The Importance of Oregon’s Measure 97

Approval of Measure 97 is critical for the well-being of most Oregonians; its passage could also encourage efforts in other states to reverse the slashing of public capacities in the name of tax relief for profit-rich large corporations.

The national picture is well illustrated in a New York Times article.   As David Leonhardt explains:

Consider corporate taxes, which ultimately tend to be paid by the well-off, because they own the most stock. The official corporate rate is 35 percent, infamously higher than in any other advanced economy. Yet there are so many loopholes that companies often pay relatively little in tax.

The following chart highlights just how well corporations have done at avoiding taxes—and remember this shows the tax rate for all taxes paid (federal, state, local, and foreign) by corporations.

Here in Oregon, corporations have also done well.  In fact, according to the Anderson Economic Group, which does a yearly state-by-state study of the overall tax burden faced by businesses relative to their profits, Oregon has the lightest business tax burden in the country, and has secured that dead last position three years running.  The table below comes from its 2016 edition.

No wonder Oregon is short of funds and unable to deliver high quality early childhood and K-12 education, affordable health care, and critical senior services.

Measure 97 is designed to change this situation.  Although the Oregon initiative process limits the kinds of changes people can make to state law, the authors of this measure have crafted a well-designed change to the tax code.   The proposed measure makes one simple, but critical change to the state’s existing minimum tax code.

Here a bit of history is useful.  Oregon introduced a $25 minimum corporate tax in 1929.  The tax was lowered to $10 in 1931 and the rate remained unchanged until 2010.  By 2009, some two-thirds of C-corporations were paying just this $10 minimum.  As we can see below in the figure taken from an Oregon Center for Public Policy study, corporations currently pay only 6.7 percent of Oregon income taxes; thirty years ago it was 18.5 percent.

The Great Recession, which caused the state deficit to explode, finally forced the legislature to act on tax reform.  It proposed, after consultation with the business community, a ballot measure which called for a new flat tax for all businesses and a new minimum tax schedule based on sales only for C-corporations. This measure, Measure 67, was approved by the voters.  The change, although helpful, was a modest one.  Most importantly, the new minimums remained set in unchanging dollar terms; were quite low; and were regressive in that the implicit minimum tax rate went down as sales went up.

Measure 97 seeks to remedy these shortcomings by changing only the minimum tax schedule, and only for the largest corporations.   Corporations with less than $25 million in in-state sales will see no change in their taxes.  Corporations with more than $25 million in in-state sales will now have to pay a new higher minimum tax equal to 2.5% of the amount of their sales above $25 million.

According to the Oregon Legislative Revenue Office, this new minimum will raise taxes on only 1051 corporations, less than one percent of all businesses operating in Oregon and less than 4 percent of all corporations operating in Oregon.  It will however raise a significant amount of money, some $3 billion a year; that amount will produce a 30 percent increase in the state’s general fund.  Moreover, as structured, the tax will fall heavily on the largest firms; more than half of the new revenue will come from the top 50 firms.  Finally, because the tax is based on sales, corporations will have little choice but to pay it.  They cannot fudge their sales figures like they can their profits, and it doesn’t matter where they produce as long as they sell in Oregon.  No wonder these large corporations don’t like the measure.

More money has been spent on the fight over Measure 97 than on any any other ballot measure in Oregon’s history.   According to the Oregonian:

With more than two weeks to go before the state’s Nov. 8 general election, groups against the corporate tax measure have contributed more than $22.5 million toward its defeat.

That surpasses the previous record of $21.2 million contributed in 2014 toward the defeat of Measure 92, the proposed GMO labeling measure. . . .

The group supporting the measure, Yes on 97, has raised more than $10.5. That puts the combined figure for spending on the measure at more than $33 million, which also eclipses the previous record of $29.6 million in total spending on a ballot measure. The prior record was also set during the contentious run-up to the GMO labeling measure election, in which it lost by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Among the biggest contributors to the No on 97 are retail corporations like Costco, Safeway, and Kroger, each of which has given almost $2 million.  More than 80 percent of the new revenue is predicted to come from large, multi-state corporations headquartered outside Oregon and not surprisingly it is these firms that are pouring in the most money to defeat the measure.

