Coffee with Cascade: Recent Episodes
Cascade Policy Institute
Are you wondering why homelessness is up in Oregon? Or why traffic is just never-ending?
Grab an Oregon-roasted cup o' joe, sit back, and listen to Cascade Policy Institute explain the latest research on Oregon issues.
The Portland Public Schools Board is considering the purchase of an 80,000 square foot building to house the “Center for Black Student Excellence.”
This triggered a 90-day due diligence review with a final vote in December on whether to purchase the commercial building. While the committee so far has reviewed the building’s merits, they haven’t asked the hard questions.
First is the fact that the One North building will not be used as a school, but as a community center and a hub for organizations who “advance a culture of black excellence.”
However, PPS is a school district whose primary mission is classroom education. They’ve never operated a community center with classroom dollars and buying a commercial building for non-school programming will be hard to justify.
A second question is the legal one. Supreme Court rulings have made it clear that race-based programs in public education violate Civil Rights laws. Is the District Board willing to risk federal revenue for a non-school, race-based program?
While buying the One North building is a bad idea for a tax-supported school district, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. Many private organizations serve minority youth with experienced staff and robust programming. The Center would be an imaginative project for them to sponsor.
The Center for Black Student Excellence should be a private venture. One great fit could be the 1803 Fund, established by Rukaiyah Adams, who first cast the vision for the Center five years ago. Ms. Adams could use this opportunity to launch the vision without the legal restrictions and challenges sure to arise for a tax-entity like Portland Public Schools.
Last week KGW news reported that Portland area rents are up 22 percent since pre-pandemic levels. We see it everywhere: so-called “affordable housing” costs have risen so quickly that even though cities and states now spend more money than ever, fewer housing units are being built. In April 2024, the Cascade Policy Institute published a report asking why this is the case. Unfortunately, the state of Oregon has refused to make data available that brings to light why rising costs continue to accelerate.
Fortunately, in the year or so since then, the Montana Department of Commerce provided data on 190 housing projects. Analysis shows that only one-third of increased costs are due to actual construction; the rest is due to the increasing size of housing projects. Large projects require developers to borrow money, which then adds interest expense. In addition, developers have massively increased the amount they spend on buying property for housing.
Developers welcome rising costs because they earn fees from the projects in proportion to the cost of the project. Unfortunately, state housing agencies who hand out “affordable housing subsidies” make little to no effort to ensure these funds are used cost-effectively. This means that affordable housing mainly benefits developers rather than low-income individuals who need it most.
The National Association of Education Progress (NAEP) annually releases a representative study of students’ academic performance. Known as “the Nation’s Report Card,” NAEP scores are an indicator of how much children are learning.
This fall’s report shows only 24 percent of Oregon eighth graders are “at or above proficient” in math, and 27 percent are proficient in reading. Of Oregon fourth graders, 31 percent are proficient in math, 27 percent in reading. These scores are lower than the national average.
This isn’t a surprise. Money spent in the public education bureaucracy has increased for decades, but everyone knows academic achievement has declined. It’s no wonder polls show strong majorities of voters, including poll respondents in Oregon, support “giving parents the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the school which best serves their needs.”
Oregon public schools can’t meet the needs of all children for reasons that are many and complex. But solutions can be simple, starting with freedom and opportunity. To improve education outcomes, policymakers should make it easier for parents to match their students with public, charter, magnet, online, private, home, or micro schools that best meet their needs and goals. Parents want their children to learn, and they want access to schools that will help them do that effectively. Children deserve no less than a great environment to reach their full potential.
On September 15, the Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE) released its 2025 Biennial Zero-Emissions Vehicle Report, revealing that Oregon is far behind on its goal of purchasing 250,000 “zero emissions vehicles” (ZEV) by 2025. The report was established in 2019 by SB 1044 to push ZEV adoption.
As of May 2025, 119,850 such vehicles were registered in Oregon, equaling 3.2 percent of the total vehicle fleet. Of those, only 84,636 were true zero-emission vehicles powered entirely by a battery. The remaining 35,214 vehicles were plug-in hybrids, which still rely on gasoline.
These numbers show that we’ve reached 34 percent of Kate Brown’s arbitrary EV Adoption Targets established during her era. Even more ambitious goals were set by ODOE for 2035, stating “at least 90 percent of new cars sold will be zero-emission vehicles.”
Two obvious reasons come to mind for this failed goal. For starters, EVs cost more than traditional vehicles—a good deal more. For medium– and heavy-duty vehicles the purchase price can be double or triple the price of a diesel or gasoline powered vehicle. In practical terms, finding or installing a charging station can be difficult or expensive, making long-distance trips a challenge to plan.
Few people will notice this policy failure because few really care about electric vehicles. The ZEV report is just one example of political elites telling us what to do and then being ignored.
Will the Oregon Department of Energy learn from their failure and leave us alone? No. That’s why they work for the government. But if you like your car, gas powered or hybrid, just keep it. Bureaucrats can’t make you buy something you don’t want and can’t afford.
The Portland Public School board is set to approve the sale for the “One North Building” as a home for the “Center for Black Student Excellence.”
The District is prepared to spend $16 million from the 2020 construction bond. Yet, they’ve never explained how the Center will operate or who it will serve. The name of the Center implies it will serve Black students, but the staff report claims it will be open to everyone. If true, it should be called the Center for Student Excellence.
PPS serves about 44-thousand students over 150 square miles, so how will those students travel to the Center before or after school? The building has 10 parking spaces and isn’t zoned for buses.
The staff report also states “student use will be limited.” If so, why purchase a new building with new operating costs? The district already has too many schools while enrollment is in decline.
Learning takes place everywhere in the district. Spending millions on a new building is unlikely to have a real effect on academic achievement.
Perhaps while evaluating the building, the Board can re-evaluate the Center’s vision with a goal to bring student excellence into every school and tailoring experiences to students from different ethnic backgrounds. Maybe investing in Centers for Student Excellence wouldn’t require a new building at all.
In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregating school children by race was unconstitutional. As a result, districts across America spent the rest of the century integrating schools.
In Portland, though, segregation is back in vogue. A group called Albina Vision Trust began promoting the idea of a Center for Black Student Excellence (CBSE) in the summer of 2020 and persuaded the Portland Public School Board (PPS) to set aside $60 million for that concept in its $1 billion construction bond that voters approved a few months later.
Five years later, none of the $60 million has been spent because advocates have never been able to explain how one single building would advance Black excellence in a district serving more than 40,000 students spread over 152 square miles. A recent Oregonian editorial asked the same question, asking “how this center will finally help the district advance student achievement.”
Nonetheless, the PPS Board has announced a plan to buy a new building in North Portland for the CBSE. No details are available, but the purchase will be discussed by the Board at its next meeting on September 9.
In the famous 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. School Board of Topeka, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for a unanimous Court that, “in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.”
But PPS no longer cares about equality. The new goal is “equity.” Just don’t ask them to explain it.
The Oregon Legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation Funding will consider legislation this week called “LC 2” as they head into a special session to address transportation funding.
The Governor’s Transportation Budget Framework defines the problem as an ODOT “budget gap” that needs to be addressed with a “funding solution.” She says that the cause is a lack of revenue for ODOT, oft repeated by legislators, lobbyists, and journalists who describe the problem as “declining revenue,” or a “dwindling gas tax.” These statements are simply not supported by ODOT’s financials showing that net revenue grew by 30 percent since 2018 and reached record highs in 2024.
A spending problem, not a funding problem, is the reason ODOT is about to eliminate 900 positions. The real problem is two-pronged: first, too many statutory restrictions on existing revenue; and too much debt service on $4 billion in highway bonds, which have grown at a much faster rate than ODOT’s revenue.
In reviewing LC2, Cascade offered the Committee two suggestions. First, amend LC 2 to free up gas tax funds for services Oregonians need and have already paid for. Next, pay off these highway bonds with lottery revenues. This would increase ODOT’s available gas tax revenue by more than 50 percent without a tax increase.
Governor Tina Kotek has called a special session of the legislature to secure more funding for the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT). She wants to raise gas taxes by six cents per gallon, double vehicle registration fees, and increase titling fees.
The governor claims that ODOT revenue has been declining due to improved fuel economy of cars, but comprehensive annual reports online show the opposite, as does the Legislative Revenue Office presentation. In 2024 gas tax revenue hit an all-time high of $652 million, as nearly did registration and titling fees ($550 million) and weight and mile fees ($455 million). Total ODOT revenue increased by 30 percent between 2018 and 2024 while debt service increased 41 percent and is growing. The debt is not scheduled to be retired until 2049.
It’s not a revenue problem; it’s a spending problem.
First, since 2001, as part of the Oregon Transportation Investment Act bond program (OTIA), the legislature has forced ODOT to spend most new gas tax monies on construction projects while ignoring highway maintenance. Thus, while gas tax revenue has increased, the amount going to operations has decreased.
Secondly, the legislature voted to sell nearly $4 billion in bonds backed by gas tax revenues. As a result, ODOT paid $358 million out of the gas tax revenues toward debt service last year compared to only $70 million in 2007.
To paraphrase Warren Buffett, debt service is the tapeworm eating 55 percent of ODOT’s gas tax money.
When legislators meet on August 29th, they should repeal gas tax restrictions put in place by OTIA Programs I, II and III. They should also pay down ODOT’s remaining bond debt of $3.9 billion with lottery funds. This would free up gas tax revenue to be spent on road maintenance and set a course correction ODOT and the people of Oregon need.
The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has a $350 million deficit. Governor Tina Kotek has said that if this funding is not secured, she will lay off about 500 ODOT employees.
During the regular legislative session that ended in June, Democrats (who hold a supermajority in both the House and the Senate) could not reach a consensus on a transportation funding bill (HB 2025). Sidelining and ignoring Republicans further ensured that the bill would not pass.
To deal with the budget shortfall, the Governor has called for a special session for Friday, August 29. Her goal is to raise the gas tax by six cents ($.06), increase vehicle registration fees by $42, and raise title fees by $139.
House Minority Leader Christine Drazen has proposed an alternative. Instead of raising taxes and fees on Oregon motorists, the legislature could use emergency funds from the Legislative Emergency Board. Hundreds of millions of dollars are set aside every legislative session for use in an emergency. Using emergency funds would not raise the gas tax and could fund ODOT until the 2026 session when a working solution can be found.
Oregon currently has the fourth-highest gas prices in the nation. Raising the gas tax should not be an option. Legislators should find a way to fund important transportation maintenance services without punishing Oregonians at the pump.
Governor Tina Kotek has long expressed support for wind power. In 2024, the Biden administration approved 195,000acres off the southern Oregon coast for wind farm construction (Wind Energy Areas) as part of its push to grow offshore wind power capacity, which gave her the means to enact this vision. However, widespread opposition from residents, including fishermen, tribal nations, and local politicians, expressed concern over the harm it would bring to the ecosystem and local industry.
