FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – July 30, 2007
Contact: Ed Frank (703) 408-0572 or Annie Patnaude (202) 349-5880

PORTLAND – The national free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) today launched its Oregon chapter and said the chapter’s first goal would be to mobilize citizens against tax hikes looming on the November ballot. The group will also fight repeal of the double majority rule, a valuable taxpayer protection that prohibits Oregon voters from approving a property tax hike without at least half of eligible voters present (except for the general election). Click here to view the AFP-Oregon policy agenda.

“Taxpayers are sick and tired of bigger and more expensive government, but not better government,” said AFP President Tim Phillips. “Oregon does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. Even as government grows bigger and bigger, taxpayers are being left behind. The Oregon chapter of Americans for Prosperity is going to educate and mobilize those taxpayers and make sure their voices are heard loud and clear in Salem.”

The establishment of a state chapter in Oregon marks the 20th for AFP. The group has already chalked up a number of major victories on the state level, such as enacting legislation to create “Google Government” state spending databases in Oklahoma and Kansas, helping to defeat proposed tax hikes in Virginia, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and limiting taxpayer-funded lobbying in Texas. AFP has also become a national grassroots leader in the fight against pork-barrel earmarks. In 2006 the group traveled over 10,000 miles to 37 states and 50 pork-barrel earmarks on the Ending Earmarks Express road tour of federal earmarks.

The group has named Matt Evans as AFP’s Oregon Coordinator. Evans is a native Oregonian with over 20 years of political and public policy experience in the state, including eight years with former U.S. Senator Bob Packwood and eight years as Executive Director of Oregon Tax Research. 

“Americans for Prosperity has been fighting the good fight in other states and in the nation’s capital and getting results through taxpayer involvement,” said Evans. “With such an outstanding, effective organization looking out for citizens’ interests, we can restore fiscal responsibility to Oregon.”

Among the other issues the Oregon chapter will tackle are: enacting state transportation reform through the creation of a Joint Commission on Transportation Accountability that would exercise oversight of state agencies with transportation responsibilities, and, enacting transparency legislation to create a website that would put comprehensive state budget information at citizens’ fingertips. The website would draw inspiration from last year’s successful federal legislation sponsored by Senators Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) that instructed the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to build a website for the public to view federal grant and contract disbursements.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is the nation’s premier grassroots organization committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and scope of government is the best safeguard to ensuring individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. AFP educates and engages citizens in support of restraining state and federal government growth and returning government to its constitutional limits. For more information, visit www.AmericansforProsperity.org

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