Letters to the editor: Support the Oregon Cultural Trust; Column left out conservative contributions; Solutions should not create more problems
Published 9:15 pm Tuesday, December 20, 2022
- Typewriter
Support the Oregon Cultural Trust
The Cultural Trust is one of Oregon’s unique “big ideas.” Founded in 2001 as a funding engine for arts and culture, the Trust supports creative expression and cultural exchange throughout the state. How? Through the Cultural Tax Credit. Using the tax credit, Oregonians have directed $79 million to support the Trust’s five cultural Partners, 45 county and tribal coalitions and 1,500+ qualified cultural nonprofits.
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The Trust’s promise: a state tax credit for you and stable and accessible funding for everyone. This is a way to double your support as a cultural donor. The cultural tax credit has been described as “a way to make paying state taxes satisfying.”
Here’s how you get your tax credit: First, donate to your favorite cultural nonprofits before December 31. Then, also make a matching gift to the Cultural Trust by December 31 (including gifts of stock or funds from your IRA). Finally, enter the amount you gave to the Cultural Trust as a tax credit on your 2022 state tax form.
Your tax credit equals the amount of your donation to the Cultural Trust, up to a limit of $500 for individuals, $1,000 for couples filing jointly and $2,500 for C-class corporations.
The act of giving is more important than the amount you give to the Trust. Every donation to the Trust, and every tax credit claimed, is a vote in support of our arts, heritage and humanities.
— Chris Van Dyke is board member of the Oregon Cultural Trust and lives in Bend.
Column left out conservative contributions
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I found Jeff Eager’s December 17 guest column on campaign spending pretty amusing. Eager, a local conservative political consultant, laments all the financial contributions from “outside groups and progressive billionaires” to Oregon ballot measure campaigns.
He’s especially upset that political action committees supporting Measure 114 received $2.93 million in contributions. He labels George Soros a “progressive billionaire activist.” He rants quite a bit against other rich people and groups that support liberal causes.
But, he says nothing about the $5.25 million that conservative billionaire activist Phil Knight gave to Betsy Johnson and Christine Drazan — two candidates for Governor — and another $2 million Knight gave to the Bring Balance to Salem PAC that funded Republican state legislative races. That’s $7.25 from one rich guy.
Eager has a long history of grooming and trying to elect conservative candidates. So, I guess in his world it is good when a conservative billionaire tries to sway voters but bad when a progressive billionaire does.
We need campaign finance reform that prevents all billionaires from contributing massive sums of money to sway voters and buy politicians. In 2020, 78 percent of Oregon voters said “yes” to Measure 107, which provided Oregon state legislators a road map towards meaningful reform. But legislators in both parties kicked that can down the road.
Let’s take obscene gobs of money out of politics. That would be good for democracy. Go to Honest Oregon Elections, www.honest-elections.com, to learn more.
— Michael Funke, Bend
Solutions should not create new problems
I appreciated the recent editorial on drug pricing. Much work is underway in Oregon to understand the problems and propose workable solutions. I encourage people to check out the first report of the Prescription Drug Affordability Board. One proposed solution is to set upper price limits for some drugs. We should be cautious with this approach to make sure it does not affect people’s access to drugs. The concept does not limit the price manufacturers can charge, rather it limits the price pharmacies can charge. This puts pharmacies and patients in the middle of a game of chicken between the state of Oregon and drug companies. The idea is that pharmacies will not buy drugs at prices higher than they are permitted to sell them, so a manufacturer must lower their prices if they want to sell to Oregon pharmacies. If a manufacturer refuses, then patients in Oregon could go without that drug. If a manufacturer reduces their price but doesn’t offer pharmacies any margin, then what? Pharmacies do not want to be forced to negotiate on behalf of the state and patients. If the legislature chooses to pursue upper price limits in the next session, then they need to assure that there will not be further disruption to pharmacies or to a patient’s access to drugs.
— Kevin Russell, Prineville
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