State of Oregon Archives: on Corporations

Kate Brown: Grow Our Own: develop existing Oregon businesses

BROWN: First, I will partner with business to continue our economic recovery statewide by helping Oregon companies large and small to expand, creating more good jobs for Oregonians. Because we know that 70% of jobs are created when existing businesses grow, it's important that Business Oregon, the state's economic development agency, continue its mission to 'grow our own', making sure businesses are able to thrive in Oregon. Our State should also cultivate more long-term partnerships between public education and the private sector to develop the highly skilled workforce our businesses need and to help ensure good-paying jobs for Oregonians. It is incumbent upon the state to make it as easy as possible to start or expand a business in Oregon, by streamlining regulation and cutting red tape. I passed legislation to expand the Office of the Small Business Advocate to serve more of our job-creating small businesses.

Kevin Stine: Tax loopholes allow companies to pay meager tax rates

STINE: Our tax system is a mess. Well-funded lobbyists manage to get more and more tax carve-outs for their clients, while the establishment politicians that have been in DC for decades help pass the legislation. When politicians talk about the tax system, they generally talk about the tax rates. That's not the biggest issue. The issue is the pages and pages and pages of tax deductions and loopholes that allow large multinational companies to pay very meager effective tax rates. In a more perfect world, we would strip away the corporate handouts that the wealthy and well-connected receive. An improved tax system will be a progressive system in which wealthy people and corporations pay their fair share, and America can have a larger middle class again.

Kevin Stine: Cut corporate handouts & thus raise tax rates on the 1%

A: Strongly support. Corporate-owned politicians have embedded huge giveaways in the tax code to the elite. We need to reduce income-inequality, in part, by eliminating corporate handouts and thus raising the effective tax rates on the 1%.

Monica Wehby: Gov't should encourage growth, not squeeze businesses out

A: From ranchers, to loggers, to coffee shop and hair salons owners, [Monica] hears the same thing over and over again-- that uncertainty about what the federal government is doing in healthcare, in the regulatory fields, and the changing tax climate is forcing small business to hunker down. Government should be encouraging growth, not squeezing small businesses out. As a U.S. Senator, Dr. Wehby will fight for the small businesses of Oregon so that our kids can have good middle class jobs available to them.

Jim Huffman: Moratorium on new federal regulations on businesses

The two went on to outline their plans to foster small businesses in the face of a lousy economy. Huffman said that he believes in a moratorium on new federal regulations on businesses, a payroll tax holiday and an extension of the Bush tax cuts would help small businesses survive the downturn. "I believe small business is the most important employer in this state," he said.

Wyden pointed to his bipartisan work on a bill to help small businesses finance equipment they need to grow and his support of biomass as a job machine that would greatly benefit Southern Oregon. Wyden criticized the Obama administration's lumping biomass in with fossil fuels in terms of pollutants. "(Biomass) is a clean energy source for our state," he said.