When these wind farms started to look like a possibility, Kotek asked Biden to halt the project for further research into the potential effects of offshore wind farms on the localcommunity. By requesting the delay, she could torpedo the plan without appearing to backpedal on her previous platform.
However, Kotek was recently tossed a lifeline from an unexpected source. The Trump administration’s Bureau ofOcean Energy Management, or BOEM, has rescinded all wind power plans for the southern Oregon coast, to the relief of communities in those areas. This new Kotek and Trump alliance has handed the governor the pause on offshore wind she likely wanted. Don’t hold your breath, however, waiting for the Governor to send Trump a thank-you note.
On July 31st, the seven Metro councilors will vote to borrow $88.5 million to help pay for five transit projects that include “road diets” in and around Portland. Once approved, Metro will have to repay the loan until 2039.
To obtain the $88.5 million now, Metro will pay $140 million in principal and interest over the next 14 years. That’s nearly $50 million lost to debt service, money the agency can’t spend on capital investments or region-wide programs.
Which projects are so urgent that Metro councilors are willing to lose $50 million? One is a 0.65-mile streetcar extension on NW 23rd Avenue, Portland, a route already served by buses. Most of the budget for that project would actually go to purchase a new fleet of streetcars to be used elsewhere.
Another project shrinks 82nd Avenue from a four-lane highway to two lanes for cars, and restricts the outer lanes to TriMet buses for up to seven miles.
A third project is a new Burnside Bridge, with fewer lanes than it currently has, while keeping the bus-only lane. This leaves only one eastbound lane for 45,000 people who use the bridge daily. As it is, the bridge consistently backs up for blocks during rush hour. Taking away a lane for traffic will make congestion much worse on Burnside.
If you don’t agree with these proposed road diets and mounting debt service, let your Metro councilor know at this week’s council meeting on July 31st at 10:30.
The new “Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge” lane designs, backed with funding by the Metro Council, are intended to force Portlanders out of their cars. Metro will be meeting on July 31st to vote on and pass the Step 1A.1 Regional Flexible Funds Allocation bond, which includes the Burnside Bridge among other “road diet” projects.
The current Burnside Bridge serves approximately 58,000 people daily and features five lanes of travel, comprising two westbound lanes, two eastbound lanes, and an eastbound bus-only lane. In the design for the new bridge, they plan to remove an eastbound car lane. This reduces a five-lane bridge with four lanes for cars, with a four-lane bridge with three lanes for cars.
While Metro’s stated goal is to promote “multimodal transportation,” they plan to achieve it at the expense of nearly four out of every five people using the bridge. If 100 people were crossing the bridge, 78 would be stuck in a bottleneck after a long day of work. Another 12 people would ride the bus, 7 would bike, and 3 would walk. Why should 78 people have to sit in traffic so that 12 people can get ahead on a bus?
Metro should reject funding for the Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge until the lanes have been redrawn, and designs changed to make room for four out of every five bridge users.
TriMet has a new “road diet” planned for Portland, this time on 82nd Avenue. Working with Metro, TriMet is proposing a transit corridor entirely dedicated to buses. They plan to dedicate bus-only lanes, up and down both sides of the street, shrinking 82nd from a four-lane avenue down to a two-lane road for up to seven miles—from Clackamas Town Center to Portland’s Cully neighborhood.
The project claims that bus-only lanes are only one of the options as part of ongoing conversations, but the most recent Metro mockup on the future of 82nd Avenue prominently prioritizes “BAT lanes” (Business Access and Transit lanes) as the locally preferred alternative (LPA).
By cutting car lanes in half, the bus-only lanes will increase congestion substantially. According to TriMet’s own estimates, adding these lanes would cause up to 25 percent of drivers to divert from their routes to avoid traffic. Those diversions will put more stress on residential streets and neighborhoods, requiring additional safety features and maintenance. In the same document, TriMet states these new bus-only lanes will save transit riders three or four minutes at most. That’s with seven straight miles of bus lanes.
The purpose of 82nd Avenue—also known as Highway 213—is to move as many people and vehicles as possible from point A to point B. What moves more people: a lane that allows both cars and buses, or a lane that only allows buses?
Metro Council is scheduled to consider bond funding for 82nd avenue and four other projects on July 31. Metro should eliminate bus-only “BAT lanes” from any further consideration as part of the 82nd Avenue Transit Project.
With the passage of House Bill 2089 in late June, Oregon has ended the practice of “home equity theft,” by bringing state law into compliance with the Supreme Court’s unanimous 2023 Tyler ruling. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Minnesota grandmother, Geraldine Tyler, who lost her condo when she failed to pay the property taxes. Ms. Tyler argued that her county violated the Constitution’s Takings Clause when it kept a $25,000 surplus after her property was foreclosed and sold to pay the taxes.
Oregon has been one of nine states whose tax foreclosure laws allowed such “home equity theft.” The key requirement of the unanimous ruling in Tyler v. Hennepin County says governments must create a system to return surplus equity to owners after property taxes, fees, and interest are paid on foreclosed property. After the Tyler decision, it became clear Oregon’s law needed revision.
Cascade Policy Institute worked with Pacific Legal Foundation (who represented Ms. Tyler) and other stakeholders to bring Oregon law into compliance with Tyler. House Bill 2089 provides a process to ensure that counties retain what they are owed in back taxes, and no more, giving the original owner claim to any surplus value.
The Tyler ruling was a big victory for property rights, effectively ending the practice of government “home equity theft” by ruling it unconstitutional. HB 2089 ends home equity theft in Oregon, too.
The Oregon legislature ended on June 27 without addressing the deterioration of Oregon’s road system. This turned out to be a stunning defeat for the Democratic majority on House Bill 2025-B, also known as the Transportation Reinvestment Package (TRIP).
For more than a year, Democrats held several hearings promising to address the problem with a “transportation package” of reforms. They never introduced their proposal, however, until June 9, less than three weeks before the close of the legislative session. The $12 billion (official revenue impact) transportation funding proposal included a dozen new taxes and fees on everything from personal income to car tires. Not only did every Republican legislator oppose it, but key Democrats did as well. The bill never had a chance.
As time ran out, Democrats introduced a different bill HB3402, generating even more opposition. Before the legislature adjourned, not a single floor vote had been taken on the transportation package.
If Democrats want to solve the transportation finance problem, they should return to the user-pay system which has served the state well for decades. In a user-pay philosophy, transportation users pay a fee in proportion to the cost they impose on the system. If it is fair to all users, they will find political support. Voters aren’t interested in unfair and heavy-handed new transportation taxes.
New Hampshire has removed the income cap for families applying to its Education Freedom Account program, making it the first state in New England to offer school choice to all K-12 children. Governor Kelly Ayotte signed the program expansion into law on June 10. Previously, first-time applicants had to have incomes below 350% of the federal poverty level to qualify.
Total program enrollment will be limited to 10,000 students in the first year of the program’s expansion. If more students apply than there are spaces available, the program will prioritize current participants and their siblings, students with special needs, and low-income students.
New Hampshire’s four-year-old EFA program is one of the most family-empowering school choice laws in the country. EFAs can be used for a wide variety of approved education expenses. Each child’s EFA is funded by the state’s “per-pupil adequate education grant amount,” plus any additional aid that would have been allocated in a public school (for example, if the student qualified for free- or reduced-price lunch or special-needs funding or was an English-language learner). The state contracts with the nonprofit Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire to administer the program.
New Hampshire follows Tennessee, Idaho, Wyoming, and Texas in expanding educational opportunities available to their children this year. It’s time Oregon gave the same chances to students here, too.
Last week, Portland Public Schools Superintendent Kimberlee Armstrong announced her plan to end Jefferson High School’s “dual-enrollment policy”—which allows families in its boundaries to choose between Jefferson or nearby Grant, Roosevelt, or McDaniel high schools instead. Translation? No more school choice for families in North Portland, choices they have enjoyed since 2011. As Willamette Week’s reporter put it directly, “PPS Considers Requiring Students in Jefferson Catchment to Attend the School.”
It seems, now that Jefferson has a half-billion dollars to build a “world-class school” with capacity for 1,700 students, fewer than 400 students will cut the ribbon on opening day, according to Portland State University’s Population Research Center Enrollment Forecast for 2033-34.
Ms. Armstrong’s May 29 Memo proposes tackling the problem by ending these options for nearly 2,000 students who currently attend neighboring high schools. The School Board will study and decide on this required attendance at Jefferson by the fall of 2026.
Until now, Jefferson area families have enjoyed the most progressive policy in the city regarding school choice. Now that the $2 billion school bond has passed, they are proposing to take that choice away. This strategy is backwards, and it is bound to fail. A better option would be to research opportunities to expand school assignments throughout the district and let parents sort out which district school best serves the individual needs of their child.
Armstrong says she wants Portland to be a model for the nation. To date, 35 states, plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, have enacted some form of school choice legislation. Letting parents choose among district schools would be an excellent path for the future of Jefferson High School and Portland Public Schools.
Groundbreaking, school choice legislation called the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) was included in the budget reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on May 22. ECCA would establish a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for individual taxpayers who make voluntary donations to nonprofit, scholarship-granting organizations (SGOs). SGOs offer school choice to K-12 students through scholarships for tuition and other education expenses, including educational therapies for students with disabilities.
ECCA doesn’t create a new federal “program” or involve the U.S. Department of Education. Rather, taxpayers who donate voluntarily to nonprofit SGOs would receive tax credits offsetting those donations (up to a limit) when they filed their federal income taxes.
The House version of ECCA limits the total tax credits that may be received by taxpayers nationwide to $5 billion per year, and the law would sunset after 2029. When ECCA is considered by the U.S. Senate this summer, it should be strengthened in important ways:
•The House version included a provision that participating private schools must accommodate students with special education needs. This unfunded mandate would significantly limit the schools and education providers able to serve scholarship students. The Senate should remove this requirement.
•The law’s timeframe should be increased from five to ten years. This would help provide stability for scholarship students and a longer “runway” for the nonprofits that must raise money from donors.
•It is vital that the Senate retain strong protections for private school autonomy and religious liberty. Schools serving scholarship students must be assured they can remain true to their mission, character, and academic standards. Effective school choice laws respect the independence and diversity of education providers.
The Educational Choice for Children Act has the potential to empower individuals to expand school choice through voluntary giving. When parents can choose schools that are best for their children, students are more likely to have their individual learning needs met. ECCA could potentially help more than a million students across the country to have access to an effective, meaningful, and empowering education through private scholarships.
The Oregon legislature is about to pass Senate Bill 1182, which would authorize the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to give away the half-billion dollar, four-acre, I-5 lid over the Rose Quarter—plus all property and development rights and contracts—to a single black-owned nonprofit, the Albina Vision Trust or AVT.
