OK, so this is mostly silly nonsense, but as a Keith Olbermann fan, I've longed for the day when a GOP campaign in Oregon would be called out as one of his trademarked Worst Persons in the Wooooorld!

So, this makes me happy - and I thought I'd share my glee with you. Watch the 49-second video.

The story of Chris Dudley bailing out on Oregon in an attempt to dodge income taxes while playing for the Portland Trailblazers isn't new. But now that Oregon media has begun to scrutinize Dudley on the issue, the plot is definitely beginning to thicken.

Nigel Jaquiss, Willamette Week:

Oregon law requires that anybody with Oregon source income—in this case, Dudley’s Blazers salary—pay income tax to Oregon regardless of where they live. (Dudley says he paid more than $400,000 to Oregon from 1994 to 1998.) But Oregon cannot tax out-of-state residents on other income such as dividends or capital gains earned elsewhere.

Given that Dudley had already played in the NBA for five seasons before he came to Portland, it’s reasonable to assume he would have had some investment income and would have earned money by investing his Portland salary.

Determining residency is not a simple issue, however. “There really are no hard-and-fast rules,” about what constitutes legal residency, says Rosemary Hardin, an Oregon Department of Revenue spokeswoman.

Hardin says her agency considers a number of factors, such as where the center of a taxpayer’s “financial, social and family life” is; which state the taxpayer considers his permanent home and where he comes back to when he’s been away. Other factors such as where a person votes, has a driver’s license or registers his car also come into play.

In other words, if you're a Washington resident and work in Oregon, you have to pay taxes on the money you make at your regular job. But, if you've got income from investments/capital gains (and in Dudley's case, endorsement money), Oregon can't touch it.

And this, dear readers, is where the plot becomes so thick you can chew it.

Basically, it comes down to intent, for the purposes of legal residency. Did Chris Dudley's life revolve around places in Oregon or in Washington?

Jaquiss notes that after joining the Blazers as a free agent in the fall of 1993, Dudley bought a house in Oregon, got an Oregon driver's license, registered his car here and registered as an Oregon voter. In December of the following year he bought his house in Camas, registered his car in Washington and got a Washington driver's license. What's weird though, is he never surrendered his Oregon license. When I moved to Washington in 1987 after college, I got a Washington license, but had to give up my Oregon one to get it. That was in Kitsap County, not Clark County, but I can't understand how the rules would be different for Dudley on that one.

Dudley also never changed his voter registration to Clark County. And Dudley kept a house in Portland, which was actually closer to the Blazers Rose Garden facility and significantly closer to the Hillsboro Airport, where the Blazers flew out for away games. Here's a handy map for perspective (pdf).

It seems quite reasonable to believe that Dudley was spending a lot of time at the Portland house during the NBA season, even though his spokesperson claims that Dudley held on to the house as an "investment". The real question is, was Dudley living in the house at all while he was supposedly living in Camas? Is that enough to keep him from establishing Washington residency? I'm not a legal expert on such matters--and those that are seem to think it's not an easy thing to pin down. Dudley says he moved to Camas to dodge Oregon income taxes, but the murky issues surrounding his actual legal residency are now sparking questions about whether Dudley might actually owe our state a big chunk of change in the form of those very taxes.

As an aside, the comments from Dudley supporters to the Jaquiss piece are rather interesting. There's no real defined reason to vote for him--except that some admire that he'll run out on the state to avoid taxes. Others: it's all about what they think Dudley isn't, without much real substance to it. It's like they're starving for a home-cooked meal but will take the empty calories of KFC because that's what they saw on TV--even though the home-cooked meal is set up on the dining room table.

By Brian Hines of Salem, Oregon. Brian describes himself as "a progressive blogger who has been involved in land use issues for some time." He typically blogs at HinesSight.

Though the statewide threat to the future of Oregon’s farm and forestland posed by ballot Measure 37 was reined in by Measure 49 in 2007, many important local battles to save special places throughout Oregon from large Measure 37 subdivisions, gravel pits and commercial developments have been making their way through the state legal system.

Recently, the Oregon Court of Appeals issued a ruling on the first vested rights case to reach the appelate level from a circuit court. The Yamhill County Board of Commissioners and a circuit court judge had allowed Gordon Cook to go ahead with a 10-lot, 39-acre subdivision on land zoned Agriculture Forestry. Friends of Yamhill County appealed the decision.

(Vesting basically means that a development was either established or substantially constructed and therefore is "grandfathered in" after a change in the law now prohibits that sort of land use. Since Measure 49 stopped large Measure 37 subdivisions, some people who started work before Measure 49 passed have been trying to get vested rights applications approved by county commissions, hearings officers, and/or courts.)

