Now, since I rarely do sports stories here, I need to tell you my qualifications to be commenting on NFL football.  I watched 10 minutes of a football game this season.  In a doctor’s waiting room, and it may have been a college game.  I don’t know.  I just looked it up to see whether the Super Bowl had been played yet this year.  It hasn’t.  In other words, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Nevertheless, let me tell you this:  The management of the Seahawks thinks that somehow they are going to take a wildly successful college football coach and turn him into a wildly successful NFL football coach.  For the sake of the team, I hope it works out for them.  But as a student of history, I have a story to tell.

Once upon a time, there was a college football coach named Dennis Erickson.  He was a great college coach, taking Idaho to the I-AA playoffs, turning Washington State University’s team from a mediocre team into a bowl team, and winning multiple national titles with the University of Miami.  Yeah, that Dennis Erickson.  So, some team called the Seattle Seahawks hired him, and he failed with them miserably.  Yup.  So, he went back to college football, took Oregon State University from being perennial losers and turning them into a bowl team, and one that could win into the future.  So another NFL team stole him away (the San Francisco 49ers) and, predictably, he did miserably again.

There’s a moral to this story.  A great college coach doesn’t necessarily make a great NFL coach.  And all too often, history tends to repeat itself if we don’t bother to learn it’s lessons.  I, for one, won’t be holding my breath.  But I will still wish Mr Carroll luck.

Not that I care.

My only claim to fame is that one of their contributors is writing a series of articles on Oregon Ballot Measures 66 & 67, and included some views from local newspapers and bloggers.  About halfway down the page in THIS blog post, my blog got a quick mention.  Yay!

OK, big deal.  And just to show how insignificant this is, I show that only two people have clicked on the link to my blog in the article.  Oh well. I’m actually happier that others care that these measures pass.

I gues I’m just glad that someone actually reads my words sometimes……

We have a progressive tax system.  This means that those with a greater means to pay the tax will pay more, and those who need every dime of their income to survive will pay the least, as a percentage of their respective incomes.  Is this fair?  Let me quote one source:

¹As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ²He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ³“I tell you the truth,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
– Luke 21:1-4

Even Jesus understood that a couple of pennies might have meant the difference between eating or not to the very poor, while the rich would be expected to contribute a greater percentage of their income to the community.  In our world, of course, most of us live somewhere in between.  However, I generally do not see it as a particular problem that those with greater means contribute more than those with less to live on.

The amount of tax that we are talking about, while they are certainly a material amount, are really not an incredible sum, either.  This is true, especially if we consider the public services that we will continue to benefit from if we support them.

Please vote YES on Oregon Ballot Measure 66.

These arguments make it look like any tax increase would require the business to directly offset their tax expenses by cutting labor expenses.  Perhaps the company could consider cutting other expenses.  Perhaps they could find a way to sell additional product to recoup these small costs.  One way or another, the only way anyone will lost their jobs is if a vengeful company owner chooses to do it just to be vindictive.  Measure 67 will not cause anyone to lost their jobs.

On the other hand, if Oregon Ballot Measures 66 & 67 do pass, the direct result will be that it will save jobs at our company.  I will give you the specific effects of what will happen to myself and the people who work with me in a moment.  First, I will tell you what happens if these ballot measures do not pass.

A vote against these measures will cut funding to the services that receive funding through Oregon’s General Fund.  The vast majority of this money goes to pay for education, for public safety, and for human services.  For education, this means that we will be cutting funding and services for everything from our young children who deserve the best possible education, to colleges that will be training many of us for the jobs that we will take as the recession fades.  For public safety, this means that our overworked police, courts, and prisons will have less to work with to keep us safe.  For human services, this means that the poor and the disabled, the most vulnerable of our citizens, will have even fewer services available to them.

Since my company deals in something that would suffer if the human services part of the budget is cut, I will start there.  Certainly, similar arguments can be made in education and public safety.  But we will start here:

If the human services budget is cut, funding will be cut for healthcare for those who cannot afford it.  Those who are so disabled that they cannot function in society will suffer.  Programs that help the elderly continue to live independently so we don’t incur higher costs by institutionalizing them, will be left by the wayside.  This will mean that some number of the caregivers and other workers who keep these programs going will lose their jobs.  If Measures 66 & 67 fail to get a YES vote, these care-providing people will lose their jobs.

