my mail box nearly every day for two weeks, I thought the figure was $multi-million. These unions are trying to buy the election!] "Oregon’s public employees have one of the sweetest deals in America. Their average pay is about one-third higher than that of private Oregon workers, and Oregon public Employees don’t have to pay anything toward their health-care benefits." [Snip] “Now Oregon has reached a crossroads. If Oregon enacts these tax hikes to fund its rising public payroll after a severe recession and amid a slow recovery, we’ll revisit the state in the future to see how many private workers are still there to pay the taxes.” --Excerpts from “Oregon at the Tax Crossroad”, Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2010 Read More......

Letter: Wake up and look at facts about M66 and 67 tax increases

CORVALLIS GAZETTE-TIMES/LETTERS, 1/15/2010 by Lou Copes - Economists have estimated these permanent tax increases would cost 70,000 Oregonians their jobs and the only jobs higher taxes would save are public employee jobs. ∴ The tax increases would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2009, and no money to cover this tax increase has been with held from Oregonians' paychecks during all of 2009. ∴ Small businesses would be forced to lay off their workers, reduce wages and benefits, or close their doors. ∴ We should not send more money to Salem until state government can get its spending under control. ∴ The state already had $1 billion in extra cash reserves to spend with out enacting $733 million in tax increases. ∴ The Legislature refused to listen. Voters have rejected income tax increases twice before, but the legislature keeps coming back for more. NO MEANS NO!

Lou Copes
Corvallis Read More......

Whose Ox? Vote NO on 66 & 67

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Letter: Advocates for M66 and 67 are playing games with priorities

CORVALLIS GAZETTE-TIMES/Opinion, 1/7/2009 by John H. Detweiler - The Oregon Legislature is playing "Washington Monument" with the voters. ∴ There is an old tale that circulates in federal budgeting circles that when the U.S. Park Service doesn't receive enough money from the Congress, the Park Service closes the Washington Monument and tells the tourists to go to Capital Hill and complain to their senators and representatives who will hopefully - from the Park Service point of view - give money to the Park Service. ∴ We keep hearing that if measures 66 and 67 do not pass, the Legislature will have to make some very painful adjustments to the budget in February. ∴ Had the most important items been funded by taxes in place and the least important items funded by the new taxes imposed with HB3406 and HB2649 - measures 66 and 67, there would be no adjustments to make. The least important items would just not be funded, and the Legislature wouldn't have a problem.

John H. Detweiler
Corvallis Read More......

Oregonian: Wrong time, wrong tax hikes: Vote no on Measures 66, 67

OREGON Live, 1/2/2010, by the Oregonian Editorial Board - Of all times, of all things, the Democrats in the Oregon Legislature chose now, in the throes of one of the worst recessions in history, to make business an enemy. They chose this moment to pit business against schools, the private sector against public unions, employers against the jobless.

The two referrals on the Jan. 26 special election ballot -- Measure 66 and Measure 67 -- insist that Oregonians pick a side, to accept one lousy, harmful choice or the other. No, we won't do it. You shouldn't, either.

It didn't have to come to this. The Democrats who control the Legislature could have approved a modest and mostly temporary package of business tax increases with the full support of the Oregon Business Association, which represents many of the state's largest and most public-minded corporations.

Instead, Democrats bent to the demands of the most liberal members of their House caucus and approved an unwise and ill-timed package of corporate and personal tax increases that has infuriated virtually every business group and commercial sector in Oregon.

The Democrats who hold a supermajority of seats in the Legislature could have sent to voters a proposal to reform the tax kicker and allow the state to build a strong and durable rainy day fund to avert future revenue crises and address the most glaring problem with Oregon's system of public finance, its volatility.

Instead, the Democrats buried kicker reform and chose to fill a large hole in the budget by tacking more onto Oregon's already high personal income taxes -- exacerbating the top-heavy volatility of the state's tax system. The self-described progressives in the House caucus further insisted that income tax increases on wealthier Oregonians -- mostly business owners and professionals, otherwise known as employers -- be permanent, not levied just long enough to get the state through its budget crisis.

The supporters of the tax measures bristle now at any suggestion of class warfare, but they are spending millions of dollars on advertisements claiming that the measures are not about you, but about them -- those lucky few rich Oregonians not paying their "fair share." They don't bother to explain how paying one of the nation's highest income taxes amounts to skating on one's responsibilities.