ODOT’s Design Summary for the cover states that a “Black-led, community development corporation” would control the property and development. AVT’s leader states that “the Black community should be able to have both the land on the freeway caps and the jobs that come with building them.”
This would qualify as denying opportunities to those who aren’t Black, based solely upon their race. The Supreme Court outlawed this practice two years ago in Fair Admissions v. Harvard when the majority wrote, “ameliorating societal discrimination does not constitute a compelling interest that justifies race-based state action.”
In other words, SB1182 would support construction and ownership opportunities that violate state and federal laws prohibiting race-based discrimination. Handing over public assets to a private organization who plans to hire only Black contractors will simply invite litigation, and legislators should be ashamed of themselves for approving it.
The Governor should veto SB1182.
Metro will soon be revising its 1995 Regional Framework Plan, also known as the 2040 plan. The vision of 2040 advocates was for the Portland region to “build up,not out” by maintaining a tight urban growth boundary, mandating the construction of apartments rather than single family homes, stopping any more highway building, and spending billions of tax dollars on transit. They assumedthat this would lead to a better quality of life, but they were wrong.
Housing is now unaffordable due to land scarcity and the high construction cost of building high rises. High priced housing has doubled the homeless population and Metro’s reliance on bond measures for homeless services and other programs has made Portland one of America’s most heavily taxed cities.
Traffic congestion now has Portland commuters wasting 75 percent more time in traffic, while billions spent on light rail failed to increase ridership.
Although it’s hard to believe, the Metro 2040 plan was based on emulating the traffic congestion and high housing density of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, they succeeded.
Instead of creating yet another long-range vision, Metro should help build the communities people actually want by reducing congestion, lowering taxes, and increasing the supply of land for single family homes.
House Bill 2808 and House Bill 2165 seek to address the Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) budget shortfall of $875,000, but through different methods. Instead of choosing which bill offers the best path towards good governance, the legislature is saying, “both.”
HB 2808 would increase the permitting and licensing fees related to wells. HB 2165 would provide an increase in funding to OWRD from the general fund of $830,415.
Initially proposed as a one-or-the-other approach, the current recommendation from the committee is that both bills are needed, with no downsizing. The solution addressed by these bills is critical to the one-in-four Oregonians relying on domestic wells. But well owners, not taxpayers, should pay for increased employment costs at OWRD.
Permit fees are a means of ensuring that the agency has a fiscal responsibility to process applications, versus relying on a one-time bailout from the general fund that has no statutory requirements for processing applications.
When fees are required by law, project beneficiaries should pay the price, not taxpayers. Fee increases should be permitted only when agencies can show increasing employment costs, increasing demand for processors, and that no agency rulemaking has created obstacles to processing.
In the case of OWRD, funding increases are needed, but this should come from landowners wanting a new well, not unsuspecting taxpayers who are already paying their own monthly water bills.
Over-promising and under-delivering has been the habit of Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) for decades, with businesses and counties enduring financial hardships from ODF’s inconsistent timber sales. House Bill 3103 with the -1 amendment seeks to address these concerns by requiring ODF to create five-year projections on Sustainable Harvest Levels (SHL) by December 31, 2026 and to offer one-fifth of this timber for sale annually.
If there is a deficit in volume from the previous year, it will be added to the volume of the following year. The proposal also accounts for exceptions due to changing forest dynamics like wildfire, disease, and pests. HB 3103 also grants standing for those receiving funds from state timber sales to sue ODF if the SHLs are not published or met.
In the 1940s, counties placed thousands of acres of forest land in a public trust with the state of Oregon. Millions of dollars were expected to be generated from this arrangement. But in recent decades, ODF has consistently failed at meeting sale projections.
In a state with some of the most stringent timber harvest regulations worldwide, unpredictable harvest levels will cause end-users to import timber from less regulated regions. Oregon timber is harvested responsibly, but the only way to ensure that Oregon’s environmental priorities are impactful is by creating a consistent supply of Oregon timber products.
It’s official: More than half of America’s K-12 students are now eligible to participate in a school choice program.
Last Saturday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2 into law, making the Lone Star State the latest to enact a universal Education Savings Account program. According to the American Federation for Children, the one-billion-dollar Texas legislation will be the largest new school choice program in history. Individual ESA accounts, which will be valued at $10,000 or more, can be used for private school tuition, tutoring, transportation, special needs therapies, and other education-related expenses.
The program will begin serving 90,000 children and expand as needed. If initial demand exceeds available spaces, priority will be given to low-to-middle-income students and students with disabilities.
This year, Tennessee, Idaho, Wyoming, and now Texas have given parents greater access to the learning environments that will best help their children through educational choice. With school choice laws on the books in more than two-thirds of U.S. states, fifty-five percent of American children now have a chance to get the educational opportunities they deserve. Let’s bring school choice to Oregon soon.
Recently The Oregonian published a feature about TriMet’s ongoing death spiral. Since 2015, the agency’s annual revenue from passenger fares has dropped from $117 million to $59 million, while operating expenses have grown. As a result, TriMet’s operating loss last year was $850 million.
TriMet is begging state legislators for a bailout, but we’ve already tried that. The legislature approved payroll tax rate increases in both 2003 and 2009. As a result, TriMet is now almost entirely funded by taxpayers.
TriMet anticipates that it will have to eliminate up to 51 of its bus lines by 2031 if it cannot improve its financial condition. We should probably let that happen. Transit is important only if people choose to use it. Most people in the metro region are making other choices.
Unfortunately, TriMet is in denial about these trends. The agency is planning to expand light rail service to Vancouver and tear up 82nd Avenue to accommodate bus rapid transit.
The TriMet Board is holding a strategic planning retreat this week. The Board should shut down plans for new service and prepare for the retrenchment that the market is demanding.
On Monday, the North Dakota legislature passed the state’s first private school choice program. If signed by Governor Kelly Armstrong, House Bill 1540 would establishEducation Savings Accounts for North Dakota students beginning in the 2026-27 school year. Award amounts wouldbe determined by a family’s income level, and the lowest-income students could receive more than $4,000 each. A separate bill, signed into law this week, has authorized the establishment of public charter schools in the state.
Education Savings Account programs allow parents to use a defined amount of state education funding on behalf of their children for qualifying education-related expenses, including tuition, textbooks, tutoring, and transportation.
North Dakota’s ESA and charter school laws will empower parents to choose the educational environments that best help their children succeed. When parents have choices, students have more opportunities for their individual learning needs and goals to be met. North Dakota is taking strong steps to make sure every child has access to an effective, meaningful, and empowering education.
On April 14, Governor Tina Kotek held a press conference to reaffirm her commitment to protecting students from discrimination based on race, national origin, or immigration status in Oregon schools.
The point of the announcement was to focus on the implied future threat from President Trump, but discrimination is already occurring in Portland.
For the past decade, the Portland Public School district has been providing extra funding to schools in part on the basis of race (2024-2025 Proposed Budget – Volume 2, pp. 4-5). Students who are Black, Hispanic, Native American, or Pacific Islander are automatically characterized as “historically underserved,” which means the schools they attend receive more money. This is true even if their parents are rich and the students themselves are high achievers.
For the current school year, the elementary school receiving the most generous funding is Rosa Parks, with $17,891 per student. The school with the least amount of funding is Richmond, at $7,649.
At the high school level, Jefferson receives $15,812 per student, while Grant gets $8,109.
It’s not clear why Portland school parents have been tolerating this for so long. ORS 659.850 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any public school, and PPS funding is clearly discriminatory.
The Governor should stop grandstanding about President Trump, start enforcing civil rights laws in Portland, and put an end to race-based school funding.
What if every child could attend the school where he or she would learn most successfully? Empowering parents to choose their children’s school is called educational—orschool—choice. School choice allows parents to better meet their children’s tailored educational needs and circumstances.
Nationwide polling shows that strong majorities of voters support parents having “the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.”
So far this year, Tennessee, Idaho, and Wyoming have joined 12 other states enacting universal or near-universal school choice laws for their students. According to the nonprofit organization EdChoice, approximately 40% of American children are now eligible to participate in a school choice program that includes private options. Millions more attend charter schools or benefit from other kinds of publicschool choices.
Children are unique, with different talents, interests, and learning styles. Schools that work well for some don’t always meet the needs of others. It’s time for Oregon to join the “school choice states,” so every child has the chance for aneffective, motivating, and successful school experience.
A decade ago, 21 youth plaintiffs in Oregon filed a lawsuit asserting that the government had violated their due process rights of life, liberty, and property by encouraging and permitting the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels such as oil and gas.
The plaintiffs were represented by Our Children’s Trust, a litigation firm based in Eugene.
The case, known as Juliana v. United States, was dismissed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2020 for lack of standing and upheld in February 2021. An amended suit was dismissed by the Ninth Circuit in May 2024 again over lack of standing, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in March 2025.
The proponents are now attempting to put their hydrocarbon paranoia into the Oregon Constitution. On March 26 the state legislature held a hearing on SJR 28, which would add the following language to the Constitution:
"All people, including children and future generations, have the fundamental right to a clean, safe and healthy environment."
This is just performative politics. Hydrocarbons power the modern world; but if lawmakers think the public wants to return to the 18th century, they should vote to outlaw fossil fuels right now and run for re-election on that record.
This month Wyoming became the 15th state to give students universal school choice. Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, any K-12 child in Wyoming may apply for an Education Savings Account of $7,000 per student. The new law also includes preschool children from low-income families.
The Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act allocates $30 million to Education Savings Accounts that will initially serve about 4,000 students. Education Savings Account programs allow parents to use a defined amount of funding on behalf of their children for education-related expenses like school tuition and fees, classes, tutoring, textbooks, and transportation.
Wyoming’s new ESA law will empower parents to choosethe educational environments that best help their children succeed. When parents have choices, students have more opportunities for their individual learning needs and goals to be met. Every child should have access to an effective, meaningful, and empowering education. Wyoming has taken a major step to make that happen.
Charter schools are public schools, but students attending Oregon charter schools receive a fraction of the public education funding allocated to regular district school students. According to the Oregon Coalition of Community Charter Schools, charter school funding works out to about 48% of regular district schools’ per-pupil funding. It’s time to address this disparity so that charter schools—which successfully meet the academic and social needs of so many children—have the wherewithal to serve their students well.
House Bill 3444, which received a hearing in the House Committee on Education March 12, would allow charter students to receive 95% of the ADMw (per-pupil funding) provided by the State School Fund. It also would permit charter schools to have access to other forms of funding currently restricted to district public schools, and help charters provide transportation services to their students. These changes would allow education funding to better “follow the child” to the schools of their choice and expand education options available to Oregon families.
Charter schools play an important role in Oregon’s education landscape. They offer local communities more diversity among their public school options and give educators opportunities to use their talents in innovative learning environments. Oregon education policies should value all options that empower students to achieve academic proficiency and reach their personal best, including Oregon charter schools.