Their strategy is to scare working people, by claiming that the tax will be passed on to consumers through higher prices.  Little is said, of course, about the fact that the measure directs that the new money is to be spent on improving early childhood and K-12 education, expanding health care options, and funding senior services—all programs with high payoff for working people.  However, this fact aside, corporate threats of higher prices are merely that, empty threats.

There are three simple reasons why these large corporations will have little choice but to absorb the tax, and accept lower profits.  First, as mentioned above, very few firms will have their taxes raised by the measure.  Thus, these firms will be facing many firms that will not be subject to higher taxes. This is well illustrated by the following figure taken from an Oregon Center for Public Policy study.  If the firms affected by the new tax try to raise their prices, they risk losing market share.  In short, competitive pressures will make it difficult for them to raise their prices.

Second, research shows that most large, out of state corporations employ national pricing strategies.  This means that they charge the same price for the same product in every state in which they sell.  In other words, there is no relationship between their pricing strategies and the various tax regimes they face in the different states in which they operate.  For example, the Oregon Consumer League examined prices charged by a number of major retailers.  What they found in the case of Target was typical:

Target is one of the biggest retailers in America, making $3.4 billion in net profits from $73.8 billion in sales in 2015. Target stores can be found in every state except Vermont. We selected one Target store in each state and looked up prices online for a sample of five items: a digital camera, laundry detergent, sunscreen, a box of Cheerios, and a spiral notebook. No matter which store was chosen, the prices did not change. . . . [P]rices remain consistent despite Target paying higher taxes in some states and much lower taxes in others.

Finally, there is the internet.  Most large firms offer on-line shopping.  Oregonians could easily check to see whether firms were raising local prices and if they found that to be true, simply order the same product on-line for the national price.  And, there is always Amazon, which is ready to sell anything to anyone.

In short, Measure 97 will raise much needed money that will be used to boost the quality of the state’s schools, health care, and senior services.  And it will do so by targeting the biggest and richest corporations, making them finally pay the taxes they have so far avoided.

For more on the importance of this measure and why I strongly support it you can read my article, Measure 97 corporate tax would put state on right track, which was recently published in the excellent local newspaper Street Roots.

 

 

 

 

Join Koreans In Opposing THAAD Deployment

The US government, with the approval of the South Korean government, wants to locate a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea.  Growing numbers of South Koreans oppose this.  They fear that the anti-missile system, which is largely aimed at China and Russia, will only increase military tensions and fuel a new arms race in the region as well as worsen relations with North Korea.  Those living close to the proposed location for the THAAD battery worry about the long term health effects of the associated high-intensity radar system.  Their fears and worries are well founded.

While the anti- THAAD struggle is big news in Korea, little is known about it in the United States.  This is unfortunate because the U.S. effort to expand its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region also has real consequences for people in this country.  For example, the resulting militarization will lead to ever higher levels of U.S. military spending, draining resources away from needed social programs.  And, of course, it increases the risk of a new war.  In short, it is in the interest of people living in the United States to join with people in South Korea to oppose the THAAD deployment in South Korea.

Therefore, several U.S. based organizations have joined in coalition under the banner of “Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific.”  Its demands are simple:

• We urge the U.S. government to rescind its decision on THAAD deployment in South Korea.
• We urge the U.S. government to pursue all possible avenues for reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula by re-engaging in diplomacy with North Korea.
• We urge the U.S. government to resolve conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region peacefully, through diplomacy and dialogue.

The coalition’s website, http://stopthaad.org/, includes a longer statement of purpose and links to articles that analyze both the political aims and consequences of the proposed THAAD deployment and the growth of the resistance movement in South Korea.  As you will see, close to 100 organizations have already endorsed the coalition’s demands.

As a first action, the coalition is organizing candlelight vigils in select U.S. cities in solidarity with candlelight vigils taking place in South Korean cities; information about them can also be found on the website.