This is not a theoretical exercise where a $30 million corporation threatens to fire a worker because they had to pay $30,000 in state taxes this year, simply because they are not willing to admit right now that there are other ways to deal with it.  This is about the many people who will lose their jobs if these businesses do not pay their fair share in taxes.  Let me give you a specific example — my company.

At the moment, I am involved in a business that provides transportation services, and the majority of that business is something we call medical transportation.  Specifically, we transport people with disabilities to medical appointments, social service programs, and other places that they need to go.  A typical passenger, due to either age or disability, does not have the ability to get themselves where they need to go, and do not have the ability to use public transportation by themselves.

We do have many customers who pay for transportation themselves, occasionally their fee is paid by an insurance company or a charitable organization.  However, our largest customer is the State of Oregon.  Through Medicare/the Oregon Health Plan, the poor, the elderly, and the disabled have a way to get to the places that they otherwise cannot get to.

These trips are taken for a variety of reasons.  One of those is trips to the hospital, to a doctor appointment, or regular trips for things like chemotherapy or kidney dialysis.  Another is for trips to work or to training programs, so they can remain part of the community and continue to work.  Finally, for some selected people, the state provides assistance for trips to the grocery store or to outings that will help them to remain active in the community.  In this small way, keeping people independent keeps them from being more of a burden on the system that would otherwise have to provide a higher level of care.

If these ballot measures do not pass, one of the smaller budget items that will be cut is all of the non-medical trips under the Medical Transportation Program.  From the standpoint of the disabled person, they would now be essentially home-bound.  They would place needs on other parts of the system.  But if we think of this from the standpoint of the service provider, namely us, we will certainly have fewer drivers working for us.  If the state pays for fewer trips, there will be less work.  Either everyone’s income will be cut significantly, or there will be fewer drivers working at our company.

The number of positions lost will not be evident until the situation works itself out.  But I can promise you that if Measures 66 & 67 do not pass, there will be fewer people working at our company.  This is not a threat, rather, it is economics.

This is not only about myself or the medical transportation drivers.  It is about nurses and other caregivers.  It is about teachers and school employees.  It is about the police and corrections officers and court workers who keep us safe.  It is about many working Oregonians.

Please vote YES on Oregon Ballot Measure 66.

Please vote YES on Oregon Ballot Measure 67.

In these times of recession, this is what we can do to save jobs for Oregonians.

The following is a summary of the new tax structure:

Under current law, corporations conducting business in Oregon pay $10 minimum income tax; tax has not changed since 1931. Some corporations pay a profits tax of 6.6%. All other businesses pay no minimum or profits tax. Beginning in tax year 2009, the Measure increase $10 minimum corporate tax to $150; some corporations with over $500,000 in Oregon revenues will pay minimum tax of approximately 0.1% of Oregon revenues. Limits tax to $150 for S corprations and partnerships. Sole proprietors are not impacted by this measure. Raises tax rates some corporations pay on profits by 1.3 percentage points until 2011; increase then drops to 1 percentage point and as of 2013, applies only to profits over $10 million. Corporations pay minimum tax or profits tax, not both. Increases filing fees by $50 for Oregon businesses, by $225 for out of the state business. Raises estimated $255 million to provide funds currently budgeted for education, health care, public safety, other services. Because some state money brings in federal matching funds, Oregon will likely receive more federal money if measure passes than if the Measure fails. Other provisions.

Currently, the majority of corporations in Oregon pay the minimum corporate tax of $10.  Yes, they pay ten dollars a year to the state.  This proposal, that minimum tax would go up to just $150.  To put this tax into perspective, $10 probably is not enough to pay the clerk at the Department of Revenue to open the envelope that the tax return comes in and enter it into the DOR computer.  $10 might have been a lot of money in 1931 when the rate was last set, but it is a pittance now.