On March 11 the Joint Transportation Committee of the Oregon Legislature took testimony on HB 3453, which would create a new transit authority with a mission to take over TriMet’s Westside Express Service (WES) commuter line and expand it to Eugene.
While I share the enthusiasm of the bill’s sponsors for passenger rail, the history of WES shows that a market for commuter rail does not exist.
WES was originally projected to cost $65 million and open in 2000. It actually cost $161.2 million and opened in 2009. TriMet predicted that opening-year ridership would average 2,500 average daily boardings. Actual ridership averaged 1,140.
Daily ridership peaked in 2014 at 1,964 daily boardings, then dropped in each successive year. During 2024 WES averaged just 477 boardings per day.
Since each rider typically takes two daily train trips, that means WES only has about 240 actual customers.
With such little ridership, public subsidies are costly. Last year the operating cost per boarding ride on WES averaged $103, far in excess of the standard TriMet fare of $2.80.
There is no business case for expanding commuter rail. In fact, taxpayers would be better off if we canceled WES, sold the train cars, and moved the few customers back to buses.
At its March 4th meeting, Portland Public School board will hear an update on the Center for Black Student Excellence (CBSE). The $60 million CBSE was included in the bond measure approved by voters in 2020, without any prior due diligence. None of the money has been spent.
It hasn’t been spent because no one at PPS can explain what the Center is supposed to be or how it will improve academic performance. Nor has the Board clarified how a center focusing solely on Black students complies with Title VI of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race.
None of those problems are solved in the Power Point being distributed for tonight’s meeting. The handout is a 9-page word salad of phrases like “Pages of Possibility” and “Bridges to Brilliance.” It does propose reading campaigns, parent partnerships, and mentoring programs that could benefit students of all races, but those activities do not require a dedicated building.
The Board will be asking voters in May to approve another construction bond in the amount of $1.8 billion. Before demanding more money, PPS should apologize for its failure with the CBSE, and ask voters for permission to reallocate the $60 million to actual construction needs within the District.
Idaho families are the winners after the state’s legislature passed a refundable $5,000 education tax credit last week. Idaho’s Parental Choice Tax Credit (House Bill 93) will help parents pay for private school tuition, textbooks, transportation, and other qualifying education expenses. The program is universal, meaning any family can apply, but families earning up to 300% of the federal poverty level will receive priority for the credit. Students with disabilities will qualify for a higher credit of $7,500. The program is capped at $50 million. The bill awaits Governor Brad Little’s signature.
A December 2024 poll conducted by the Mountain StatesPolicy Center shows 66% of Idaho registered voters favor this education tax credit. The nonprofit policy organization also notes that the tax credit program does not take funding from public schools.
Idaho’s new tax credit will empower parents to choose educational environments that best help their children succeed. When parents have choices, students have more opportunities for their individual learning needs and goals to be met. It’s time for Oregon to expand education choices for parents here.
Oregon’s death tax has earned our state a reputation as “the worst place in the U.S. to die.” The 10-16% tax is levied on Oregon estates valued over $1 million at the time of death. The $1 million threshold hasn’t changed for 20 years, not even to adjust for inflation.
It’s time for this to change. House Bill 2301 would raise the tax exemption level to $7 million and decrease the tax rate to 7%.
A primary reason to support this bill is the number ofOregon citizens we would stand to keep. People who have enough assets to be affected by the tax also have other valuable attributes for Oregon communities. They are volunteers for charitable organizations, reading tutors in schools, and mentors to young people.
We have thousands of people like this in the state, butOregon legislators have preferred to chase them away with a punitive tax. We can’t tax ourselves to a better future.
Given that Oregon’s population has remained stagnant overthe past four years, we should be thoughtful about how to attract and retain older people who are in their prime professional and philanthropic years.
A simple way to start would be to pass HB 2301,exchanging a small amount of tax revenue for a growing cohort of individuals investing their time, talent, and treasure for the benefit of Oregon communities.
Tennessee’s Education Freedom Act of 2025 has become the nation’s 13th universal school choice law. Tennessee lawmakers last week passed the statewide educational choice program, which will initially fund 20,000 scholarships—worth about $7,296 each—to children who want to attend private schools.
Half of the scholarships in the first year are reserved for families whose incomes are at or below 300% of the eligibility level for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program. The rest of the scholarships are open to children of any income. Tennessee Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson explained, “This legislation has been marketed as a parental empowerment tool….We’re not going to penalize people who work hard and might do a little better than someone else. We want these to be universal.”
School choice empowers parents to choose the educational environments that will best help their children succeed. At least 40% of all students nationwide are eligible to participate in a school choice program. When parents have choices, students have more opportunities for their individual learning needs and goals to be met. Tennessee deserves congratulations for opening the doors to success for children in the Volunteer State.
This week parents, educators, and students nationwide are celebrating National School Choice Week, an annual event highlighting education options available to K-12 children today. School choice means empowering parents to choose the educational environments that will best help their children succeed. To really improve academic outcomes in Oregon, families must be able to send their children to schools that meet their learning needs.
Here are three ways Oregon leaders can expand educational opportunity during the 2025 Legislative Session, now underway in Salem:
- Raise the cap on virtual charter school enrollment so successful charter schools can serve more students. Currently, school districts may prevent students from enrolling in virtual charter schools if three percent of the district’s students are already enrolled in a virtual charter school sponsored by another district.
- Expand public school transfer policies so students can attend different public schools with open seats. This would help district schools respond to students’ needs and reward those that achieve better outcomes.
- Enact an Education Savings Account (ESA) program so students choosing to opt in can use their state-level, per-pupil education funds where they learn best. 17 states currently have ESA programs.
When parents have choices, students have better opportunities to learn, grow, and reach their potential. Oregon education policies should expand students’ options, so all children can have an effective, meaningful, and empowering school experience.
This week marks the inauguration of President Trump and the opening of the Oregon legislative session. With new opportunities ahead, policy makers should think hard about why government exists.
The most basic thing we expect from the government is protection of lives and property. Unfortunately, many elected officials find this boring. They are obsessed with electric vehicles, fossil fuels, plastic packaging, iconic fish species, preferred pronouns, equal outcomes, and dozens of other boutique issues. They prefer working on passion projects rather than protecting public safety.
It’s not working.
Looking at the Executive Orders issued by President Trump on his first day in office, it’s refreshing to see how many of them are designed to simply get government out of the way. That’s why he was elected.
Of course we won’t see any such directives issued by Gov. Kotek. She’s a believer in central planning. But even she knows that most Oregon cities are over-taxed and over-regulated.
Elected officials in Oregon are trying to do too much, for the wrong reasons. A great New Year’s Resolution would be to do less and do it better.
January 26-February 1 will be the 15th annual National School Choice Week, the world’s largest celebration of parental choice and effective education options for all children.
National School Choice Week (NSCW) “informs, inspires, andempowers parents to discover the K-12 education options available for their children.” Week organizers say the event will partner with 209 schools and organizations in Oregon to raise awareness of the K-12 education options available to students here, including traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home schools.
School choice means empowering parents to choose the educational environments that will best help their children succeed. Thirty-three states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have expanded students’ academic opportunities through 75 school choice programs. More than 22 million students are eligible to participate in a school choice program—about 40% of all students nationwide. When parents have choices, students have more opportunities for their individual learning needs and goals to be met.
Oregon should put parents “in the driver’s seat” of their children’s education through school choice, so all students can have access to an effective, meaningful, and empowering education.
The Portland School Board (PPS) wants voters to approve a construction bond measure of $1.8 billion in May. If approved, the measure would authorize the Board to impose taxes on all properties within the district to pay the principal and interest on bonds for the next 30 years. The total cost of debt service would likely be $3.5 billion or more.
In any bond campaign, advocates are saying to voters, “trust us.” Should we trust the school board?
No.
Voters approved a $1.2 billion school bond measure in 2020, which allocated $311 million to rebuild Jefferson high school. Four years later, the budget has been increased to $491 million, but there is no school.
The 2020 bond also included $60 million to create something called the Center for Black Student Excellence. None of the money has been spent, and no one at the district can even explain what the Center will be, who will operate it, or how many students it will serve.
In 2022, the state legislature gave PPS $120 million to relocate Tubman middle school. The money hasn’t been spent, and the district now admits there are no available sites for a new school in NE Portland.
The school board needs to show that it can manage money before asking voters for more.
What if all parents could choose schools based on where their children learn best, regardless of neighborhood zoning or income level? With school choice, they can. School choice programs allow education funding to follow students to the schools or learning services their families choose. It puts parents, not bureaucracies, “in the driver’s seat” of education, helping families customize schooling to meet students’ specific needs and circumstances.
Educational choice for K-12 students continued to expand in 2024. With new laws passed, 75 programs are on the books in 33 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. According to EdChoice (a nonprofit that promotes educational choice), more than 22 million students are eligible to participate in a private school choice program—about 40% of all students nationwide. More than one million students currently participate in a private school choice program.
Each state’s approach to school choice empowers parents to choose the best options for their children. States can learn valuable lessons from each other’s policy approaches as they craft programs that suit the needs of their own families and voters.
Children are unique, with different talents, interests, and learning styles. A school that works well for one child doesn’t necessarily meet the needs of another. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if students could go to school where they learn best? Universal school choice is the gift that keeps giving, for today’s students and for the future.
At a December 17th meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Interstate Bridge Replacement, legislators were promised that the proposed light rail service to Vancouver, WA would arrive every 6.7 minutes during weekday rush hours.
We don’t need to guess whether this forecast will be wrong. We already know it.
Before the Yellow Line opened in 2004, TriMet promised that peak-hour trains would arrive every 7.5 minutes by 2020.
That never happened. In fact, the Yellow Line only arrives every 15 minutes, 50% below what was promised.
Not only did TriMet planners give the wrong forecast for levels of service, they weren’t even close on the ridership estimates. TriMet predicted 35,320 weekday riders on the Yellow Line by 2020. Actual ridership is 10,611, 70% below the forecast.
The transit agency for Vancouver already offers express bus service to Portland, which is a superior ride compared to light rail. Spending $3 billion to add rail will be a waste of money.
The legislature should cut light rail from the project while it still can.
In 2021, Sherwood School District opened the largest high school in Oregon. At 350,000 square feet, Sherwood High accommodates 2,000 students.
The 73-acre campus includes a 600-seat performing arts center, a football stadium complex, and seven multipurpose sports fields.
The total cost was $186 million, paid for by Sherwood taxpayers.
The Beaverton School District is currently rebuilding Beaverton High School with a capacity of 1,500 students, at a cost of $253 million.
The Portland School District is preparing to rebuild Jefferson, Ida B. Wells, and Cleveland high schools at an average cost of $362 million dollars per school. Each of the three schools will have a capacity of 1,700 students, though Jefferson enrollment is only 459.
The School Board is planning to ask for the money in a May, 2025 bond measure. The details are still under discussion, but the bond must be referred to the ballot by February 28.
