Still, it was all good news for Sizemore. Oregon's leading anti-tax activist can now march past tax reform to his real desire--cutting government spending. And, in the process, Sizemore showed up the man he may run against in 1998--Gov. John Kitzhaber--by appearing to do more on tax reform in one goofy weekend than Kitzhaber has done during his three years in Mahonia Hall. After a welcoming session on Friday night, Saturday's all-day affair started with the Salem Fairgrounds shrouded in dense fog as conferees followed Haunted House signs through the fairgrounds to Cascade Hall. Inside, the hall was a tax wonk's version of Bill's Holiday Camp. Attired in casual red-white-and-blue sweater, Sizemore happily hobnobbed with the 110 conferees, who spent nine hours in a windowless banquet hall, evaluating seven different reform proposals based on 10 criteria with electronic voting gizmos that tallied instant results. "You have to be a little abnormal to want to do this," Sizemore said, summing up the crowd in his opening remarks. Indeed, among the lobbyists, legislators and other public officials, there were die-hard flat-taxers sporting "I [heart] Single Tax" buttons; radical free-marketeers calling to make Oregon a "zero tax state" where electronic tolls would charge you for every service you might desire ("Sounds like a bad sci-fi novel," declared one tax expert); and state Sen. Thomas Wilde of Portland, who thought his vote was worth that of four earthlings, so he collected four of the electronic keypads and registered multiple votes on each tax scenario. The results of this polling were murky--at best. Despite claims that Sizemore would pack the house with anti-tax zealots, the crowd was pretty evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, so the ranking of almost every plan produced a "canyon curve" with equally high negative and positive ratings. "We're at 70,000 feet and it's all very blurry," said conference facilitator Walt Roberts, attempting to explain the schizoid voting results. Roberts acknowledged that the software used in the voting was also flawed, and that the ranking of proposals by their average score was "meaningless." Sizemore's own plan--calling for the creation of a sales tax and eliminating property taxes--was judged to be poor in seven of the 10 criteria used. "So much for the theory that Bill stacked the conference with supporters," quipped state Labor Commissioner Jack Roberts. One thing was clear in the hazy voting: The results showed how little consensus there was for any tax reform ideas--at least among the people who are most passionate about the issue. "I don't think you saw any strong groundswell for major change," says Secretary of State Phil Keisling, a Democrat. Two pollsters--one Democrat, one Republican--confirmed that ordinary Oregonians weren't clamoring for tax reform either. "Status quo is where we are in terms of taxes," said GOP pollster Bob Moore, who attended the conference. "There's no burning desire for change; not a lot of people are upset about taxes." "In focus groups you say 'sales tax' and people start getting hives," said pollster Lisa Grove Donovan. All of which seemed to indicate there was no need for Sizemore's tax camp in the first place; never mind that it resolved nothing. Except, that is, to win Sizemore image points for tackling tax reform, and for bringing a diverse group of Oregonians together for a chatfest. A few critics argued that it was a poor showing for Sizemore. "This shows he can't hold a conference that meets its objectives," groused Chuck Sheketoff, the head of a liberal think tank. "It raises questions whether he can have a government meet its objectives--which are a lot bigger than a one-day conference." But many conferees disagreed with Sheketoff. "I don't think that's a fair analysis at all," said Roberts. "The conference was well run and reflected the way voters think." "I think [Sizemore] did a valuable thing," added Keisling. "It's valuable any time you ask if we can do better." "He brought people together," said Paul Farago of the Cascade Policy Institute. "They left with a sense of having worked together. That's an essential leadership quality." As for his own leadership plans, Sizemore conceded that he wasn't all that interested in tax reform--he says he won't put any tax reform initiative before Oregon voters in 1998. He will, however, try to put at least one initiative on the ballot that would limit the political influence of public employee unions, and another that would entirely wipe out Metro, the regional governing body in the tri-county area. Those initiatives are more reflective of his chief interest--slashing government spending. They also reveal the basis of Sizemore's bond with Washington, D.C., tax avatar Grover Norquist, a tax conference speaker whose organization, Americans for Tax Reform, gave Sizemore $600,000 last year for the Measure 47 campaign. It's not tax reform that links the two. It's the fact that both want to shrink government. (Norquist says he wants to cut federal spending in half.) As Sizemore said in closing out the tax-reform conference, "Now we're going to have to debate how much money we spend on government." Pushing forward with his tax-limiting and government-eliminating plans, Sizemore can now say that he looked hard and fair at tax reform--and there was no real demand for it. But as one conferee suggested, the true measure of leadership is shaping, not following, popular opinion. That's where Sizemore--and others--could do more to reform inequities in Oregon's tax system. "Leaders should drive polls," said Courtney Wilton, administrative officer for the Multnomah County Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission, "not the other way around." |