An additional tax is proposed for businesses with over $500,000 in Oregon gross sales.  That tax would amount to only 0.1% of sales.  Washington State has had a similar tax (the Business & Occupation Tax) which is quite similar.  Washington’s version has a rate about 10-times as much, and applies to all businesses, not just those with over $500,000 in sales.  In all, Oregon’s tax seems quite reasonable, considering the good that it will do for the state’s economy.

Many businesses have claimed in arguments against this measure that the tax will be so burdensome that they will have to lay-off employees.  Those are harsh and attention-getting words at a time when the unemployment rate is so high.  However, for the relative amounts that are under consideration for each business, it seems that there would be other places where these amounts could be made up.

This tax will not be a burden at all for any real business in Oregon.  For the difference that this will make for the majority of us, the residents of Oregon, the benefit will more than make up for the small amounts of taxes involved.

I really don’t consider this a significant increase in taxes.  For the vast majority of Oregon corporations, this is simply an effort to bring the nominal fees up to something that is not so low as to be silly.  This measure will bring needed money into the state treasury to support the services that we need, while being an inconvenience to nearly none of us.  I urge you to vote YES on Oregon Ballot Measure 67.

In any case, thanks to the last 18 years of tax cuts and government tightening their belts, we are now enjoying the lowest taxes that we have seen in decades.  Federal tax rates are down.  Oregon State tax rates have not gone up in decades.  In both cases, our actual tax rates have decreased thanks to a myriad of additional tax deductions and credits that we now have at our disposal.

In these times of shrinking state revenues, during the worst recession we have had in 80 years, we still demand quite a few services from our government.  We demand law enforcement and prisons.  We want to keep our road, rail, and air transportation infrastructure in good repair.  Indeed, growth requires that we make further investments in these areas.  We still require social services for the neediest and most frail members of our society.  We need to continue educating our children and supporting the higher education system, that will allow us to continue to thrive in the future.

Actually, thanks to the poor economy, the need for these services is greater than ever.  We need education to prepare us for new jobs.  We need services to help get us through these rough times.  We need to maintain what we have, so that we do not have to spend more to replace this infrastructure later from lack of maintenance.  This is exactly the time that we need to fully fund the programs that we have asked our government to handle for us.

If we are to be responsible people in our state and our community, it is important that we do our share to continue the programs that benefit all of us.  This is why it is necessary to go the extra step and ensure that these things are properly funded.  It is necessary to vote YES on Oregon Ballot Measure 66.

The measure is designed to not affect those who could be harmed the most.  Only individuals making over $125,000 in income or couples making over $250,000 would be affected by this measure.  It is worth noting that this figure is the remainder after deductions from income are accounted for.  The people who can least afford to pay anything extra will not be asked to do so.  Those who presumably might have a bit to spare will be asked to dig deeper this time.  This measure does not take away the money that anyone will need to feed or house themselves.

I am not fond of paying higher taxes.  But I do understand that it would be irresponsible to stop paying for the services that some people need, just at the time that they will need them the most.  This modest proposal is what we need right now to maintain what we have at the state level,  especially during these times when we need all the help we can get.

Please join me in supporting this worthy proposal.  Please vote YES on Oregon Ballot Measure 66.

Now that this minor detail is out of the way, I need to tell you about something that I feel rather strongly about.  The new year is 2010.  That is pronounced TWENTY-TEN.  I know that most of us have not been calling the last few years twenty-oh-nine and so forth.  We have used two-thousand-and-nine.  Yes we have.  But now that it is 2010, it is time to get this right.

I understand that the year after two-thousand was two-thousand-and-one.  I said it that way too.  Do you know why?  Because Arthur C Clarke wrote a book in 1948 that was later turned into a movie.  You know the one.  2001: A Space Odyssey.  It was good enough that we all called the year two-thousand-and-one.  And that’s OK.  But it is time to grow up now.  The year 2000 is not some futuristic date in the future anymore.  It is so ten years ago now.  It’s time to say it right.

This year is twenty-ten.  Next year will be twenty-eleven.  It is so much shorter and concise than the two-thousand-and-ten that I keep hearing people say.  We have been using it already.  Every reference to the 2010 Olympics (coming to Cascadia!) has been twenty-ten.  When we speak of the upcoming Olympics in London and in Rio de Janerio, they have always said twenty-twelve and twenty-sixteen.  In most future references to these dates, we have tended to use twenty-something, rather than two-thousand-and-something.

