From The Oregonian Editorial Board:
We agree with backers of Measure 85 on one thing: The corporate kicker is bad public policy. Because good public policy is the best antidote to bad public policy, however, voters in November should deliver a swift kick of their own to Measure 85.
The corporate income tax kicker is half of a matched set of revenue-reduction mechanisms protected by the Oregon Constitution, the other being the much more substantial personal income tax kicker. From a taxpayer’s perspective, both kickers reward bad guessing by budget experts. If collections of either income tax exceed projections by more than 2 percent, then all of the unanticipated money in that pot is returned to taxpayers. Since their creation in the late 1970s, the personal kicker has returned about $2.6 billion to Oregonians, and the corporate kicker has returned about $527 million.