I'm still catching up here, but is the column on the first page of todays

[Greyhound]

metro section of The Oregonian http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/1169083524218810.xml?oregonian?ylccsd&coll=7">Nike giveth after Nike taketh away accurate? If so, how is this possible and can it be reversed?

[0rganism]

1. Welcome to Oregon, the Mississippi of the West Coast

How is it possible, you ask? Easy. You just have to (1) buy yourself a few legislators (Oregon is one of five states with no limits on corporate campaigning), (2) threaten municipal and state gov't to relocate your factories/warehouses/corporate HQs unless you get a big tax break (because GATT and NAFTA are your friends), and (3) wave a few low-cost carrots for the locals to convince them that you're really a bunch of kind-hearted community-minded corporate citizens who share the same interests as the people you employ. It works really well.

Can it be reversed? Maybe, in time. Understand, please, that large corporations think nothing of outspending any grassroots or union efforts at containment, taxation, or re-regulation by orders of magnitude in Oregon. The first steps in the other direction are campaign finance reform. Without something sturdy along those lines in place, corporations can and will continue to deliver the shaft to a willing well-carrotted population, while telling voters the stick they feel is from the burdensome "socialist" bureacracy of state and local government.

This is not to say that lack of corporate taxes alone have spelled Oregon's demise. Strangely enough, Oregon's decaying infrastructure and inadequate tax base can be tied primarily to the efforts of one man: Bill Sizemore. Look up the history of him and "Oregon Taxpayers United", his lobbying/activist group, and you will see the background of our current funding fiasco writ large. Measure 5 (1990) and Measure 47 (1996) have done huge damage to government income, and consequently the ability of the government to fund various programs at reasonable levels.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. oh J, you're so cynical...

it's one of the things I like about you.

:hi:

[0rganism]

4. I *wish* it were cynicism

By any objective measure, we NEED campaign finance reform in this state, and a little petition signature regulation wouldn't hurt either.

while I'm not usually one to deny my own cynicism, I hope you don't think less of me for saying so :D

[Generic Brad]

6. Who is Bill Sizemore?

Is he your state level version of Grover Norquist?

[0rganism]

7. good guess - he's very much Grover Norquist's sock puppet

OTU gets plenty of out-of-state funding from Norquist's K-Street project affilliates.

[Stargazer09]

3. That's pretty sad

No wonder the schools in Oregon are suffering so much.

It sounds like we'd be better off with Nike going somewhere else, since they certainly aren't contributing to the state's income.

[Greyhound]

5. I'm sorry to hear this, for a minute I thought I was having a flashback to Arizona

This is exactly the kind of thing they've been doing for decades, giving away the store to get some business and then allowing the business to renege or otherwise screw over the residents.