The result: a big win for those who want to keep Oregon green in both the environmental and economic senses, because the best use of valuable farm and forest land is, obviously, to grow crops like wine grapes and trees for products-- not subdivisions. Here's a News-Register story about the ruling.

Wines and Vines lauded the decision, as did David Adelsheim, president of 40,000-case Adelsheim Vineyard, Newberg, founded in 1971. He was moved to comment on the ruling and his statement speaks to how our land use system creates and sustains property rights and values for all Oregonians:

Oregon winegrowers know the importance of preserving prime agricultural land. Oregon’s land use laws are the reason our industry exists today. Without the establishment of Exclusive Farm Use zoning and Oregon’s comprehensive land use system, the hillsides our industry needs to produce the best grapes would have been dotted with housing developments instead of rows of Pinot Noir vines. No visitor would want to come to a wine country filled with rural subdivisions. We need to be able to count on the same protections going forward, to ensure that Oregon’s wines will continue to flourish.

Judge Sercombe penned the decision for the majority. He reversed the decision that was approved by Yamhill County and sent the case back to it. The proposal to build a subdivision is not likely to be approved on remand because the Board cannot ignore the fact that Cook only spent $155,000 on the development.

Cook tried to make the amount he spent look proportionately bigger by claiming that he intended to place mobile homes on the land, even though he had advertised the lots for over $350,000 and homes priced at $1.2 million. The land is on Bald Peak Mountain and boasts views of Oregon’s Cascade Range.

And the county commissioners can no longer pass over a glaring apparent fact that should have stopped the subdivision a long time ago. As I said in another post on this subject:

One big error, which stands a good chance of stopping Cook's vested rights train in its tracks, is that the Board never considered whether Cook was able to construct a ten-home subdivison when he acquired the property (Measure 37 allowed claimants to continue the land use zoning in place when they bought a piece of land.) Apparently county zoning at that time precluded single-family dwellings on Cook's property unless the dwellings were in conjunction with farm use. That's astounding -- that the Yamhill County commissioners would be so uncaring of the law, and/or clueless. Fortunately, the U.S. legal system has safeguards against such political incompetence, as witnessed by the Court of Appeals ruling.

I want to give Ralph Bloemers of the Crag Law Center a big virtual "high five" for his win on this case. He's also done great work for our rural south Salem neighborhood, which has been battling a 43-lot, 217-acre Measure 37 subdivision that threatens existing wells and water rights.

The Crag Law Center got our neighborhood a win in circuit court, and gained an important victory in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, so they're on a roll enforcing the will of the voters as expressed in Measure 49. Many other cases are still in the legal hopper, so stay tuned. As Bloemers said in a post on the Crag web site about the Court of Appeals ruling:

Many people sought to take advantage of Measure 37 and develop large residential subdivisions, commercial developments and gravel mines. These proposals threatened neighboring property rights, water supplies and undermined the efforts of people with more reasonable goals. This decision protects neighboring property owners and preserves Oregon’s valuable agricultural capabilities.

I just got back from Washington DC and the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. Because we were in DC, and because it is a midterm year, the biennial panel on election forecasting got more coverage than usual.

The predictions are pretty grim. John Sides summarizes the results pretty well over at the MonkeyCage. John explains how the forecasts were obtained.

This graphic provides a quick overview of the forecasts:

Kitzhaber is correct. Oregon cannot keep spending our limited resources on the same approaches. He spoke at a news conference yesterday in Portland presenting his bold ideas and recieved almost instant push back from Bob Tierman, state Republican party leader and from the Dudley campaign.

Dudley's spokesman lamely chided Kitzhaber for not being in lock step with current Governor Kulongoski's "reset" budget. Tierman pulled out the predicatable. "thieves and thugs will wonder the streets if we recuce prison spending."

The money quote comes from Kitzhaber. "Dudley's narrative that we can just whack public employees, keep us safe, take care of the vulnerable and educate our kids is poppycock."

Among Kitzhabers ideas are reducing the rising costs in social services and health care; asking all state agency directors to resign and only hire those who will reduce costs, create a single budget and school board for education at every level and rank state services in order of priority, cutting from the bottom of the list first.

I wrote earlier about Dudley's strange proposal to provide college scholarships to Oregon's top 5% in a time of a serious economic crisis. I noted Oregon needs to stop investing in Oregon's problems and start investing in Oregon's future and that means eduction, reductions in public services, looking at state worker compensation and more.

It is time to face Oregon's reality. Kitzhaber is willing to address the "new normal". We face difficult prioritorization and rethinking of our assumptions about state services.

John Kithaber is in Medford today. I can't wait to congratulate him for his courage to address this state's downward spiral.

