Steve Novick explains the "stampede" of businesses to Oregon

Just kidding, folks: "No, there is not a Vancouver dermatologist named Jim Dunning ..."

The mysterious and elusive Jim Dunning

At BlueOregon, Steve Novick writes a man-bites-dog story of Washington businesses forming a "stampede" to relocate to Oregon:

632 Washington business owners announced today that they were moving their businesses across the river to Oregon, after the Washington Legislature announced plans to increase the Business and Occupation Tax - in effect, a gross receipts tax - on service businesses from 1.5% to 1.8% in order to balance the state budget.

"Many of us started thinking about making this move a few months ago, when we started reading about the Measures 66 and 67 campaign and discovered that Oregon was planning to adopt an alternative minimum tax that looked sort of like the B&O tax, but was only 0.1% or a flat $150," said Vancouver dermatologist Jim Dunning. "We had no idea that before this, Oregon had nothing like the B&O tax at all. Now that Washington's raising the B&O tax even higher, we'd be fools - not just in April but year 'round - to stay in Washington State another minute."

Interesting story ... And all the more interesting because there appears to be no one by the name of Jim Dunning licensed to practice dermatology in the entire State of Washington.

Over at Oregon Business, managing editor Ben Jacklet has dropped the gauntlet to any businesses who claim that Measures 66 & 67 have caused them to relocate out of state.

Once I get such a name, on the record, I promise to explore in great detail the specific reasons behind that person's departure .... I think that would make a great story, but to get started I'll need some proof that people are indeed leaving because of the taxes.

Let's see if Mr. Jacklet turns his attention to report all sides of the story.

Mary Nolan's economic development plan: "Repeat after me, 'Oregon is great for business'"

Oregon House majority leader Mary Nolan has a plan to bring back business to Oregon. It's simple: Just tell people that Oregon is a great place to do business. And then keep repeating it until some business believes it.

Mary Nolan has a reputation in Capitol for being one of the most anti-business Democrats in the building. But now she is belting out a tune from the same hymnal that the rest of the Salem's Democrats are singing from. The tune is, "Oregon is Great for Business."

Oregon is, objectively, a great place to do business. Oregon offers entrepreneurs and business leaders an educated and well-trained workforce; a strong transportation infrastructure; among the nation's most robust, low-cost workers' compensation systems, and, yes, the fifth-lowest business tax burden in the country.

You can expect Mary Nolan to support Oregon's business right around the same time you can expect Osama Bin Laden to deliver Easter Mass.


She names 2 solar cell companies (that have consume copious amounts of tax dollars through the Business Energy Tax Credit). Even the brewery she mentions made it's energy efficiency "investments" because the state's BETC program threw a bucket of money at the brewer.

After that, you get to play buzzword Bingo: solar, family wage jobs, biomass, livability. Remember you get to use clean-tech only once!

Measuring the impacts of Measures 66 and 67

Today, the Alliance of Oregon’s Business Associations announced the launch of a website, OregonTaxResponse.com, which intends to capture and quantify some of the real-life impacts of Measures 66 and 67 on Oregon companies and their employees.

“Businesses are telling us that the tax hikes are resulting in postponed investments, business expansion in states other than Oregon, and loss of employment,” said J.L. Wilson, spokesperson for the Alliance.

To track the employment consequences of Measures 66 and 67, the Alliance has established a web site where Oregonians can record the impact of the legislature’s tax increases.

• Did a business leave the state because of Measures 66 and 67?

• Did a business choose not to locate in Oregon due to the taxes?

• Did an business fire or layoff a certain number of jobs or scrap plans for expansion?

• Did employees experience salary reductions or benefits cuts as a result of these tax increases?

Information gleaned from the website will be used to demonstrate the impacts of tax increases on Oregon employers so that policymakers and legislators have a better grasp of how specific taxes affect Oregon’s economy.

New feature: Oregon businesses that are out of business

We have been given access to a database of businesses coming and going from our great state. The database application is experimental, so there may be some kinks to work out moving forward.

Over on the right hand side, we will list Oregon businesses that are out of business as soon as the information is made available in the database.