$100,000 PSU Donation Raises Business Hackles
– Rachel Monahan, Willamette Week
Portland State University’s plan to fund scholarships with a $35 million payroll tax has met with skepticism from business groups, labor unions and Portland Public Schools.
But as PSU moves forward with a November ballot initiative asking voters to approve the tax, it has received $100,000 in backing from its own private fundraising wing…
Now the president of the tax’s fiercest opponent, the Portland Business Alliance, says its members may stop donating to the PSU Foundation.
“We have heard concerns from many of our members who had made donations to the foundation…who are concerned about foundation money being used for the campaign,” says PBA president and CEO Sandra McDonough. “I have had members say they will think twice about contributing to the foundation.”
We Respond & Your Comments
You gotta love this – A PSU fundraiser meets with a Portland business owner and pleads, “Sir, our poor university is so underfunded – we can’t afford safe places for students in pain because they saw a Trump for President sign.
“We can’t even fund a chair for a professor of 16th Century Sustainable Korean Gender Studies. Would you please fork over $25,000? It’s for the children. Oh, by the way, we’ll use part of it to fund a ballot initiative to raise your payroll tax.”
OK, so the fundraiser didn’t mention the tax.
What did these 180 IQ geniuses think would happen when they took business donations and used them to promote a tax on businesses? That donors would just say “Thank you”? If so, they must live in Progressive Nirvana, where taxes are endless and no one ever objects.
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