 

Capitalist Globalization: Running Out Of Steam?

The 2016 edition of the Trade and Development Report (TDR 2016), an annual publication of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, is an important study of the changing nature of capitalist globalization and its failure to promote third world development.

The post-1980 period was marked by an explosion of transnational corporate activity, with investment increasingly taking place in the third world, especially Asia.  The resulting investment created a system of cross border production networks in which workers in third world countries produced and assembled parts and components of increasingly advanced manufactures under transnational capital direction for sale in developed country markets.

Mainstream economists supported this process, arguing that it would promote rapid industrialization and upgrading of third world economies and the eventual convergence of third world and advanced capitalist living standards.  However, the TDR 2016 makes the case that the globalization process appears to have run its course and that mainstream predictions were not realized.

Capitalist globalization under pressure

The TDR 2016 shows that the post-2008 slowdown in developed capitalist country growth has led to a significant downturn in third world exports and economic activity.  The following charts show that while international trade has long grown faster than global output, the ratio grew dramatically bigger over the first decade of the 2000s.  This was in large part the result of the expansion of cross border production networks.  This explosion of trade also brought ever expanding trade imbalances.

But, as the above charts also show, globalization dynamics appear to have lost momentum.  According to the TDR 2016:

International trade slowed down further in 2015. This poor performance was primarily due to the lackluster development of merchandise trade, which increased by only around 1.5 per cent in real terms. After the roller-coaster episode of 2009–2011, in the aftermath of the global financial and economic crisis, the growth of international merchandise trade was more or less in line with global output growth for about three years. In 2015, merchandise trade grew at a rate below that of global output, a situation that may worsen in 2016, as the first quarter of the year showed a further deceleration vis-à-vis 2015.

This loss of momentum has hit the third world, which has become ever more export-dependent, especially hard. As the following table shows, the growth rate of third world exports has dramatically slowed, and is now below that of the developed capitalist countries.  East Asian export growth actually turned negative in 2015.

This slowdown in trade has been accompanied by growing capital outflows from the third world, again especially Asia, as shown in the following chart.

The combination of developed country stagnation and dramatically slowing international trade has begun to stress the logistical infrastructure that has underpinned capitalist globalization dynamics.  This is well illustrated by Sergio Bologna’s description of the consequences of Hanjin’s bankruptcy:

The world’s seventh largest shipping company, the Korean company Hanjin, went bankrupt. Overburdened by $4.5-billion in debt, it has not been able to convince the banks to continue their support.

As a matter of fact, it did not convince the government of South Korea, because the main financier of Hanjin is the Korean Development Bank, a public institution, which is also struggling with the critical situation of the other major shipping company, Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM), and the two Korean shipyards, STX Offshore & Shipbuilding and Daewoo. It may sound like a mundane administrative issue, but imagine what it means to have a fleet of about 90 ships, loaded with freight containers valued at $14-billion, roaming the seas because if they touch a port their loads are likely to be seized at the request of creditors.

In fact, the Daily Edition of the Lloyd’s List dated September 13th . . . reported that 13 vessels had been detained. Other ships are being held in different ports, waiting for judiciary sentences. Others are at anchor and maybe had to refuel. Not to mention the 1,200-1,300 crew members who are not able to find suppliers willing to sell them a can of tuna or a bottle of water. In a Canadian port, the crew had to be assisted by the mission Stella Maris.

The intertwining of the ramifications of this problem is impressive. Hanjin must face legal proceedings at courts in 43 countries. For starters: Most of the ships are not owned by Hanjin, and those it owns, to a large extent, are not worth much. Sixty per cent of the fleet is leased, and Hanjin has not been paying the leases for a long time. This threatens to bankrupt old-name companies like Hamburg’s Peter Dohle, the Greek Danaos, and the Canadian Seaspan; there are about 15 companies who leased their ships to Hanjin, but in terms of loading capacity, the first four add up to more than 50 per cent.

