Oregon voters and the legislature were recently faced with some difficult budget decisions. Their solution was apparently to raise over $720 million by jacking up taxes, largely on businesses. It’s one way of doing things, but it’s probably not helping their businesses recover from the recession. So, if some of those fine Oregon companies wish to join us here in business-friendly Indiana, that’s certainly o.k. Granted, we don’t have mountains and ocean access, but corn is a beautiful vegetable and you haven’t lived until you’ve been to a Covered Bridge Festival in the fall. Also, bring your sneaks because you’re going to learn a lot about free throws.

Stateline writes:

For the first time since 1930, Oregon voters approved a general tax increase on Tuesday (Jan. 26), signing off on a plan to raise $727 million by targeting corporations and the wealthy.

By approving two ballot initiatives — known as Measures 66 and 67 — Oregonians showed that they prefer to tax relatively well-off segments of the population instead of making deep budget cuts to education and other state services.

Measure 66 raises income taxes on individuals who earn more than $125,000 a year and households that earn more than $250,000. Measure 67 replaces Oregon’s 79-year-old, $10-minimum corporate income tax with a new sliding scale that could sharply increase taxes for many businesses. Both plans were passed by the majority Democratic Oregon Legislature last year, but were placed on the ballot by opponents who gathered enough signatures to force a public vote.

As Stateline.org reported Tuesday, the election has national implications. Beyond being a referendum on a key part of Oregon Democrats’ policy agenda, the Beaver State is the first in the nation to vote on an emerging trend of state lawmakers targeting the wealthy for tax hikes. A record eight states, including Oregon, raised personal income taxes on their top earners last year, a practice Republicans have decried as “class warfare.”

Beyond being a showdown between Democrats and Republicans, the election turned into a proxy fight between labor unions that backed the measures and many businesses trying to reject them. The Associated Press reported that Tuesday’s special election was one of the most expensive issue campaigns in Oregon history, noting that the $727 million at stake represents about 5.5 percent of the state’s two-year, general-fund budget.

This time last year, collective faith in American businesses was down, both domestically and abroad. Then again, at this time last year Brett Favre seemed to be settling into retirement and Conan O’Brien was eagerly awaiting fulfilling his dream of taking over "The Tonight Show." Quite a bit can change in a year.

And it looks as though trust in American businesses is rebounding, according to PR Newswire:

Trust in business and government in the United States has improved significantly, according to the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer. Among informed publics(1), trust in U.S. business to do what is right jumped 18 points since last year to 54 percent. Trust in U.S. companies is trending up in 19 of the 20 countries surveyed, with the largest increases – 20 percentage points or more – recorded in Europe, reversing years of low trust in U.S. companies across the EU and Russia. In the U.S., trust in government also rose 16 points since last year, to 46 percent, one of the largest increases in trust in government among the countries surveyed. These levels of trust are approaching those measured by Edelman before the "great recession," at the height of the economic expansion in 2006 and 2007. However, nearly two-thirds (59 percent) of U.S. respondents express concern that business and financial institutions will return to "business as usual" after the recession is over… 

For the first time, this year’s survey shows that trust and transparency are as important to corporate reputation as the quality of products and services. In the U.S. and in much of Western Europe, those two attributes rank higher than product quality – and far outrank financial returns, which sits at or near the bottom of 10 criteria in all regions. This is in stark contrast to 2006, when financial performance was in third place in a list of 10 attributes shaping trust in the United States. An increasing number of respondents also expressed trust in information from a company’s CEO – up 12 points, from 19 percent to 31 percent, which is still relatively low.