“Taxes are the cost of living in a free society.”

This is how I often misquote Justice Oliver Wendell-Holmes, who actually wrote in a dissenting opinion that “taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.” I’m not sure how civilized it is to threaten to blow another country into oblivion, so I opt for the one thing I know we all hold dear: freedom. Indeed, a fair tax structure is what makes us free.

This is not a new idea. In her book The Price of Democracy, Vanessa Williamson reminds us that the Boston Tea Party 253 years ago was about the people choosing how to be taxed, and by whom: “To the extent the American Revolution was about taxation, it was about the desire of Americans to tax themselves: to take on the legitimate burdens of a government in which they had a voice.”

Oregon will soon have a choice to make about taxes and how we take on the legitimate costs of a government in which we have a voice. The Governor’s Prosperity Council appears ready to recommend a slew of tax cuts that will mostly benefit the wealthy and large corporations. One proposal would replicate one of the Trump tax cuts enacted as part of H.R. 1 in 2025 – a tax cut the Oregon legislature rejected in the short 2026 session when it passed SB 1507. Another proposal would cut the Corporate Activities Tax, reducing resources for K-12 schools and preschools. All of this would be done in the name of “improving Oregon’s business climate” and climbing up the ranks in CNBC’s list of states friendliest to businesses, rather than improving the quality of life of Oregonians.

The state budget is already under heavy strain due to Trump’s infamous big-but-not-beautiful bill. Oregon faces tough choices ahead as a result of the administration making the state pay a much greater share for food stamps, in addition to bearing the cost to implement burdensome administrative requirements to check the eligibility of low-income families who rely on public services to make ends meet. This is on top of all the revenue we’ve lost to egregious tax cuts for the rich and profitable corporations.

So how will Oregon pay for the economic building blocks everyone agrees are needed to attract investments and nurture a healthy business community in our state? How will we pay for transportation infrastructure that is vital for effective supply chains? How will we ensure that we have a well-educated workforce that meets the needs of emerging industries? How will we make sure this workforce is healthy?

Tax cuts and the resultant loss of revenue will not provide an answer to any of these questions. The corporate interests that roam the halls of the Capitol will argue that tax cuts will bring investments that will result in more businesses paying taxes and generating more revenue. Perhaps this is true in a computer model devised by the big business lobby, but decades of experience and research show that all this will accomplish is to worsen the already alarming concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

But that’s not all that’s at risk. As Dr. Williamson reminds us, taxes are vital to democracy and freedom because they create a demand for representation. Taxes are a “key ingredient in the recipe for successful representative government.” A successful government responds to the needs of the people, and to do so, governments require resources to meet the people’s needs. So what happens when corporations and the wealthy people running them are treated differently than the rest of us? What happens when the government does not have the resources to respond to the demands of the governed?

The loss of faith in government we see today in the United States is partly the result of applying this formula since the 1980s. Starve the government, question its ability to do its job, and push private corporations to fill the void left behind – for profit and at a much higher cost to the people. The DOGE effort was the acute version of this chronic disease. The Prosperity Council appears ready to pick up the mantle and do its part.

Taxes are a difficult conversation, but only because the story we’ve been told since the Reagan years is that they are a burden. As prior generations of Americans understood, a well-run tax system is a key ingredient of a truly free society.