Today, on 95.5 FM, sports talk radio host (and Oregonian columnist) John Canzano and Portland's Mayor Sam Adams got into a heated discussion about the end of the Portland Beavers in Portland. Since the interview earlier today, they've been 95.5 has been replaying it every hour on the hour.

It's worth a listen. As in his Sunday column, Canzano accused Mayor Adams - and the rest of the city council - of failing to do more to save the Beavers. Mayor Adams argued that "it's a tough value proposition" to justify spending $30 million of additional taxpayer money.

What's my take?

• I'm not a baseball fan, but I'm inclined to support baseball for economic development reasons.

• But, especially in this economy, I'm with Sam - we can't afford $30 million to support Triple-A baseball. (Major league? That may make sense, but that's not what we're talking about.)

• I think it's critical to remember that a baseball team is a for-profit privately-owned enterprise. And the Beavers are owned by an extraordinarily wealthy (and politically powerful) family. It's a private entertainment, not a public charity.
  

• Governments work all the time, of course, to recruit and retain private businesses - in order to create jobs. But most of the jobs created by Triple-A baseball are part-time seasonal near-minimum-wage jobs - not long-term year-round family-wage jobs.

• Given all that, the Mayor and the City of Portland worked pretty hard to keep the Beavers. But ultimately, there are much bigger problems in this town that need public attention and money.

• And on Canzano's charge that Adams has "lost his clout", and thus was unable to cut a deal to save the Beavers, well, that's just plain silly. Whether Adams has a lot of clout or a little is basically irrelevant when it comes to the Beavers. It's a math problem, not a political problem, and the numbers never added up.

Your thoughts?

Make no mistake, folks: We have one of the hottest congressional races in the country here in Oregon's 5th district.

The national Republicans have decided that they're going to target Congressman Kurt Schrader - and they're rolling in hundreds of thousands of dollars in DC money to do it. Politico is reporting that they've just made a $2 million buy targeting Schrader and three other Democrats:

The four new districts — Pennsylvania’s 8th District, Arizona’s 1st and 5th Districts and Oregon’s 5th District — are seats that were once considered out of reach for Republicans. The NRCC is spending a total of $2,022,000 in the four new districts.

But with the political environment seeming to grow more perilous for Democrats by the day, Republican operatives believe that the quartet of seats is now increasingly winnable. Two of the new targets are vulnerable freshmen: Arizona Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick and Oregon Rep. Kurt Schrader. Republicans are also taking aim at second-term Democrats, including Arizona Rep. Harry Mitchell and Pennsylvania Rep. Patrick Murphy.

Let's be clear: Scott Bruun supports privatizing Social Security, opposes unemployment benefits, and wants a 50% capital gains and 50% income tax cut, to be replaced by a sales tax on low-income and middle-income folks.

With 38 days until ballots are mailed to voters, now is the time to pitch in to help Kurt Schrader. Make a donation. Sign up to volunteer on KurtSchrader.com. Stay in touch with Facebook.

David Frum, the rebel conservative who put the phrase "axis of evil" in George W. Bush's mouth, has a blog. For that blog, he recently interviewed Republican Senatorial candidate Jim Huffman, who hopes to knock off Ron Wyden this fall. Most BlueOregon readers are pretty familiar with Huffman's general stance on governance, but even I was taken aback by this section:

In terms of Obamacare, Huffman said that defunding the program “would be one positive step in the sense that it would make it impossible for some of this stuff to be put into place.” Huffman told Frum that the health care problem that most urgently requires attention is the high cost of care, rather than universal coverage.

The idea of defunding the recently-passed health care reform law puts Huffman squarely with the tea party fire-breathers--no surprise there.

But I was especially fascinated to see that Huffman's focus is on the high cost of care. This was, of course, the central focus of the legislation (not, to progressives' chagrin, universal care), and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says it will reign in costs and actually reduce the deficit.

Which makes me wonder: is Huffman unaware of this fact, or is he one of the fringiest of the fringe who is so ideologically driven that he rejects CBO numbers? Either way, not comforting.

In July, the state of Massachusetts was all a-flutter with the news that Senator John Kerry was mooring his fancy new yacht in Rhode Island, thus avoiding the roughly $500,000 in taxes he'd have owed had he chosen to tie up in his home state.

Upon discovering this information, Massachusetts Republicans went on the warpath against Kerry. Conservative radio host Howie Carr threw everything but the kitchen sink at Kerry while flogging the story. The rightwing leaning Boston Herald gleefully posted video on their website of a frazzled Kerry, hounded by media, fighting off their questions while trying to press through their surge. The same was done by the righty blogging site NewsMax, who salivated over the story like a dog responding to Pavlov.

Of course now that the shoe is on the other foot, and the tax dodger is Oregon GOPer Chris Dudley, the GOP newspapers and talk show hosts are tight-lipped. He's not a Democrat, after all. If this were Kitzhaber, the rightwing media circuit would be in a froth.

