Gosh, if we only had a way to buy products from national retailers while sitting at our computers, then corporations wouldn’t be able to pass along that Measure 97 tax . . .
What did you say? There’s a thing called “the Internet?” And you can use it to buy just about anything from vendors across the country or the maybe even the world?
Then someone ought to tell the Legislative Revenue Office (LRO) that the Internet exists. Because when it modeled the impact of Measure 97, LRO did not take that into account in concluding that the large corporations will pass costs on to consumers.
Kidding aside, the other day Costco — which is spending money against Measure 97 — sent me this flyer showing that I could buy their products online. And they are not unique in this respect. Large retailers of all stripes allow you to buy their products online. The Costco flyer makes the case for voting “YES” on Measure 97.
Despite what their threatening campaign ads say, national retailers like Costco will be hard-pressed to raise their brick and mortar prices in Oregon if Oregonians can simply purchase the same product online without the markup, just like consumers elsewhere can.
This is one of the reasons why LRO’s analysis is flawed, and why I am confident the national retailers won’t raise prices if Oregon voters enact Measure 97
If you know the Internet exists, you can be confident in voting YES on Measure 97.
This post was originally published on www.blueoregon.com on October 24, 2016. The original post can be found at http://www.blueoregon.com/2016/10/Costco-Measure-97-no-cost-internet-vote-yes/.