Then there are the ports and other infrastructure service providers. The ports are owed fees for services (towing, mooring); the terminals, for load/unload operations to Hanjin ships on credit; the Suez Canal has not been paid the passage tolls and today won’t let the Hanjin ships through; in addition, the onboard suppliers, recruiting agencies of the crews, the ship management firms. The list does not end here, it has just begun. Because the bulk of creditors are thousands of companies, freight forwarders and logistics operators who have entrusted their merchandise to Hanjin, around 400,000 containers (the total capacity of the Hanjin fleet is estimated at 600,000 TEUs), goods that are stuck on board.

Why did this happen? Why did it have to happen? . . .

Because for years, the shipping companies have been transporting goods at a loss. They have put too many ships into service and they continued to order increasingly larger ships at shipyards. The ships competed fiercely for the orders and built the ships at bargain prices, although they are technological jewels. With the increase in freight capacity, freight rates plummeted, volumes grew but the income per unit of freight transported decreased. Then, China slowed exports, creating the perfect storm. . . .

And now? How many of the 10 to 15 most important companies still active on the market are zombie carriers?

The false promise of capitalist globalization

Critically, the globalization process has been aided by labor repression.  The transnational corporate drive for market share encouraged state policies designed to hold down labor costs.  And the resulting decline in wage demand reinforced the pursuit of exports as the “natural” engine of growth.  As TDR 2016 explains:

those countries that did exhibit increases in their global share of manufacturing exports did not show similar increases in wage shares of national income relative to the global average. . . . This suggests that increased access to global markets has typically been associated with a relative deterioration of national wage income compared with the world level.

The following chart illustrates the global ramifications of the globalization process for worker earnings.

As for convergence, the TDR 2016 compared the performance of third world economies relative to that of the United States using several different criteria.  The chart below looks at the ratio of per capita GDP of select countries and country groups relative to that of the United States.  We see that Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa have actually lost ground since the 1980s.  This is especially striking since the US growth rate also slowed over the same period.  Only in Asia do we see some catch-up, and outside the so-called first-tier NIEs and China the gains have been small.

In fact, as the TDR 2016 explains: “The chances of moving from lower to middle and from middle- to higher income groups during the recent period of globalization show no signs of improving and have, if anything, weakened.”

This conclusion is buttressed by the following table which shows “estimate chances of catching up over the periods 1950–1980 and 1981–2010.”  The United States is the target economy in both periods with countries “divided into three relative income groups: low (between 0 and 15 per cent of the hegemon’s income), middle (between 15 and 50 per cent) and high (above 50). The table reports transition probabilities for the two sub-periods and the three income levels.”

The TDR 2016 drew two main conclusions from these calculations:

First, convergence from the low- and the middle-income groups has become less likely over the last 30 years (1981–2010) relative to the previous period (1950–1980). As reported in the table, the probability of moving from middle- to the high-income status decreased from 18 per cent recorded between 1950 and 1980 to 8 per cent for the following 30 years. Analogously, the probability of catching up from the low- to the middle-income group was reduced approximately by the same factor, from 15 per cent to 7 per cent.

Second, and perhaps more strikingly, the probability of falling behind has significantly increased during the last 30 years. Between 1950 and 1980 the chances of falling into a relatively lower income group amounted to 12 per cent for middle-income economies and only 6 per cent for high-income countries.  These numbers climbed to 21 per cent and 19 per cent respectively in the subsequent period.

Uncertain times lie ahead

In short, globalization dynamics have restructured national economies in ways that have enriched an ever smaller group of transnational corporations.  At the same time, they have set back national development efforts with few exceptions and generated serious contradictions that are largely responsible for the stagnation and downward pressures on working and living conditions experienced by the majority of workers in both advanced capitalist countries and the third world.

While globalization dynamics have lost momentum the economic restructuring it achieved remains in place.  And to this point, dominant political forces appear to believe that they can manage whatever economic challenges may appear and thus remain committed to existing international institutions and patterns of economic activity.  Whether they are correct in their belief remains to be seen.  As does the response of working people, especially in core countries, to their ever more precarious conditions of employment and living.