There are some differences in this story, of course. Kerry is a Senator and has been an advocate of raising taxes on the wealthy, including himself. Dudley is a former basketball player who ditched out on Oregon by his own admission to dodge taxes. Kerry is more than willing to pony up for his state, demonstrating his commitment. Dudley, not so much.

In the end, Carr and company ultimately had the Kerry story wrong. Kerry doesn't own the yacht. His wife's company does, which is in Pittsburgh, not Massachusetts. The boat had been seen off Nantucket, and the state was already looking into whether the taxes would be owed, but apparently hadn't finished the investigation. Kerry paid the $500,000 tax anyway, presumably to get the story out of the media. But then, Kerry can afford it and after all, is willing to pay more because it's the right thing to do. Dudley admits outright that he took the advice of his accountant and moved to Camas, Washington in order to avoid paying Oregon income tax, and so far, none of us know how much Oregon's revenue was shorted due to Dudley's decision.

We threw the anchor out of our drift boat on a spectacularly beautiful sunny Labor Day in front of the recently reopened Rogue River Lodge just above Shady Cove on Highway 62 on the way from Medford to Crater Lake. The drift was planned with the casual high end eatery in mind. My husband explained the Lodge has employed over 30 people who'd been unemployed. The employees come from all over Jackson and Josephine county. The new Lodge owners greeted us, the food was better than we'd hoped for, the service was excellent and the view of the Rogue River was hypnotic.

Soon our lunch discussion turned to the White Paper both of us had read this morning published by the Oregon Workforce Partnership. The report is available at http://oregonwfpartnership.org/ OWP is a non-partisan, private/public, statewide association. Their mission is to build a more highly skilled workforce to support and expand the state's economy. We learned there are more high-skill workers in Oregon than there are jobs, less middle-skill workers where jobs are going unfilled and about the same level of low-skill workers and jobs.

The White Paper reported that 360,000 assessments of adults seeking jobs show that 45% of those assessed have a basic skills gap in math and 34% have a skills gap in reading. The report explained that those people with gaps in basic skills will only qualify for about one-third of the jobs in Oregon's economy. Now is the time to pause and think about the dwindling resources for K-12 education. Oregon currently has the second shortest school year in the country.

The Oregon Business Plan has already pointed out that the state is spending more of its limited resources on human services and prisons and less on education and skill development. In other words Oregon is investing in its problems not Oregon's future. Right now Oregon does not produce enough middle skill workers to fill approximately 49% of jobs that require more than high-school but less than a four year degree according to the White Paper. To make matters worse, Oregon community college budgets were decreased by 9% in 2010.

Examples of middle-skill jobs of high demand listed in the report are civil engineering technicians, licensed pracitical/vocational nurses, air traffic controllers, auto mechanics, police and sheriff patrol officers, and truck drivers for heavy transportation.

One of the startling statements in the report mentioned employment opportunties for younger workers creates a permanent "lost generation" of workers. We probably all know those workers will never catch up in wages or in career advancement. Oregon youth are facing a 30% unemployment rate.

My husband never fails to tell me our schools and community colleges need to skill up workers. He likes to throw a jab now and then at his wife who sits on a school board.

Business as usual just isn't going to cut it. Oregon's per capita personal income has slid to 90% of the U.S. average in the last 10 years states the report. In plain English, people aren't making the money they used to and the resources for state services are in a free fall.

Republican Chris Dudley, candidate for governor of Oregon is focused on giving college scholarships to the top 5% in our high school students instead of supporting the 65% of the students in community colleges acquiring worker training for middle-skill jobs. His proposal championed by the Big "O" columnist Steve Duin over the weekend reflects Lake Oswego think. A college education is a great goal but it doesn't neccessarily put bread on the table, especially here in Oregon where high skill workers out number the high skill jobs available.

We trudged back down to the drift boat still talking about Oregon's next moves in workforce development and education. Suddenly the third Blue Heron of the day flew over our heads. He was, of course, looking for fish and I thought about all the Oregonians looking for jobs. My husband rowed. I sat in silence thinking we had better elect the man who really understands all of Oregon, not just Lake Oswego.

We threw the anchor out of our drift boat on a spectacularly beautiful sunny Labor Day in front of the recently reopened Rogue River Lodge just above Shady Cove on Highway 62 on the way from Medford to Crater Lake. The drift was planned with the casual high end eatery in mind. My husband explained the Lodge has employed over 30 people who'd been unemployed. The employees come from all over Jackson and Josephine county. The new Lodge owners greeted us, the food was better than we'd hoped for, the service was excellent and the view of the Rogue River was hypnotic.

