Last Friday, I attended the Senior awards ceremony for my daughter's high school class. She attends a large suburban school which has a good mix of students from differing cultures and economic circumstances. It was about a 90 minute event at which numerous recognitions and scholarships were handed out to the graduating class of about 400.

One of the scholarships took the form of a free laptop that was presented to the class Valedictorian by Best Buy, which has a large store less then a mile from the school. This was just one of several presentations by local businesses.

As the Best Buy award was being announced, I turned to my wife and said, "I wish I had 60 seconds at the mic right now." I saw an opportunity to make a connection for the audience that they were unlikely to make for themselves.

I would have explained to the crowd of students, parents, administrators and community members that the Legislature was currently engaged in an effort to make it very difficult or impossible for Best Buy and other businesses to continue to provide scholarships for students. That the Legislature wanted to force Best Buy to give money to schools through higher taxes - after running it through the government employee unions so they could skim off their take.

That the Legislature was seeking to drive any small business owners attending the festivities out of business by creating an Alternative Minimum Tax that would hit primarily small business. I would have noted that the $500 laptop Best Buy was donating would now be the minimum annual tax on a company doing business in Oregon - even if they never made a dime in profit.

That was a teachable moment, perhaps the most important one in the four years the Senior class had been at the school. It's certainly not a lesson they would have been taught in any of their classes. It's a lesson, though, that Oregon's Legislature thinks we have to learn the hard way - through higher unemployment, more lost homes and more dreams postponed.