It would have been the biggest tax hike in Oregon's history. It might have addressed the state's chronic shortfall in education funding and looming pension deficit. It would have poured $3 billion a year into Oregon's public coffers.

Even in defeat, Oregonian/OregonLive readers voted Measure 97 the state's biggest business story of 2016.

We asked readers to rank the Top 5 Oregon business stories, and the failed ballot initiative handily topped Portland's dire housing crisis, Macy's decision to leave downtown Portland, and the thousands of Intel job cuts that are remaking Oregon's largest private employer. Here's their verdict:

1. Measure 97

Public employee unions hatched Measure 97 as a plan to solve Oregon's persistent funding shortfalls, noting correctly that the state's businesses have one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation. Advocates pitched the initiative as a bid to make large companies pay their "fair share" by levying a tax on sales.

Seeking to parse the difference between a tax on sales and a sales tax proved to be a losing issue with voters, though. The unions picked a fight with the companies best positioned to wage the battle and were handily outspent in the most expensive initiative campaign in Oregon history.

The result was a crushing defeat, with Measure 97 trounced by 16 percentage points.

Still, Measure 97 will remain a major business story in 2017 as lawmakers wrestle with the state's funding deficit and businesses contemplate their role in coping with the shortfall.

2. Portland's housing crisis

Portland led the nation in rising home prices for much of the year, and rents continued to climb far faster than wages.

That's been clear for years to anyone who's bought or rented a home, or noticed all the for-sale signs spreading along residential streets.

But the issue crystallized for many this year as more people dove into a brutal housing market and tenants faced another round of rent hikes or were forced to move. And it wasn't long before a response began to take shape.

Portland voters approved a $258 million housing bond in November, dedicating a stream of revenue to building or preserving housing units affordable to low-income residents.

And this week, after the Legislature lifted a state ban on inclusionary zoning, which allows cities to require affordable units in market-rate housing developments, Portland approved a citywide mandate that will take effect next year.

Voters in the city also signaled their frustration in part by ousting City Commissioner Steve Novick -- the first dismissal of an incumbent in 24 years -- and backing insurgent candidate Chloe Eudaly. The bookstore owner's campaign sprang from an online community she'd built around angst over rising rents.

Housing affordability may dominate the conversation next year, too.

House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, has said she wants to restrict evictions without cause, lift the state's ban on rent-control laws and limit rent increases. Portland's mayor-elect, Ted Wheeler, said he would pursue similar measures.

3. Macy's exits historic downtown store

In November, Macy's confirmed what many in the real estate world already kne: It will sell its store in the the historic Meier & Frank Building in downtown Portland, and close this spring.

The decision marks the end of an era for the building, which has housed a department store - first Meier & Frank and later Macy's - since 1909.

"A bit of Oregon history is lost," said Gerry Frank, whose great-grandfather helped start Meier & Frank in 1857. "It was a great institution. It was the heartbeat of Portland, and people came from all over the state of Oregon to shop there."

The onetime Meier & Frank flagship store still inspires nostalgia among many Oregonians, who recall the Georgian Room restaurant, the oversized clock and the seasonal Santaland. Film legend Clark Gable once worked there, selling ties.

Macy's parent company bought Meier & Frank in 2005, and the store was remodeled and rebranded in 2007.

Now, the five floors that Macy's occupies will become the property of KBS, a California real-estate investment group, for $54 million. The firm hopes to renovate the lower half of the building to feature street-level retail and creative office space.

4. Intel layoffs and restructuring

The world's largest chipmaker set about remaking itself in 2016, reducing its dependence on the fading PC market to focus on data centers and, to a much lesser degree, emerging technologies such as drones and autonomous cars.

The result was a wrenching transition that eliminated 15,000 jobs between May and September, with cutbacks potentially continuing into 2017. Most employees left through buyouts or early retirement programs, but at least 2,300 U.S. workers lost their jobs to layoffs - including 784 in Washington County.

Intel's layoffs skewed older, with workers over 40 more than twice as likely to lose their jobs as younger ones.