Soon our lunch discussion turned to the White Paper both of us had read this morning published by the Oregon Workforce Partnership. The report is available at http://oregonwfpartnership.org/ OWP is a non-partisan, private/public, statewide association. Their mission is to build a more highly skilled workforce to support and expand the state's economy. We learned there are more high-skill workers in Oregon than there are jobs, less middle-skill workers where jobs are going unfilled and about the same level of low-skill workers and jobs.

The White Paper reported that 360,000 assissments of adults seeking jobs show that 45% of those assessed have a basic skills gap in math and 34% have a skills gap in reading. The report explained that those people with gaps in basic skills will only qualify for about one-third of the jobs in Oregon's economy. Now is the time to pause and think about the dwindling resources for K-12 education. Oregon currently has the second shortest school year in the country.

The Oregon Business Plan has already pointed out that the state is spending more of its limited resources on human services and prisons and less on education and skill development. In other words Oregon is investing in its problems not Oregon's future. Right now Oregon does not produce enough middle skill workers to fill approximately 49% of jobs that require more than high-school but less than a four year degree according to the White Paper. To make matters worse, Oregon community college budgets were decreased by 9% in 2010.

Examples of middle-skill jobs of high demand are civil engineering technicians, licensed pracitical/vocational nurses, air traffic controllers, auto mechanics, police and sheriff's patrol officers, and truck drivers for heavy transportation.

One of the startling statements in the report mentioned employment opportunties for younger workers creates a permanent "lost generation" of workers. We've probably all know those workers will never catch up in wages or in career advancement. Oregon youth are facing a 30% unemployment rate.

The authors of the report call for a strong alignment of secondary and post-seconday education with workforce development. My husband never fails to tell me our schools and community colleges need to skill up workers and future workers.

Business as usual just isn't going to cut it. Oregon's per capita personal income has slid to 90% of the U.S. average in the last 10 years. In plain English people aren't making the money they used to and the resources for state services are in a free fall.

The report calls for bold action and a different way of thinking, different priorities and leaving old assumptions at the door.

Sadly, Republican Chris Dudley is focused on giving college scholarships to the top 5% in our high schools instead of the 65% of the students in community colleges acquiring worker training for middle-skill jobs. His proposal championed by the Big "O" columnist Steve Duin over the weekend reflects Lake Oswego think

Today, I will walk through the gates at PGE Park (formerly my beloved Civic Stadium) for the last time for a baseball game.

As a young fan, I remember going with my dad to the games. He would park pretty far away above the Pearl before it was the Pearl and we would walk what seemed like AGES to the park, just so we didn't have to pay for parking. And my dad would buy the General Admission tickets, which hovered around or under $5 then. He had just two rules when attending sporting events:

• We didn't come to buy anything and
• We never leave a game early.

And we could have about 5 hours of entertainment (watching batting practice and all) for just about $10, not counting the gas.

But I didn't just spend time at the ballpark as a fan. My first job was with the Portland Beavers in 1993. Portland baseball fans will remember this was the last time the Beavers left Portland. I was one of the zombie baseball fans who wandered aimlessly through the 1994 season with no baseball in Portland and (mostly) no Major League Baseball due to a strike.

When the Rockies came to town in the summer of 1995, I had to be a part of the excitement. I spent two fabulous summers working for the Rockies -- the first year in souvenirs and the second as an intern doing in-game promotion and a segment on the daily Rockies Report on a local radio station. It was the time of my life. I still remember the rain-delay game in the 1995 season when Jack Cain told me I could go down to the booth and announce the batters for the inning. This then-aspiring sports broadcaster took the mic for the first time behind home plate at Civic Stadium.

And later as a media relations intern for the now-defunct Portland State baseball team, I would announce, keep score and sing the seventh-inning stretch over those loudspeakers every home game. (I had to endure the loss of the Portland State baseball team as well after the 1998 season.) You see, my coming of age happened at this ballpark, which is what makes it so hard for me to imagine it without baseball.

But, of course, my coming of age story and those of the countless other Beaver baseball fans in Portland weren't enough to save this latest dance with the Portland Beavers. I remember coming back triumphantly in the 2001 season -- I still have my commemorative opening day ball. I thought that baseball was again here to stay, though I have to admit I was then at a stage in my life and career when baseball had taken a backseat and I didn't attend very many games.

Over the last couple of years since having my son, I didn't go to any games. This was the summer that I was going to introduce my son, who is 2 and a half, to baseball -- Portland Beaver baseball. In March, the news came that the deal for Major League Soccer had been made and that the Beavers no longer had a home. After failed attempts at finding a location and a deal for a new minor league park, the message was soon clear -- the Beavers were not going to be staying in Portland. And so the season started and instead of racing to the park to take in every second that was left, I stayed away. I couldn't face it. I couldn't introduce my son to something that wouldn't be here next year. Some people might call it disloyal. Some people may say I'm a bad fan. I just call it heartbroken.

