If Ballot Measures 48 and 41 pass, their unintended consequences won't allow us to make necessary investments in education, health care and public safety.

If these confusing and complicated measures become law, we'll see damaging national headlines like "Meth Use on the Rise in Oregon," "Oregon School Doors Close Early," and "Life Saving Medication Denied to Oregon Seniors."

It may even go beyond the headlines. The damage from these measures will provide ammunition for another round of embarrassing Doonesbury comics.

Let's start with Ballot Measure 41. This retroactive measure would change Oregon's tax code, resulting in a cut of almost $800 million in the next budget cycle. With over 90 percent of the state's budget going to fund schools, health care and public safety, Measure 41 will force deep cuts to the things Oregonians care most about.

Making a bad situation worse, Measure 48 would insert a flawed formula into Oregon's Constitution. It is the same flawed formula, known as TABOR (tapayers' bill of rights), that was tried and failed in Colorado.

Recently Colorado voters elected to suspend their version of Measure 48, because after 13 years of having the law in place, Colorado fell to 48th in funding for higher education, 49th in funding for K-12 and dead last in vaccination rates for children.

Measure 48 is even worse than its Colorado counterpart. It creates a cap on funding for schools and other vital services. Tuition, fees and even self-funding programs are subject to the Constitutional amendment.

According to the fiscal impact statement, Ballot Measure 48 would cut at least $2.2 billion from the upcoming budget cycle. And the measure is so poorly written that it may even be retroactive.

Measures 48 and 41 give no direction to lawmakers on how to make billions of dollars in cuts. There is nothing in either measure that sets priorities for budgeting.

The size of the blow that the two measures deliver is too large to overcome without forcing cuts to local school districts, our dwindling state trooper force, services to seniors and health insurance programs for children.

Proponents of Measure 48 are mislabeling the measure to make it more attractive to voters. But read it for yourself. There is nothing in Measure 48 that creates a "rainy day fund" and in fact, during the signature gathering process, voters filed complaints with the Secretary of State saying that they were lied to when they were told Measure 48 would create a rainy day fund.

Instead, they will lose prescription drug coverage and access to valuable programs like Oregon Project Independence that keep seniors in their homes.

Measure 48 and Measure 41 have been bankrolled by out-of-state special interests. More than 85 percent of the funding to put Measure 48 on the ballot came from one wealthy individual, Howard Rich, a New York developer. Measure 41 was paid for almost single-handedly by Nevada billionaire Loren Parks.

Oregon voters should ask themselves: What do Loren Parks and Howard Rich stand to gain from cutting vital services and amending Oregon's Constitution?

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