Since the new Portland schools will be the most expensive schools ever built in state history, voters should be asking:
What do the school boards of Sherwood and Beavertonknow that the Portland Board doesn’t?
If PPS Board members can’t answer that question,they shouldn’t refer the measure to voters.
The Board of Portland Public Schools has been working to craft a district-wide policy regarding cell phone use at school. During the Policy Committee’s December 2 meeting, board members discussed a draft policy that would require personal electronic devices to be “off and away” during the school day, including lunchtime and in hallways, “so that the device cannot disrupt students or the learning environment.”
During Monday’s discussion, board members said many educators support clear and enforceable restrictions on cell phone use. They cited learning disruptions, technology addiction, and students cutting classes to be on their phones. School staff who testified in support of a phone-free school day described their experiences with class interruptions and behavior-related safety problems. Board member Patte Sullivan said, “Of all the emails I’ve received [from teachers], nothing…has said we don’t want restrictions. They really want restrictions. They want to teach.”
Sometimes freedom requires saying “no” to one thing to say “yes” to something that’s more important. Unrestricted use of electronic devices at school has degraded the academic environment and students’ social experiences. Setting limits on technology use will help give students the freedom to focus on what’s more valuable and important. Creating distance between students and screens would put the focus back on learning, which is what school is all about.
In mid-November, the Portland City Council approved a 1.3-mile extension of the Portland Streetcar in Northwest Portland to service anticipated housing development near the Montgomery Park building.
Council members assumed that the streetcar is a critical mobility option for Portland residents, but the facts suggest otherwise. According to TriMet, monthly ridership in 2024 has been 39% lower than ridership during 2018, despite a rise in population during that period.
The Streetcar is simply irrelevant to most residents. It’s a low-speed, low-capacity, high-cost method of travel that doesn’t go many places. Even for those who love trains, the Streetcar is not practical for most trips.
Historically, Streetcar construction has been paid for by various sources including property owners, parking revenues, and grants. Federal money is always the linchpin. Portland expects to submit a large grant request to the federal government no later than June of next year; but with the election of Donald Trump, those subsidies might not be available.
The Portland Tribune recently reported that Oregon elementary students’ academic proficiency remains “significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels.” It also noted that while every state “experienced a decrease in average assessment scores,” “compared to every other state, Oregon was third last for improvement in reading test scores….”
All children deserve effective educational options that will help them succeed in school. Here are three ways state leaders can help K-12 students get their education back on track when Oregon’s 2025 Legislative Session begins in January:
- Raise the cap on virtual charter school enrollment so successful charter schools can serve more students. School districts may prevent students from enrolling in virtual charter schools if three percent of the district’s students are already enrolled in a virtual charter school sponsored by another district.
- Expand public school transfer policies so students can attend different public schools with open seats. This would create incentives for district schools to respond to students’ needs and reward those that achieve better outcomes.
- Enact an Education Savings Account (ESA) program so students choosing to opt in can use their state-level, per-pupil education funds where they learn best. 17 states currently have ESA programs.
To really improve education outcomes in Oregon, we need to make it possible for families to enroll their children in the schools that best meet their academic needs and goals.
On November 21, the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission is scheduled to adopt a carbon rationing scheme known as the Climate Protection Program.
The regulation will set a statewide cap on the emissions of human-caused carbon dioxide, and then steadily reduce the cap over time. By 2040, most fossil fuels will be outlawed.
The effects of this cap will be swift and painful. Based on experience in Washington and California, the DEQ regulation will increase the cost of gasoline sold in Oregon by at least 25 cents/gallon, and possibly as much as 45 cents.
None of this will benefit drivers, and it won’t even benefit the environment. Carbon rationing will force fuel suppliers to rely on corn-based ethanol and other agricultural commodities, which will vastly increase the amount of land, water and fertilizer needed to produce automotive fuel.
The Climate Protection Program was ordered by former Gov. Kate Brown, who is no longer in office. But elected officials who ARE in office should note that the number one message from voters in the recent election was that they can’t afford the rising cost of consumer goods.
If state legislative leaders are smart, they will tell DEQ to drop the carbon tax. Elections matter, even in Oregon.
Is more money the answer to Oregon’s abysmal K-12 academic rankings?
The Heritage Foundation annually releases an Education Freedom Report Card, which ranks states according toschool choice, academic transparency, regulatory freedom, and education spending. The report assesses what each state does well, identifies where it can improve, and suggests how local leaders can better address education issues.
Oregon ranks at or near the bottom of all states in each category, including 51st overall and 35th in return on investment for education spending. Oregon students’ National Association of Education Progress (NAEP) scores rank 42nd in the country, even though Oregon spends above average per pupil annually (the 21st-mostat $17,374 per student). Oregon also has a high ratio of non-teaching to teaching staff: There is one non-teacher for every two teachers in Oregon public schools.
In early October, the Portland Tribune reported that Oregon elementary students’ academic proficiency remains “significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels, with only 31% of all Oregon students testing at proficiency in math, 43% in English and 29% in science.” The Tribune noted that while every state “experienced a decrease in average assessment scores…between spring 2019 and 2022,” “compared to every other state, Oregon was third last for improvement in reading test scores….”
All children deserve effective educational options that meet their learning and developmental needs. Spending more money—in the same district schools that haven’t helped students succeed for decades—isn’t the answer. To show we’re serious about improving education outcomes, Oregon should reinstate graduation requirements, provide school choice including open enrollment across public school districts, and minimize time and expenditures focused on non-academic services and initiatives.
Thirty years ago, an iconic goal of liberal activists was to offer a free breakfast for all public school students, regardless of family income.
In response, Congress authorized a three-year pilot program to test the effects of universal free meals for students.
In 2004 the USDA Economic Research Service published the results of what it called the “definitive data on the impact of universal-free breakfast participation.” The study compared gains in standardized test scores for reading and math for universal-free breakfast participants and nonparticipants, and found “no significant differences.”
Nonetheless, today more than 90% of Oregon public schools provide both a free breakfast and a free lunch to all students. Activists hope to make it 100% of students in 2025.
If they succeed, it’s unlikely that they will stop there. The next demand will be universal free dinners as well. It doesn’t matter that subsidized meals are unnecessary for most families, or that state intervention undermines the role of parents.
From the standpoint of advocates, the primary goal is to make as many services as possible free to students, whether it’s food, computers, or birth control.
Parents aren’t considered to be important. In fact, they are treated as a nuisance in such matters as school discipline or gender pronouns.
Parents who care about their children should continue to feed them breakfast at home, and pack them a lunch. “Free” is not always a good price when it comes to developing moral character in children.
On October 14, Google announced that it will finance the construction of seven small nuclear reactors in the U.S. built by energy start-up Kairos Power. The agreement will provide 500 megawatts of clean, reliable electricity to feed Google’s growing need for data centers.
This follows on the September 20th announcement by Microsoft and Constellation Energy that the Unit 1 nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island Generating Station will be re-started and Microsoft will buy all the output.
These kinds of energy solutions are not allowed in Oregon because nuclear power has been banned for over 40 years. Coal and natural gas were also banned in 2021, so we have a planned shortage of electricity. It’s likely that we will face rolling blackouts on cold winter nights or hot summer days in the very near future.
When state legislators re-convene in February,expanding options for generating electricity should be at the top of the policy agenda. We cannot run a modern electricity grid on randomly-failing wind farms.
The Heritage Foundation annually releases an Education Freedom Report Card, which analyzes and ranks all 50states and the District of Columbia according to factors related to school choice, academic transparency, regulatory freedom, and education spending. The report seeks to assess what each state does well, identify where it can improve, and help policymakers achieve real reforms.
This year, Florida and Arizona again take first and second place. Both states have long been pioneers in broadly expanding students’ educational opportunities. Louisiana, West Virginia, and Wyoming made notable improvements, due to new Education Savings Account laws.
Unfortunately, Oregon still ranks at or near the bottom inall categories: 51st overall, 47th in education choice, 35thin return on investment, and 31st in academic transparency.
Oregon is also 50th in “teacher freedom.” The report explains: “Zero percent of teachers are alternatively certified, largely required to go through university-based colleges of education in order to enter the K-12 classroom. The Beaver State does not have full reciprocity of teacher licensure with other states.”
Oregon could improve its education freedom ranking by enacting an Education Savings Account program, making it easier for charter schools to open and operate, expanding families’ choices among traditional public schools, and reforming licensure so more good teachers can teach in Oregon. These goals should be at the top of Oregon policymakers’ education reform agendas.
This week the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is holding its final public hearing on a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 90% from fossil fuels used in Oregon.
Since there is a rough proportionality between fossil fuel combustion and CO2 emissions, that means the DEQ rule is a mandate to reduce the actual use of carbon-based fuels by 90%. This would essentially shut down the Oregon economy.
DEQ’s program goes by the Orwellian name of “Climate Protection Program,” but it will have no effects on global climate. Any carbon dioxide reductions occurring in Oregon will be immediately offset by growing emissions elsewhere, which will be true for decades.
The primary result of DEQ’s rationing scheme will be rising energy prices, and the rapid exodus of people and businesses to other states.
DEQ’s Climate Protection Program was ordered byformer Gov. Kate Brown after she failed to get the program enacted by the state Legislature. It should be repealed by legislators as soon as they convene again in February.
Environmental advocates who demand that we buy certain products rarely seem concerned about cost.
But earlier this week, New York Times reporter Christopher Flavelle wrote about his experience last July replacing his home air conditioner with a heat pump. As a “climate” reporter, he felt obligated to buy the heat pump based on claims that it would have fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a traditional air conditioner. But when it came time to make the purchase, he experienced sticker shock.
He ultimately bought a heat pump for $14,540, less $2,400 in subsidies, making it slightly more expensive than an air conditioner. He was assured that the unit would pay for itself, but he didn’t find that very satisfying. He wrote:
Until now, encouraging people to pay more upfront, on the promise of saving later, made sense to me, at least in a country that relies heavily on personal decisions to fight climate change. But when you’re the one paying, it feels like a lot to ask. Maybe the most valuable thing I got…was some humility.
The world would be a better place if climate reporters, government regulators, and elected officials all learned the same lesson.
The Oregon Convention Center (OCC) was opened in 1990 with the backing of Metro, the Portland regional government. It was opened to create more economic growth opportunities in Portland.
In 2003 the convention center was underperforming, and Metro made the decision to upgrade. This renovation came with the promise of generating surplus revenue.
Unfortunately, the site continued to underperform, leading Metro to invest in the construction of an on-site hotel that would be owned and managed by Hyatt but subsidized by public funding. Metro would provide $60 million of the $74 million in public funding through revenue bonds.
Metro justified this by stating it would push convention related spending in Portland to over a billion dollars annually. This decision was strongly opposed by both residents and private hotel operators in Portland. As of 2023, the site was only providing $330 million in convention related spending.