Baseball in Portland has a storied history and has provided affordable entertainment for families for decades. From Vaughn Street Park to Civic Stadium; from the Jantzen Lady to the recently-grown outfield ivy; from the birds in the rafters to the old press box behind home plate where I spent many days and nights; from the likes of Eddie Basinski to Ad Liska to the homerun hitter of my youth Bernardo Brito -- a piece of our history once again flickers out tomorrow.

I know this isn't a typical topic for a post on Blue Oregon, but I felt it was important to mark this moment. I know that frontline services are what need our attention now and we need to be creative and innovative about how we jumpstart our economy here so we can put Oregonians back to work. Worrying about baseball seems like a frivolous distraction. But when it seems appropriate and not a misguided use of scarce resources, I hope that we will look once again at the prospect of baseball for this town. It took the support of policymakers to make the Major League Soccer deal happen. If baseball is to ever return to our fair town, it will take the a committed business partner, the will of our local elected officials and a group of dedicated fans to make it happen.

*"Empty Seats at PGE Park", Photo by Sage Corson, Portland Sportsman

Today, I will be at the game surrounded by friends and family and my son to pay homage to the weary Portland Beavers. I wanted our group name on the sign at the park tomorrow to be "Bring Baseball Back" but dubbed too controversial, I settled for the equally-yearning "Beavers Fans Forever." And after the game, as I round those bases with my son one last time, I will take comfort that baseball is still alive in Portland in the t-ball leagues, the little leagues, the legion teams, the high school teams and in the baseball and softball programs at Oregon's colleges and universities.

And I will promise to my son that I will work to make sure he will have a hometown team to sing the 7th inning stretch for again soon.

By J. Graber of Portland, Oregon. He is a former journalist and a graduate student in strategic communications at the University of Oregon, Portland campus.

"Keep your eye on the pea ladies and gentleman! Around and around it goes, where it stops … we may never know."

Make no mistake about it, would-be governor Chris Dudley is playing a game here, but instead of the elusive pea usually used by con men, he’s playing hide and seek with the truth. And, unfortunately, this is a high stakes game with Oregon’s future he’s asking us to wager.

When backed into a corner with no other way out, Dudley finally admitted he avoided paying Oregon income tax by living in Camas, Wash. while playing for the Trailblazers between 1993 and 1997. What we don’t know is, how much the millionaire athlete who claims to love Oregon so much kept out of state coffers with his little maneuver while our roads were aging and schools were beginning to ask students to share textbooks because there aren’t enough to go around.

“It’s quite common to shuffle around and ask other buildings to send over text books if they have extras,” Brookwood Elementary teacher Diane Brown said in a press conference Friday. And the whole delicate system freezes up if too many students should actually have to take a textbook home.

We don’t even really know for sure how much he did pay. Duds’ campaign first said he paid $460,000 in taxes for those years, but now claims that number is actually closer to $440,000.

So which number is it Duds? I mean it should be down in black and white, right? Was there a smudge on someone’s glasses the first time they read the numbers?

We do know from public records requests that he earned about $12.19 million in salary as a Trailblazer between 93 and 97, but he didn’t even pay Oregon taxes on all of that.

If you or I were to work for an Oregon business and live in Washington, we would pay Oregon taxes on all of our salary. Not so for NBA players though, who only pay Oregon taxes on games and practice days played in Oregon.

That’s how Duds got away with paying less than 4 percent in taxes in Oregon on his total salary … while the average Oregonian pays about 5.6 percent after deductions.

But that’s not even the whole picture.

It’s not much of a stretch to figure someone pulling down that kind of money also earned things like dividends, interest and capital gains.

Only Duds knows for sure what he really earned from '93 to '97, or how much he avoided paying in taxes, and guess what, he ain’t talkin'.

Statistics suggest the average person in Duds’ income bracket would have earned about another $4.7 million from '93 to '97 … not to mention any do-re-mi he may have got from endorsement deals.

Duds wants to portray himself as a victim here, claiming he was mindlessly doing whatever his financial advisor suggested.

“I was, oh 26, 27 years old – my accountant said, ‘You would save some dollars if you lived over here, and by the way, you’re twenty minutes from the arena and you’re living on a lake.’ So I did it,” he said during a gubernatorial debate aired by KGW back in April.

This doesn’t hold water for two reasons though.

First, at least 24 of Duds’ Trailblazer teammates seemed to care enough about Oregon to live here. Are you telling me guys like Clyde Drexler and Buck Williams didn’t have accountants suggesting similar tricks? Unlike Duds, they just didn’t listen.

