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irrational

We also passed universal preschool, funded by taxing the rich.

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> The preschool measure is a 1.5% tax on incomes of more than $125,000 per year and joint filings topping $250,000.

More like taxing the professional class

The professional class will barely even notice.

1.5% is a quite a lot for a specific state tax. oregon already levies a 9.9% tax on incomes over $125k. this is a ~15% increase to the highest bracket.

So $1,875 per annum on a $250k income.

That’s some mighty good value pre-school. Who wouldn’t take that deal?

People without kids in preschool

I wouldn't mind paying this, for the greater good of the local community.

Maybe limiting the tax to families who claim children as dependents would seem more fair.

"So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don't personally have a kid in school: It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people." - John Green

This. It seems like a small price to pay not to have half an electorate believe political rivals are child-abducting lizard people.

So brainwashed into believing one side? Why can’t we just want to make kids smarter instead of brainwashing them into being liberals?

I was agreeing with you unless you believe in lizard people.

yup you’re right, my head was melted when i read the chain last time. re-reading it now i dunno what i was thinking.

Stupid people both amuse me, and give me their money, so I don't really see a downside here.

That is a fairly large amount. At least $2000 dollars for a childless single person. Or at least $4000 for a childless couple trying to in-vitro.

Is pre-school valuable or is it a babysitter?

Well, either is fine, in that it allows people with low income a childcare option at all.

Where did you get these #s from? This is a progressive tax and only affects income above the threshold. If you make 150k as a single earner, you don’t pay 1.5% on 150k, you pay 1.5% on 150k-125k, or 1.5% of 25k which is $375. And that’s if you didn’t reduce your income in other ways (401k contributions, pretax health or child care, HSA, etc.)

This is such a common misconception in the US. I'm amazed how it isn't understood by many.

I found a positive correlation between someone’s tax obligation and their understanding of tax law.

Where do you propose people leave their kids at when both parents need to work?

At a pre-school they pay for.

Preschool is extremely valuable for childhood development

I believe the cutoffs are for taxable income, not gross.

Don’t you know, we’re “the rich” and get to deflect attention from the actual capital class

Buy real estate in Vancouver, WA now. That 0% income tax is gonna look mighty nice.

You know I've lived in a place with 0% income taxes and the people it attracts are wholly worth paying to move away from.

Like the awful people of Seattle? Or Nashville? Or Miami?

Or Austin, Houston, Dallas, El Paso, etc

I mean, yes? What's your point? Vancouver, WA is a nice town, too.

My experience differs: The higher end places I've lived had 0% income tax (because the wealthy had the means to work within the system to keep it that way), while I've lived in some pretty crappy places with surprisingly high income taxes.

Isn’t this 100% opinion? It’s equivalent to saying a republican is miserable living in blue country. 0% income tax is likely a red state and you sound like a dem. Of course you wouldn’t like it.

I love that the funding is statewide. Most public schools are really weird in that parents are heavily incentivized to move to expensive school districts when their kids are school age ish, pay egregious income taxes while their kids actually attend school, then downsize somewhere cheaper when their kids leave. Those public schools get all the funding, and the schools in worse districts have rich parents fleeing them, leaving the less privileged behind with lower local taxes to work with. It’s a really non equitable system.

this is a common misconception. once you consider local, state, and federal funding, almost every state in the US has at least slightly progressive school funding (ie, low-income districts get no less, and sometimes a bit more, funding than high-income districts). [0]

the incentive still exists to live in expensive districts when you have school-aged children, but the main benefit is simply that your children go to school with children from other well-off families.

[0] https://apps.urban.org/features/school-funding-do-poor-kids-...

That’s only Multnomah county, and it’s an income tax not a wealth tax. The actual rich will continue to not contribute a damn thing.

I'm also sad this passed. It's actually not universal at first. It starts in 2021 offering seats to black, brown, illegal immigrant, teen parents and other traditionally "disadvantaged" groups first when it kicks off in 2021 and doesn't ramp up to full universal service until 2030. There's an additional tax increase that will take effect in 2026, that takes the marginal tax rate from 1.5 percent to 2.3 percent for single people making over 125k and joint filers making 200k. On top of all that, the measure would over-pay teachers 77k above the market rate, which is 33K. There's also the additional rider that they will prohibit suspensions. If you ask me, this bill only passed since it pushed the responsibility for paying for it to someone other than the majority of people in Multnomah county. It would have been more fair if there was a sense of shared sacrifice and skin in the game with everyone contributing to it. I imagine there will be more tax increases to help pay for all of the increase cost of a) people moving into the county for this free perk and b) people moving out of the county to not have to deal with this additional tax.

If you want everyone to have shared sacrifice in taxes then you need to start reducing income differences first.

And you seem to think any amount of payment over 33K is overpayment? That's about half of the median wage. Teachers should get better than 33K.

A flat tax is a shared sacrifice

It's also a terrible thing to do to poor people.

I'm bit bummed by this one. It sounds nice on the surface, but it seems like it's basically re-implementing a program that the state is starting to implement, but more expensive. The $300 million could be spent on problems that are city-specific: homelessness, adorable housing, economic recovery to name a few. I think we could get a lot more value for the community out of such a large price tag, especially without duplicating state-level work.

I think spending it on adorable housing is by far the most awesome choice.

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