Metro is now considering renovating the Portland Expo Center into a sport venue. Projections for the upgraded Expo show positive cashflow. However, large publicly financed projects have failed to meet financial forecasts. When Metro officials meet in December to discuss the Expo Center project, they should consider the past before committing to public funding.
The Oregon Legislature has mandated that large utilities deliver 100% emissions-free electricity by 2040. Since coal and natural gas account for more than 45% of Oregon’s electricity generation, replacing those fuels with emission-free alternatives will be difficult.
Moreover, the closer Oregon gets to 100% reduction, the more expensive it will get. This challenge stems from the fact that the two preferred power sources – industrial-scale wind and solar – are weather dependent. This will require over-building, plus batteries and back-up power supplies. Estimates suggest that achieving the final 1% of decarbonization in the Northwest may require expenditure of between $100 billion and $170 billion.
As Oregon adds more wind and solar facilities, the effect of decreasing marginal returns becomes stronger. Each additional unit of reduction produces progressively smaller environmental benefits relative to cost. In simpler terms, it costs more to receive less. If we ever hit 99% reduction, the cost of the final 1% will escalate dramatically, offering minimal benefit at a towering expense.
Given the lack of a cost-effective solution and the uncertainty of its necessity, the commitment to achieving 100% reduction is questionable. Fully eliminating emissions may not justify the steep payment. Instead of blindly pursuing decarbonization polices, Oregon should promote an adaptable, feasible approach to electricity generation before committing to a costly 100% reduction path for carbon dioxide emissions.
The modernization of Benson Polytechnic High School is nearing completion. Originally budgeted for $202 million in 2016 and funded by a voter-approved bond in 2017, the scope of the project was subsequently expanded along with the cost. The revised budget, partially paid for through another bond in 2020, was $410 million.
Part of the problem is that the school is oversized. Benson enrollment last year was 823, but the new school was designed for 1,700. Enrollment has decreased by almost 50% over the past 30 years, and there is little chance that it will grow significantly. Many of the classrooms will simply be mothballed.
The next school up for modernization is Jefferson High School, and the Board plans to make the same mistake. The target enrollment is 1,700, but there were only 481 students in May. The construction budget has grown from $311 million in 2020 to $491 in 2024. Since the District doesn’t have the money, the Board plans to ask for an additional $125 million in May of 2025, as part of a much larger bond request of $2.9 billion.
School board members are required to manage public funds as a “prudent person” would, but overbuilding schools by 100% or more is the opposite of prudent behavior.
Cities in Oregon are required to have Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs). However, those boundaries are not supposed to be permanent limits to urban expansion. UGBs are required to include enough land to allow for adequate housing over a 20-year period.
The Portland regional government, known as Metro, is in the process of analyzing the need for expansion of the Portland UGB. In a draft report released in July, Metro proposes to maintain such a tight land supply that single family homes would only account for 23% of all new housing. The rest of the units would be apartments or other forms of high-density living.
Surveys show that 80% of the population aspires to live in homes, and 53% already do in the Portland region. Therefore, it’s shocking that Metro is planning to take away the option of home ownership for 77% of future buyers.
Metro is seeking public input on its draft growth plan, and testimony will be accepted until August 22. Citizens who desire to live in single family homes should demand that Metro approve an expansion of the growth boundary sufficient to accommodate both homes and apartments in future development.
Oregon politicians banned the use of coal for electricity generation by 2030 and natural gas by 2040, pushing utilities to rely more on wind and solar energy. These sources often produce less than 10% of Oregon’s electricity needs, forcing utilities to engage in a costly overbuild of wind and solar infrastructure. Given that weather is unpredictable, how much overbuilding will be required to meet demand is unknown.
The grid must always balance supply and demand, and dispatchable energy must quickly adjust. Currently, energy storage at grid scale lasts only four hours before depleting, while wind and solar can be dormant for days. The premise that wind and solar energy could be reliable sources of electricity is fundamentally flawed.
When these electricity sources produce more than needed, electricity is curtailed as excess electricity is cut off from the grid and wasted. As we overbuild wind and solar to meet increasing demand, the cost of curtailed electricity grows. By the year 2040, over 80% of wind electricity may be curtailed during high production months. This will add to the cost of electricity.
In 2007, the Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 2620. The law mandates any major infrastructure project over $5 million, or any renovation which exceeds 50% of the current building’s value, to devote 1.5% of its entire budget to “Green Energy Technology” (GET). Since 2014, more than 50 of these statewide projects have been for schools, where solar panels are overwhelmingly the GET of choice.
Reports submitted to the Oregon Department of Energy show that two-thirds of school projects are outfitted with solar panels that will not break even on their investment for the next 50 years. The industry-accepted break-even limit is 25 years, assuming they last that long before requiring replacement.
A project cannot be excused from the 1.5% rule simply because the GET is not cost-effective. School districts that expressed concerns over this, including McMinnville and LaGrande, were allowed to defer costly GET installations to future construction projects. However, that postpones the expenditure.
The Board of Portland Public Schools plans to spend more than $22 million on solar arrays at rebuilds of Cleveland, Jefferson, and Ida B. Wells high schools; and none of them will pay for themselves. If taxpayers knew about these investments, it’s unlikely they would approve.
The Oregon Legislature should either repeal the 1.5% GET mandate or allow project sponsors the freedom to opt-out if projects are too expensive.
When an Electric Vehicle is marketed as “zero-emission,” consumers expect their car does not cause pollution, right? Well, in the case of zero-emission vehicles, the phrase only refers to “tailpipe exhaust emissions of certain pollutants or greenhouse gases,” according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Many miss this fine print and buy EVs, believing they are helping the environment.
In reality, while removing the element of exhaust, EVs emit 20-26% more tire dust annually than gas cars due to their added battery weight.
That battery is lithium ion, which is both volatile and susceptible to catching fire. These fires emit toxic gas and burn so hot that they are difficult and dangerous to extinguish.
Building the components of an EV requires 84% more minerals than a gas car. This adds significantly to the outsourced emissions via mining. One such lithium mining operation in Chile used 65% of the region’s water, leaving the inhabitants to find other water sources while causing contamination that killed animals and ruined farmland.
Consumers should be aware EVs are not “zero-emission” and do cause significant harm to the environment. I fear consumers are being misled by this term, so environmental regulators should stop requiring manufacturers to market EVs as “zero-emission” vehicles.
The Portland Expo Center has been serving our region through trade shows and local events for nearly 60 years. However, the facility has been under-maintained, and in 2019 upgrades to the Oregon Convention Center made the Expo Center obsolete.
The Expo Center is operated by Metro, which is looking for alternative uses for that site. In June, a public meeting was held to unveil Metro’s latest vision, which is a recreational sports center featuring basketball and volleyball courts, ice skating rinks, and turf fields.
However, sports facilities are expensive both to build and operate. Metro’s forecast for the Expo Center rebuild is expected to cost $225-450 million in taxpayer dollars. Metro claims that no further subsidies would be necessary because the facility would be self-sustaining.
However, similar facilities around the country are currently losing half a million to two million dollars annually.
Metro will hold another public meeting on the project in December. At that time the agency should consider additional options. One could be to sell the property. Another could be to convert it to a homeless shelter, with spaces set aside for people living in vehicles.
Other venues operated by Metro, including the Convention Center and the Portland Zoo, have never been self-sustaining. Voters should be skeptical of claims that a new sports complex will pay for itself.
Children are unique, with different talents, interests, and learning styles. A school that works well for one child doesn’t necessarily meet the needs of another. What if all students could attend schools that helped them learn best?
Empowering parents to choose the best educational environments for their children is called school choice. School choice programs allow education funding to follow students to the schools or learning services that their families choose. It puts parents “in the driver’s seat” of their children’s education, helping families customize education to meet their children’s specific needs and circumstances.
Thirty-three states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico are expanding students’ academic opportunities through 75 different educational choice programs. According to EdChoice (a nonprofit that promotes educational choice), more than 22 million students now can participate in a private school choice program—about 40% of all students nationwide.
Different school environments help children learn in the ways that are most beneficial for them. Oregon can increase options for students by lifting the enrollment cap on charter schools, expanding public school district transfer options, and “letting the money follow the child” through an Education Savings Account program. Oregon students would be served well by letting their families choose the schools and resources that best promote their academic success.
Worries about the Cascadia Subduction Zone have persisted for the last 50 years. Oregon school districts have considered the possibility of a major earthquake as they build and renovate existing structures.
In line with this approach, the Portland Public School district has embarked on a decades-long modernization project, most recently the proposed $491 million modernization of Jefferson High School. The extensive renovation plans raise concerns about the necessity and benefits of the large-scale project, especially given the uncertainty of a potential Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake.
Oregon code requires schools to meet seismic Category III standards, prioritizing life safety. The district has chosen to construct the new Jefferson to Category IV standards. This level, typically reserved for emergency facilities, adds an extra $5.00 per square foot to building cost.
Jefferson isn’t the only school with an excessive budget. Cleveland and Ida B. Wells high schools have surpassed $400 million in the last month. In contrast, the ongoing Bend Senior High rebuild has a budget of $187 million and is compliant with the required seismic code.
While safety is important, overbuilding schools to an unnecessary standard is a misallocation of resources. School districts should focus on meeting the required safety codes while directing additional funds towards enhancing students’ learning and development.
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On May 30, Louisiana’s legislature passed SB 313, establishing the LA GATOR Scholarship Program. The nation’s eighth universal Education Savings Account program will be phased in beginning in 2025, with priority given to low-income students, current LA Scholarship Program students, and students enrolled in public schools. Twelve states now have laws that will offer educational choice to all, or nearly all, K-12 students who choose to participate in these programs.
There are many approaches by which states can empower more students to find the right fit for them to achieve their personal best. Oregon can increase educational opportunities for students here by lifting the enrollment cap on charter schools, expanding public school district transfer options, and “letting the money follow the child” to the schools of their choice through an ESA program.
Different school environments help children learn in the ways that are most beneficial for them. State education policies should value all options that empower students to achieve academic proficiency. Oregon students would be served well by increasing the opportunities available to meet their learning needs, goals, and personal circumstances.
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For the past 40 years, the scientific community has been aware that a major earthquake caused by the Cascadia subduction zone could strike the Pacific Northwest. Enter Multnomah County’s $895 million “Earthquake Ready Burnside Bridge,” set to open in 2031. County Commissioners decided that replacing the current bridge is necessary to safeguard Portland’s lifeline routes. But how necessary or helpful will a new bridge really be?
Even though the new bridge will be the same width as the old bridge, pedestrian and bus lanes will be widened in exchange for one fewer Eastbound car lane. City planners think this will discourage car ridership, and therefore auto emissions. Plans assume that peak-hour bike traffic will increase by more than 450% and that a third of car drivers will become bicyclists. These expectations are unrealistic.