And second, Duds isn’t exactly some simpleton who can’t understand the tax codes. He got a double major in political science and economics from Yale.

Yes, that’s “economics” and “Yale”.

In fact, he’s worked as an economic adviser himself since leaving the NBA. Kind of makes you wonder how many people he suggested getting out of paying Oregon taxes by living in Washington, doesn’t it?

But he really does care about Oregon, right? HHHMMM …

Oh, and as for where the disappearing pea is, check up his sleeve.

The headline says it all. There's still time to hit the Labor Day sales. Get cracking!

But before you shuffle off to snag the deals, let's Span the State!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::gong!:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

A slew of gold prospectors have descended in the Rogue River region, dredging up large sections in the search for gold flakes left behind after removal of dams along the river. The New York Times profiles an effort by Oregon State Senator Jason Atkinson (R-Central Point) to end the dredging. Atkinson cites a host of environmental concerns about the activity--and locals are complaining bitterly about the excessive noise created by the dredging.

A small plane crashed into a home in Aurora on Friday afternoon near the Aurora State Airport. 70-year-old George Bahrman, the pilot, was able to walk away from the crash. The homeowner was also unhurt and damage to her home is described as "moderate". Apparently these two have lucky rabbits feet, or four leaf clovers...or something. Yowza.

A group of Lyndon LaRouche supporters are circulating a petition to impeach President Barack Obama at a stand complete with a Obama as Hitler photo. The story doesn't say what the grounds are for this impeachment, but a passerby named "Pam" says she's glad because “This needs to be done because I can just see communism coming". Wish I'd have been there to meet Pam cuz I don't think "communism" means what she thinks it means.

A complaint filed against Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio by the Lane County GOP has been dismissed by the House Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards. The Party complained that DeFazio violated House rules by mailing mass communications within 90 days of an election while seeking the endorsement of the Independent Party of Oregon. Under Oregon law and House rules, the IP's online nominating process was an internal party nominating process and not subject to the 90-day cut-off.

A new paper by economist Amy Vander Vliet of the Oregon Employment Department notes that for many workers in Clark and Skamania counties in Washington, Oregon is a great place to work and pay the Oregon income tax:

In 2008, about 60,000 workers who lived in Clark and Skamania counties along the Columbia River in Washington State commuted to jobs in Oregon. The vast majority, over 59,000 workers, commuted from Clark County. These Oregon-bound commuters accounted for more than one-third of Clark County's resident workforce.

Interestingly, these Washingtonians commuting to Oregon for work tend to earn higher wages. About half (50.6 percent) earn more than $40,000 a year, compared with 42 percent of the entire tri-county workforce. While 19 out of every 100 workers in the tri-county area are low income (earning less than $15,000 per year), only 13 out of every 100 workers commuting from Clark County are low income.

When these southwest Washington residents work in Oregon they add to Oregon’s gross state product but their income is not counted toward Oregon’s total personal income.

But they do pay Oregon’s income tax. And because Washington doesn’t have an income tax (yet (PDF) but may), the Clark County commuters — unlike, say, California residents who work in Oregon —can’t subtract Oregon income taxes from their home state’s tax bill.

The next time someone from the business community or an editorial board tells you that Oregon’s income tax is hindering jobs, remember that about one third of Clark County’s resident workforce – over 59,000 Washingtonians – accept paying Oregon income taxes for the opportunity to work in our great state.

Read the short paper by Vander Vliet, and discuss.

Chuck Sheketoff is the executive director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy. You can sign up to receive email notification of OCPP materials at www.ocpp.org.

Oops.

Eugene Weekly blog:

The NRSC apparently disagrees with the premise that Wyden's still got his heart in Oregon. It says in today's press release: Despite his claims that he is ‘like Oregon,’ it’s clear from Ron Wyden’s record that he has simply lost touch with his constituents during his 14 years in Washington. Senator Wyden is a career politician who has championed a reckless economic agenda that has driven our national debt to a staggering $13 trillion and failed to create jobs as the Evergreen State’s unemployment has skyrocketed to 10.6 percent. Like the rest of his out-of-touch rhetoric, Senator Wyden’s new ad simply doesn’t match reality.

Seeing as that Washington State, our neighbor to the north, is the Evergreen State, and Oregon is the more dubiously named Beaver State, and seeing as that Wyden's a Democrat from Oregon … we're actually ok with him not being in touch with the Evergreen State.

Yeah, I'm guessing the national GOP has pretty much given up on Oregon. Maybe they're too uptight to use the word "beaver".