We should also follow the conventions that we have always used.  I was born in nineteen-sixty-two, not nineteen-hundred-and-sixty-two, nor in one-thousand-nine-hundred-and-sixty-two.  Why did we change?

You don’t believe me?  Well, here are some dates that you learned in school:

• The year of US Independence?  Seventeen-seventy-six.
• Just to be equal, the Creation of Canada?  Eighteen-sixty-seven.
• Pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock?  Sixteen-twenty.
• Columbus “discovered” “America”?  Fourteen-ninety-two.
• World War II?  Nineteen-forty-one.

So why shouldn’t the year coming up be pronounced twenty-ten?  Oh, wait.  Do we think it is different in years divisible by ten or something?  Then how about this (if you were really paying attention in school):

• Leif Ericson and the Vikings really discover America?  Ten-oh-five.  1005.  Back in school, we never said one-thousand-and-five.  Ten-oh-five.

So, with all of this precedent, would it be too difficult to start saying the date correctly as twenty-ten?  Every time I hear it said the other way, it just makes me think that the speaker doesn’t know how to say it right.  So, please say it right.  Twenty-ten.

And, happy new year!

The ferry M/V Coho started working the waters of the Salish Sea in 1959, and since the early 1970’s has been dedicated to the auto ferry run between Port Angeles and Victoria.  Today it is celebrating the 50th anniversary of it’s first run.  Arguably, it is the most important part of the tourism industry in Port Angeles and the Olympic Peninsula, and it is also an important part of the Victoria waterfront.

While the boat is 50 years old, it’s owners and crew has been able to keep it in much better condition than similarly old Washington State Ferries craft.  This is not a hit at WSF crews, they do a fine job (though the state could probably fund them a bit better).  No, this is about one private company that has put a lot of effort and cash into keeping this fine ship going.  They believe that it will be possible to safely get another 20 years of use out of her.

While business has been down lately, like it has been in the rest of the economy, the Coho and its crew still do their part to get visitors across the Strait of Juan de Fuca safely.  It is thought that the ship fills as many as 25% of the hotel rooms in Port Angeles, as well as bringing people from Seattle and beyond into Victoria to visit.  While there are other options for getting to Vancouver Island, the Coho lets you go there with a bit of style, a bit of history, and avoiding some of the busier border crossings on the mainland.

I recommend that anyone with the least interest in this part of Cascadia set aside some time for a trip on the M/V Coho sometime soon.  It is a practical way to get there and it is an important piece of our history.  Consider it a cheap sea cruise.  I believe that you will not be disappointed.

As the big day drew closer, there were more and more signs of the season.  Advertisements for items suitable for holiday gifts increased during September and October.  Christmas decor was up in places before Halloween.  At a 24-hour grocery store that I found myself at after midnight on Halloween, the Christmas candy displays had already replaced those from the day’s holiday.

I think that by Thanksgiving, I had almost had enough of the Christmas season.  There was more to come, though.  It was unavoidable.  Much of the traditions we associate with Christmas were gone, but the marketing was still there.  Somehow, it all felt so empty.  But we went through the motions of Christmas anyway.

Finally, the week of Christmas arrived.  Interactions with my customers went beyond “Thank you and have a great day” and added “and Merry Christmas” too.  We did the duty and wished each other a happy holiday.  We weren’t sure which holiday the other actually celebrated, but we did it anyway.  It is the social norm.

Finally the day arrived.  It went much like every other holiday:  An excuse for a day off.  Or a part of a day off, in any case.

But it was the following day that it really hit me.  After over three months of preparing for the holiday, the actual day came and went mostly as an afterthought.  Except that the next day, we weren’t wishing one another a happy holiday, of any kind, anymore.  Back to normal.  The holiday is gone.

It all makes me want to just wait next year for the week before Christmas to acknowledge it, then go from there.  It might not dilute the experience as much.

So many possibilities.  I’m just wondering who killed Christmas.  Anybody see it out there?