Editor:

Eric Kozowski has it right in his letter (Citizens will lose with a ‘yes’ vote, Dec. 24).

The Governor and the Legislature created new spending (as Mr Kozowski well laid it out) in the last state 2007-09 biennium budget. All they needed to have done this biennium, 2009-11, was to have eliminated those previous increases and there would not have been a need to increase taxes, nada, none. If they had cut back then, there in fact could have been a surplus.

It was all in a letter that Sen. Doug Whisnett sent to his district back during the budget process for this biennium. The Legislature nor the Governor would listen and have thus created this supposed (manufactured) shortfall. It is almost criminal what they in Salem are requiring of “we the people” with this tax.

Be sure to vote for the override by voting “no” on Measures 66 and 67. The only battle we then face is getting the cuts to the increases of the last biennium and not our basic and vital public safety services, etc., not something they will want to do without our telling them loud and often. We have had between 20 percent and 18 percent unemployment in our county the last two times it was reported and we certainly do not need any more job losses from increasing taxes on those who could provide those jobs. Not any more than you in Wallowa County my second home and hopeful retirement home.

Rodd Clark

Prineville

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