(h/t: Talking Points Memo

In 2008, I wrote a piece for Blue Oregon called "Being Oregonian". Its a love story, of sorts, about choosing to live and be a part of this place. An excerpt:

There's a section of dialogue in the film Gone With The Wind where Rhett Butler says to Scarlett O'Hara, "You get your strength from the red earth of Tara". I love this section of the film in part because it expresses how I feel about my home state of Oregon. I've traveled extensively throughout the United States and for me, there's no place like home.

I wrote this piece originally in discussing then-Senator Gordon Smith's reelection campaign. I believed then that Smith didn't work for our state and didn't have the passion for it that we deserve. As it turns out, as soon as Smith lost and left office he bugged out to take a fat-cat lobbying job in DC, which in my mind very much justified my beliefs.

And now, it's deja vu, this time starring Chris Dudley. And while my concerns about Smith were part gut instinct and part evidential, Chris Dudley has actually admitted to bugging out of Oregon while playing for the Portland Trailblazers to Camas,Washington because he didn't want to pay income tax.

At a press conference this morning, school activist Liz Kaufman along with 2 Hillsboro School District teachers, presented the case against Dudley. Kaufman (who admitted in the press conference that she's had her disagreements with Dudley's opponent, John Kitzhaber) spoke out about Dudley moving to Washington in order to avoid paying income tax in Oregon, at the advice of his accountant. Further, Dudley was the only Trailblazer during that era to make that kind of move. Kaufman listed 24 other Dudley contemporaries with the Blazers, including Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Arvydas Sabonis, Buck Williams and Jermaine O'Neal, who remained in Oregon and paid state income taxes. Even Rasheed Wallace looks better compared to Dudley on this issue. Jeez.

This guy used our state to further his career, used our infrastructure and took our money for tickets to see him play, but apparently he doesn't think we're worthwhile enough to pay his legal and fair share to be part of our civilized society in Oregon. Because some bean counter told him it would be cheaper to bail out and live on a $500,000 spread in Camas, Dudley found that just a little more important than say, living in the state whose infrastructure supports his job and his $12 million salary (plus investment and endorsement income).

The Governor of Oregon needs to love Oregon, with a passion. They need to feel it in their bones like Tom McCall did. Our state needs to mean so much to our Governor that he'll go to the mat for us. He'lll fight like hell with the legislature and tussle even with his own staff to do what's right. Gordon Smith rarely, if ever, did that when was in the legislature and certainly not as Senator. Chris Dudley has already demonstrated that he's willing to bail on us at the behest of a staffer.

We've got a crap-ton of stuff to work through in this state. When the going gets tough, am I actually now supposed to believe that Dudley is serious about Oregon to stick it out and do the job with a love for our state born of state income tax dodging? Really?

I've been pretty lukewarm with Kitzhaber. I'm starting to warm up more now that I'm beginning to see some signs that being our Governor and stewarding our state are actually a fire in his belly. Frankly, he's got some work to do with me still to get me to color in that box next to his name. But at least I don't have the sense that he'd bail out on us, because he hasn't. That's a good start.

For the typical Oregon worker, this Labor Day arrives at a time of stagnant wages, wide income inequality and scarce jobs.

But against this gloomy backdrop, a ray of hope exists in the share of the state’s workforce belonging to a union and the positive effects of unionization, especially for low-income workers.

Read the OCPP news release Unionized Workforce is a "Ray of Hope" Amid Economic Gloom which has links to the new, short (eight pages plus one-page executive summary) report Gloomy Days, But a Ray of Hope, for Oregon Workers (PDF) from OCPP.

Besides wage and job scarcity data, the report also includes data on income inequality, corporate profits and CEO pay in Oregon.

Discuss.

Ever wonder how much you would benefit from the Obama tax cut extending middle-class tax cuts as compared to the proposal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy?

While The Rich Do Very Well When the Middle Class is Helped by Tax Cuts, virtually everyone benefits from Obama's middle class tax cuts.

Calculate the Income Tax Cut You Would Receive Under Different Tax Proposals, is a quick-to-fill-out form that does just what its title says, compliments of Citizens for Tax Justice.

Discuss.

Chuck Sheketoff is the executive director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy. You can sign up to receive email notification of OCPP materials at www.ocpp.org.

Political prognosticator Charlie Cook has moved the Oregon Governor's race from "leans Democratic" to "tossup".

I'm not a subscriber to Cook's report, so I haven't yet read Cook's analysis because it's behind the subscription wall.

Very not awesome for Team Kitzhaber, certainly. (sigh)

I'm starting to wonder however if Dudley has peaked out..or if he hasn't, if he's close. The press releases from Dudley's campaign are starting to sound especially shrill and nervous. It's an awful lot of protesting/complaining of late over very little and very mild stuff tossed at them by Team Kitzhaber. If Team Kitz actually decides to really go at Dudley, it seems like Team Dudley is ready to go to pieces.

Weird dynamic.