There were other less expensive options besides building a new Burnside Bridge. For example, Tilikum Crossing might be used under emergency circumstances because it is wide, seismically resilient, and could be cleared quickly for cars.
Ultimately, the rationale for the new Burnside Bridge is the assumption that it would withstand a major earthquake in the near future. In reality, there is no way to know when the next earthquake will occur, how strong it would be, or how many of Portland’s bridges would remain functioning. The Burnside Bridge plan seems more like a coercive tactic to reduce automobile travel by constraining road capacity on a major Portland bridge.
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Electric Vehicles are bad business. To boost sales in a market lacking a competitive edge, the government has stepped in with subsidies, tax breaks, and rebates as well as a mandate requiring 35% of all new sales be zero-emission vehicles. The government is replacing competitive prices and market performance with an ideology.
In an attempt to maintain sales and meet the mandate, Ford has been price slashing causing them to lose $1.32B on their EV business just in the first quarter of 2024. Ford lost $65,272 per EV sold, the cost equivalent of a Mercedes Benz E-class sedan.
Losing billions year over year has caused EV shareholders and investors to bolt. EV charging companies ChargePoint Holdings, Blink Charging, and EVgo had share price drops in December 2023 of 74%, 67%, and 21% respectively. To assuage shareholders, GM’s Mary Barra explained their profits were coming from the sale of gas vehicles, undermining the purpose of the mandate and proving EVs not to be a profitable business.
The American people cannot be forced to switch to EVs, and automakers should not be punished for something outside of their control. The government is fighting a losing economic battle with a doomed product.
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This month, Missouri increased educational opportunity for families by expanding its Education Savings Account program. SB 727 widens eligibility for Missouri’s ESA program to include more students, increases teachers’ salaries, and makes it easier to open charter schools.
Different school environments help students learn in the ways that are most beneficial for them. Approximately 20 million American children are eligible to participate in a school choice program that includes private options. Millions more attend charter schools or benefit from other kinds of public school choice.
Oregon should join the “school choice states” and give parents the power to choose the best options for their children. Education Freedom for Oregon, a school choice advocacy group, is making that its goal through two separate school choice ballot initiatives. If enough voter signatures are received before June 30, Oregonians would be able to vote on those measures this year.
State education policies should value all options that empower students to achieve academic proficiency and reach their personal best. Oregon students would be served well by increasing opportunities to meet their learning needs, goals, and personal circumstances.
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A committee of the Oregon legislature will soon be traveling around the state taking testimony on how to pay for Oregon’s network of highways, bridges and roads.
Since 1919, Oregon has relied on gas taxes for road maintenance, but costs are rising faster than tax revenues. One option is to enact mileage-based user fees, also known as tolls. But Gov. Kotek recently shut down ODOT’s plan for highway tolling in the Portland area, due to widespread opposition. Tolling would be more palatable for new facilities, but we never build any in Oregon.
Elsewhere, things are different. More than 60 express toll roads have been built in the U.S. over the past three decades, and they are highly popular with drivers.
Even the remote nation of Madagascar is building a four-lane, 162-mile tollway that will provide convenient travel to and from the nation’s capital. This will be the first toll road in Madagascar’s history.
Oregon drivers are willing to pay for the new roads we need. Just don’t ask us to pay twice for the lanes we already have.
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At its May 7th meeting, the Portland Public Schools Board voted to spend nearly $1 billion to build new school buildings and sports facilities for Ida B. Wells and Cleveland High Schools, respectively. One reason the price tag is so high is that the Board has decided to prohibit the use of natural gas within the schools, as part of the District’s campaign against fossil fuels.
But making the schools all-electric doesn’t free the district away from fossil fuels. It simply shifts the gas consumption from the schools to other locations, where PGE will burn gas to generate electricity for those schools. The District’s climate policy is purely symbolic.
Moreover, the District is planning to have diesel generators on site to provide backup power for outages. Consultants have looked at other fuels, but none provide the attributes needed to instantly provide electricity.
When this issue came up several months ago regarding the expensive rebuild of Jefferson High School, Board Member Julie Brim-Edwards asked what the cost of going all-electric would be. No one on the consultant team could answer the question.
With three large school projects in the pipeline, the Board should know the cost before construction begins.
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2023 is being called the “Year of Universal Education Choice,” and for good reason. According to the nonprofit organization EdChoice, policymakers in 40 states debated 111 bills to expand education options for K-12 students. Lawmakers in seven states enacted new choice programs, and ten states expanded already-existing ones. As of March 2024, eleven states now have universal or near-universal school choice laws. Approximately 20 million American children are eligible to participate in a private choice program.
Oregon parents should be able to choose the best education options for their students, so every child has a chance for an effective and motivating school experience. Education Freedom for Oregon, a school choice advocacy group, is making that its goal through two separate education ballot measures. One would create School Choice Accounts for Oregon families. Parents choosing a School Choice Account could direct a portion of the state funding for their children’s education to options that fit their needs, including tuition, homeschool curricula, tutoring, therapy, and more. The second ballot measure would offer statewide public school open enrollment, allowing families to choose any public schools that have available spaces. If enough voter signatures are received before June 30, Oregonians would be able to vote on these measures in 2024.
Different educational environments empower students to learn in the ways that are most beneficial for them. Educational choice programs—like those in 33 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico—increase students’ opportunities, improve outcomes, and help make schools accountable to the parents and students they serve.
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This week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Johnson v. City of Grants Pass. The central question is whether local ordinances that prohibit people from camping on public property constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Eighth Amendment.
Based on prior rulings in the 9th Circuit court of appeals, western states have been limited since 2018 in what they can do to prevent people from using parks, sidewalks and streets as campgrounds. A successful class action lawsuit against the City of Grants Pass on behalf of homeless people resulted in long-term camping in a city park, preventing residents from using the park for recreational purposes.
Although some people have criticized Grants Pass for allegedly making it illegal to be homeless, that is not the issue. Cities and counties simply need clear authority to prohibit camping in certain public spaces, while designating other spaces as legal places to sleep for people who lack permanent shelter.
Enforcing those rules is not cruel; it’s essential to the livability of our communities. The sooner the Supreme Court clarifies this matter, the sooner we can implement real solutions to the problem of public spaces being permanently converted to unsanitary campgrounds.
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This month, Cascade Policy Institute is releasing a new report explaining why government-mandated “affordable housing” doesn’t actually make housing more affordable.
In The Affordable Housing Scam, author Randal O’Toole writes that while “U.S. taxpayers spend tens of billions of dollars a year subsidizing housing for low-income households,” those units cost “about 20 percent more per square foot than unsubsidized homes.” Developers, not low-income households, capture most of the benefits of taxpayer-funded subsidies. O’Toole recommends that “[i]nstead of wasting money on high-cost housing, project-based affordable housing funds should be abandoned in favor of tenant-based voucher subsidies.”
Most families want to live in single-family homes, not apartments or small attached units. Yet, state and local government planners impose growth policies on their constituents that restrict supply of what their communities really want. The supply of land available for new homes is artificially constrained by urban growth boundaries, which drive up the costs both of existing housing and new construction within UGBs.
Oregon can bring down housing costs at all price points by increasing the supply of land available for new homes. In a state that is 98% open space, building neighborhoods that people want to live in should not be a problem.
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Last week, Cascade Policy Institute provided suggestions to the Board of Portland Public Schools to reduce costs on the Jefferson High School modernization project. The project is paused due to the budget ballooning from $311 million (approved by voters in a 2020 bond issue) to $491 million.
Cascade’s primary advice for the PPS Board can be applied to all publicly funded projects: practice common sense prudence.
The prudent person principle provides perspective on three cost-prohibitive aspects of public projects:
- Building above code requirements;
- Energy efficiency expenditures with payback periods exceeding 20 years;
- Overbuilding.
To meet building code requirements for seismic resilience, Jefferson must be designed as a risk category III structure. Current plans call for building to the costly and unnecessary standard of risk category IV.
The state mandates 1.5% of most public buildings’ budgets be allocated to green energy technology. Agency managers of four other Oregon school districts have refused to comply due to the excessive length of the pay-back period.
Finally, building realistically sized projects is key. Jefferson’s current enrollment is below 500 students yet the rebuild is planned for 1,700, a flagrantly excessive size in a school district with declining enrollment.
The areas of excess in the Jefferson High School re-build are common in public projects. A prudent person would rein in this spending.
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This month, Alabama became the most recent state to increase education options for students through Education Savings Accounts. Alabama’s CHOOSE Act gives families access to up to $7,000 per child to use at participating private schools or for other education expenses. Families who homeschool may receive up to $2,000. Low-income students have first priority, with eligibility expanding to all children by the 2027-28 school year.
Finding the right fit for their children’s education is increasingly important to families. According to nationwide polling, seventy-one percent of voters say parents should “have the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.” Counting Alabama, eleven states now have universal or near-universal school choice laws.
Different educational environments help students learn in the ways that are most beneficial for them. Oregon should give parents the power to choose the best education options for their students, so every child has a chance for an effective and motivating school experience.
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The Oregonian recently reported that “Oregon students as a whole have failed to regain either math or reading skills” lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, unlike students in 29 other states included in an analysis published in January.
The article points out that, despite $1.6 billion in federal pandemic aid being spent in Oregon schools, Oregon students are experiencing three to four times the learning deficit of other states. Each school district spent the money differently, but whether it was to hire teachers, renovate buildings, or create programs, the outcome was the same.
Oregon students are struggling, and they need different choices in their education if they are going to catch up. Whether it is a voucher system, a tax credit, or an education savings account, school choice needs to be implemented so that we can expand learning options and meet the needs of our students.
Thirty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have private school choice programs, and ten of those have universal school choice. Oregon education policies are well behind the curve, and so are their students. When it comes to educational success, money is not the problem, and in this case, more money is not the solution.
Joshua Schutte is the Development Coordinator at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research organization.
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On February 22, the Joint Committee on Transportation of the Oregon Legislature unanimously approved SB 1572, which would appropriate $250,000 to ODOT to study the feasibility of extending TriMet’s Westside Express Service (WES) train from Wilsonville to Salem.
The committee did this despite the fact that average daily ridership on WES was down to 370 in January. With so few riders, the average operations cost per ride was $118.
By comparison, the average operations cost per ride for TriMet’s frequent bus service in January was $6.68, and $9.35 for light rail.
WES opened in 2009 and runs from Beaverton to Wilsonville. Service is limited to weekdays, and only during peak hours. Trains arrive every 45 minutes.
The peak year for WES ridership was 2014, when it averaged 2,010 boardings in January. Since then, ridership has dropped by 82%.
SB 1572 now sits in the Legislative Ways and Means Committee, awaiting approval of the $250,000 budget request. We don’t need a 10-month study to decide that extending commuter rail to Salem is a poor use of taxpayer funds. Lawmakers should let the bill die a quiet death.