This is ugly stuff, at an especially ugly time in Oregon. People are suffering, business is hurting, plunging tax revenues have ripped a $727 million hole in the state budget. There were, of course, no easy, pain-free and non-controversial ways for the Legislature to fill that hole and protect schools, public safety and other essential services.

But there were, and still are, better ways than Measures 66 and 67. Oregon doesn't have to tack a permanent increase onto the income tax that lands on the very people Oregon most needs to invest more in their businesses and their employees. It doesn't have to replace the absurdly low $10 minimum corporate tax with a new scheme that would force businesses with high sales volumes but no profits to pay up to $100,000 a year in minimum taxes even as they fight to cut their losses and hold on to as many jobs as they can.

Oregon doesn't have to further polarize its politics at the very moment the state ought to be pulling together to solve its very serious problems. Senate President Peter Courtney and House Speaker Dave Hunt keep telling us that they did everything possible last session to accommodate the interests and needs of Oregon business. Why, then, is there more anger and hostility in Oregon between business and labor, and between business and state government, today than at any time in recent memory?

The public debate over the tax measures has been framed by both sides as though there is no middle ground. You're either for business, or against it. For schools, or against them. The Democrats shouldered aside the Oregon Business Association, the Portland Business Alliance and other business leaders who have stood up, time and again, for schools, higher education and other essential government services. Now moderate, pro-education business leaders have been pushed into the same camp with the anti-tax, anti-government conservatives whose only interest is to slash the size of state government and spend ever less on schools and universities.

Oregon business leaders don't belong there. The ones we've spoken to in recent weeks have no stomach for the $727 million in cuts that Democratic leaders are promising if voters reject Measures 66 and 67. They have pledged to go to Salem during the upcoming February session to push for a smaller, mostly temporary package of tax increases that would help the state limp through its current crisis.

No one should be naive about the prospects for another significant tax package in the February session. Legislators would return to Salem just days after the election in no mood to consider more tax hikes. Yet Oregon's corporate taxes would remain low compared to those in most states and could and should be carefully and strategically increased, just as business leaders offered last year and say they would be willing to do again.

Yes, this is the start of an election year. Yes, Republican legislators would be reluctant to offer any votes in support of another tax plan. Yes, Democrats would not be inclined to run up the hill alone, yet again, waving the banner of higher taxes. And yes, any substantial tax increase would likely prompt anti-tax groups to pursue another referral to voters.

But the anticipated budget cuts would be deep and harmful. It's one thing to insist now that failure of Measures 66 and 67 must be met by cuts, and only cuts, and another to actually find the votes in the Legislature to slice into the bone of Oregon's public services. The Legislature could tap a few hundred million dollars still held in reserve, but it's likely that lawmakers still would be confronted with a deficit of $500 million or more. Schools, community colleges and universities make up more than half of the state budget; they could not and would not be fully shielded from the cuts.

Yes, that's a disturbing prospect. But such awful choices were not the only ones available to the Legislature last session, and they will not be the only choices in the February session. There will be other revenue options, albeit much smaller than this tax package. There will be myriad ways to reduce state spending, and some are less destructive to essential services than others.

The bottom line, though, is that the Legislature can do better than Measures 66 and 67, whether in the February session or in 2011 and beyond. Lawmakers can work closely with business to craft a careful, responsible increase in corporate taxes. They can refer kicker reform to Oregon voters and explain, this time with the help of business leaders, why it's vital that this state never again be caught with such a volatile tax system and so little in reserve.

Those are the measures that Oregonians should be preparing to vote on in the coming days. Instead, the Legislature has presented voters with accept-them-or-else tax increases that strike at the very businesses and employers that Oregon is depending on to lead an economic recovery, start hiring again and pay the wages that support state services.

That's not what Oregon needs. Vote no on 66 and 67. Read More......

Help defeat job-killing taxes in January!

What you can do to help:

1. A few hours of your time in the next few weeks can help save up to 70,000 Oregon jobs! Please visit the Oregon Republican Party's NO on 66 & 67 Victory Phone Bank and sign up to help today!
2. Write letters to the editor. Please contact us if you need help.
3. Learn more about Oregon Measures 66 & 67 at Oregon Republican Party Online and Oregonians Against Job-Killing Taxes
4. Vote early and vote NO on Measures 66 & 67! Read More......