Accompanying the transition, Intel overhauled its executive ranks. Last year it hired a new president, Murthy Renduchintala, from communications chipmaker Qualcomm. In 2016, it hired a new chief information officer, a new chief financial officer, and a new vice president for the nascent Internet of Things business.

Amid all the upheaval, Intel forecasts sales will grow 6.1 percent in 2016, its best results since 2011. Shares were up about 7 percent for the year - 10 percent if you adjust for dividends paid. That tracks with 11.1 percent growth in the S&P 500 during the year.

5. Billion-dollar deals (tie)

The Portland area's aging cluster of big tech companies is on the cusp of extinction.

The Silicon Forest got its name from a concentration of electronics hardware companies, most of which grew out of Tektronix. As their technologies aged, though, and electronics manufacturing moved to Asia, the regional tech industry couldn't keep up.

The selloff began in 2007, when Tektronix itself was sold to an East Coast conglomerate. It picked up in 2014, when TriQuint Semiconductor was acquired by a rival for $5 billion in stock.

Then, in 2016, the Silicon Forest really unloaded. This year alone, Cascade Microtech ($352 million), FEI Co. ($4.2 billion), Lattice Semiconductor ($1.3 billion), Mentor Graphics ($4.5 billion) and Electric Lightwave ($1.4 billion) all found new owners (some deals will not close until 2017).

The issue isn't that these aging tech businesses sold out - they were old, serving narrow markets, and some were under intense investor pressure to deal. The issue is that Oregon tech has produced no other large companies to take the place of businesses started 20, 30 or 40 years ago.

As the tech industry moved away from Oregon's specialty in hardware and manufacturing in the years following the dot-com bust, the state initially lacked the expertise to compete in the emerging fields of software and internet services.

Those skills came, in time, and Oregon tech employment is at its highest point in many years. But the state's tech landscape is now dominated by out-of-state companies that established Portland outposts to capitalize on the city's relatively low operating costs.

If Oregon's only advantage is price, though, what happens if the tech economy turns south - or if Portland gets so expensive that the city is no longer a bargain?

5. Aequitas scandal (tie)

For years, Aequitas Capital was a relatively obscure investment company in Lake Oswego that liked to tout its born-again spirituality as much as its business prowess.

"Our intent is to serve God, not money, and to focus on significance, not just financial success," the company proclaimed in a corporate credo it called "The Aequitas Way."

In 2016, Aequitas' righteous path proved a one-way street to the biggest white-collar scandal in recent Oregon history.

Co-founders Bob Jesenik and Brian Oliver bet the company on the sketchy for-profit college business, buying half a billion dollars' worth of student loans from Corinthian Colleges. So when Corinthian collapsed in 2015, Aequitas' fate was sealed.

Jesenik and the Aequitas team concealed the company's financial freefall and desperately continued to raise money from unsuspecting investors, federal regulators claim. Aequitas ran out of money early in the year. It laid off more than 100 employees and began to acknowledge the extent of its cash-flow problems as investors clamored for their money.

In March, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued the company, alleging that Jesenik's "cash-flow" problem was actually a massive Ponzi scheme. The agency accused the company of systematically misleading investors and paying off existing investors with funds provided by new investors.

A court-appointed receiver took charge and promptly got rid of Jesenik, Oliver and most of the rest of Aequitas' senior executives. The receiver estimates $600 million of investor money is at risk.

Hundreds of investors lawyered up but were precluded by the receivership order from suing Aequitas. Instead, they filed at least five lawsuits against the company's lawyers and accountants and the national network of financial advisers who suggested they invest in Aequitas in the first place.

No one has sued Aequitas' board of advisers -- which included local luminaries like Will Glasgow, Pat Terrell, Marty Brantley and Gerry Frank. These insiders, some of whom worked out of offices at Aequitas' Lake Oswego headquarters, insist they were little more than figureheads with no real oversight role and no inside knowledge of the alleged scam.

While the receiver attempts to sell the hodgepodge of subprime loan portfolios, operating companies and other assets still held by Aequitas, investors are waiting for criminal charges to be filed.

Jeff Manning, Anna Marum and Elliot Njus of The Oregonian/OregonLive contributed to this report.

-- Mike Rogoway

mrogoway@oregonian.com

503-294-7699

@rogoway