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Full-text: The 35-day session of the Oregon Legislature opened last week, and a hearing was held on the Governor’s top priority, Senate Bill 1537. Her goal is to increase the supply of housing.
Unfortunately, this goal is undercut by Oregon’s Urban Growth Boundaries, which are designed to limit urban growth. Under SB 1537, cities will be allowed to add tiny amounts of new land inside the boundary, but only if the proposed development meets stringent criteria.
In the Portland region, new neighborhoods will have to have at least 17 housing units per acre. That means most residents will be living in apartments.
The majority of Oregonians aspire to live in single family homes with a yard. Providing a housing solution that most people don’t want is not a solution.
There is no policy reason for density mandates. Oregon is 98% open space and 2% developed. More than half the state is owned by the federal government, and those lands will remain open space. There is plenty of room for the kind of low-density housing that most people prefer.
Oregon’s Urban Growth Boundaries have essentially created land cartels run by the government. The effect of any cartel is to make commodities both scarce and expensive. That certainly describes Oregon housing, and SB 1537 doesn’t solve the problem.
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Full text: The last segment of Oregon’s Interstate Highway system opened in 1982. One would think that since Oregon has a nationally prominent planning system, there would be efforts underway to plan for the next generation of great roads.
But that is not the case. Planners almost universally hate highways, so they have made sure that the Interstate system remains stagnant. Even where changes are being contemplated, such as a new I-5 bridge over the Columbia River, they are not designed to address growth.
The Interstate Bridge Replacement Project, now in its 26th year of planning, will have no effect on traffic congestion because it doesn’t add capacity. We will still have only two bridges over the Columbia River in the Portland region.
What we need is several new bridges, with at least one providing a direct, high-speed connection to HWY 26 on the west side. We need new bridges and highways for the same reasons that cities eventually need new streets – you can’t pack every urban activity into one small area.
The Oregon Transportation Commission is determined to impose highway tolls without providing motorists with new highways. This is the wrong approach. If the Commission wants public support, it should start planning for the new roads the public wants.
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Full-text: The National School Choice Awareness Foundation conducted a survey of parents of school-aged children in early January. The results indicate that parents “increasingly see school choice as the ‘new normal’ in a post-pandemic world.” The survey report, New Year, New Schools: U.S. Parents View K-12 School Choice as the “New Normal” in 2024, shows 72% of parents said they considered new schools for their children last year.
According to Andrew Campanella, President and CEO of National School Choice Awareness Foundation, the survey reveals three important things about parents today:
- “Parents considering new schools…[are] up 35% from 2022….In 2023, 20 states expanded school choice, and parents want in.”
- “64% of parents say they wish they had more information about education options for their children….”
- “Only 29% of surveyed parents say that the same school type works well for all of the children in their home. Parents know their children best, and finding the right school fit…is paramount.”
National School Choice Week (January 21-27, 2024) celebrates all the ways children learn, including district public schools, charter and magnet schools, private schools, home schools, online schools, and hybrid options. Empowering parents to choose the best educational environments for their children as individuals helps each student have effective opportunities to succeed.
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Full text: January 21-27 is National School Choice Week, the world’s largest annual celebration of parental choice and effective education options for all children. In 2024, 183 Oregon schools and organizations will participate in National School Choice Week to raise awareness about K-12 education in our state.
The landscape of options for Oregon students includes district public schools, public charter schools, private and parochial schools, homeschooling, magnet schools, online learning, and microschools. Different learning environments meet the needs of unique students in the ways they learn best.
Empowering parents to choose among all options unlocks the potential of each child. Last year, seventeen states enacted or expanded school choice programs. Approximately 20 million American children—about 36% of students—are now eligible to participate in a private choice program.
As part of National School Choice Week, Education Freedom for Oregon and the National School Choice Awareness Foundation will host a school fair at the Salem Convention Center on Saturday, January 20th. This free event will showcase Oregon schools representing a range of education options. Attendees can meet educators and get questions answered to help make informed choices for their families.
For more information about this fun, family-friendly event, visit https://schoolchoiceweek.com/events/salem-school-fair-2024/.
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Full text: In 2023, eight states passed universal or near-universal educational choice laws. Education Savings Accounts, vouchers, and education tax credits are different policy approaches; but the goal of each is the same: to put parents “in the driver’s seat” of their kids’ education.
A strong majority of voters agree that parents should be able to choose among schools and resources they believe will best meet their children’s academic and developmental needs. Here are three ideas for expanding education options for Oregon students:
- Raise the 3% cap on charter school enrollment. Oregon law restricts charter school enrollment to the equivalent of 3% of students residing in the school’s local district. Removing the enrollment cap would allow successful charter schools to grow in response to student demand.
- Expand public school transfer policies. Making it easier for students to transfer to other public schools or districts where open seats are available would create incentives for schools to respond to families’ needs and concerns. It also would reward district schools that achieve better outcomes.
- Enact an Education Savings Account (ESA) program. In Oregon, state-level education funding is allocated per child and paid directly to district schools, regardless of student outcomes or parent satisfaction. Seven states have universal ESA programs, meaning per-pupil funding can be converted to portable accounts for students who choose to opt into the program, to use where they learn best.
Approximately 20 million American children are eligible to participate in a private choice program. Oregon should learn from the ten states that now offer universal school choice and expand options for students here, so families can match their children’s needs and goals with the educational environments that will serve them well.
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Full-text: During the holidays, the Oregon Department of Energy quietly updated a chart it maintains showing where Oregon’s electricity comes from. The chart shows that from 2012 through 2021, Oregon’s dependence on fossil fuels increased from 44.7% to 46.3% of annual electricity consumed.
This may come as a surprise to people who thought Oregon was phasing out fossil fuels. Indeed, the Oregon legislature banned coal in 2016 and natural gas in 2021, and mandated that most new electricity come from large wind and solar farms.
The problem is that wind and solar facilities are classified as “intermittent” sources because they don’t generate electricity most of the time. In order to keep the lights on, grid operators must rely on natural gas plants to maintain voltage and frequency. Thus, even though the market share of wind generation went up from 5% to 9% over the past decade, natural gas generation increased from 12% to 24%.
Hydropower is also a good balancing mechanism for intermittent sources, but the era of big dam-building is over. In fact, hydropower capacity in the Northwest will steadily shrink over the coming decades as dams are decommissioned to protectsalmon.
PGE rates are rising by 18% this month, in part due to the phase-out of fossil fuels. But the ban will never work, because the grid needs reliable power sources.
Sometime between now and 2030, the legislature will be forced to extend the lifespan of natural gas plants, just as California has done repeatedly since 2017. The sooner politicians admit that they made a mistake, the sooner we can address the looming shortage of electricity in Oregon.
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Full text: Christmas came early for children and parents in Pennsylvania when the state legislature expanded funding for their K-12 education tax-credit programs in mid-December. Almost 80,000 lower-income children receive scholarships to attend private schools chosen by their families through Pennsylvania’s two school choice programs. The approved increase reportedly will fund about 35,000 more scholarships.
Pennsylvania has two school choice programs that help children from low-to-middle-income families attend private schools. The Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program and the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit offer tax credits to businesses that voluntarily donate to scholarship-granting organizations and other groups that promote educational improvement.
The bipartisan agreement to expand educational opportunity in Pennsylvania is a victory for families over political differences in a “purple state.” Colleen Hroncich of CATO’s Center for Educational Freedom and Sharon Sedlar of PA Families for Education Choice pointed out in a recent op-ed that “[s]upport for giving families a say in education is broad and bipartisan, but it often gets stymied by political fights in state legislatures.” The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board noted, “All House Democrats and most in the Senate supported the legislation, which included funding for public schools and other provisions.” Policymakers across the political spectrum are realizing that opportunity and choice in education are important to a lot of parents who live and vote in their states.
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Full text: Nationwide polling this year revealed seventy-one percent of voters say parents should “have the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.” State policymakers should note it’s increasingly important to families to match their children’s educational needs with school environments that serve them best.
Oregon should expand students’ education options, and many ways exist to achieve that successfully. In a December article in Forbes, Michael McShane, Director of National Research at Ed Choice, explains why 2023 should be called “The Year of Universal School Choice”:
"Policymakers in 40 states debated 111 educational choice bills….As the months ticked by, a total of seven states enacted new choice programs and 10 expanded ones already in operation….[E]ight states have joined Arizona and West Virginia in offering all students choice, making 2023 the Year of Universal Choice….[A]pproximately 20 million students—or 36 percent—are now eligible for a private choice program.”
Ten states now have universal or near-universal school choice laws: seven Education Savings Account programs, two voucher programs, and one tax credit program. Each of these approaches empowers parents to choose the best education options for their children. States can learn valuable lessons from each other’s policy approaches as they craft programs that suit the needs of their own families and voters.
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Full text: The New York Times published an editorial November 18 regarding learning losses experienced by K-12 students since the COVID-19 pandemic. The editorial board’s recommendations are predictable: spend more money, combat chronic absenteeism, and increase teacher compensation.
CATO education policy analyst Colleen Hroncich takes a more incisive approach.
“We’ve spent a lot of time and money on the system‐focused approach,” Hroncich writes. “Let’s try focusing on the kids now….
“Pouring more money into the system and making children spend more time there isn’t what’s needed. It is individual children who are struggling, so they need individual—not system-focused—help….”
“One size does not fit all when it comes to education….School choice programs that allow state funding to be used for private schools or home education expenses are spreading. While no state had universal school choice in 2020, 10 states now have universal or nearly universal programs.
“More of the same is not the solution for what ails our education system. All states should move to universal choice so all kids can attend the learning environments that work for them.”
The student-focused approach represented by school choice addresses many of the problems raised by the Times. School choice empowers parents to match their students with the teachers, schools, and learning environments that best keep them engaged on the path to educational success.
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Full text: At the Portland Public Schools board meeting last week, the Portland Association of Teachers and the school board members were united on one issue: They all blamed the state legislature for the November teachers strike. However, parents should be aware of the following sections of the new PPS contract:
- “Bargaining unit members who participated in the strike will receive their full pay for November 2023 and the remainder of the 2023-2024 contract year….” (Page 2, paragraph N)
- “All bargaining unit employees will receive all fringe benefits provided by the collective bargaining agreement as if the bargaining unit members worked continuously and no strike had occurred….” (Page 3, section 5)
- “Student behavior is an expression of unmet needs, and makes sense when put in context. The disciplinary response process should be aimed at meeting these needs and create an environment that helps students find new ways to meet their needs. With this belief PPS will begin to move from exclusionary discipline to Restorative Practices for all Pre-K to 12 grades.” (Article 9)
If teachers get paid for not working and there is no student discipline, more money from the legislature won’t solve the district’s problems.
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Full text: For those of us who came of age in the 1970s, the conventional wisdom was that cars were gas guzzlers and the environmentally correct way to travel was via transit.
That is no longer the case.
Last month the Federal Transit Agency (FTA) released its 2022 National Transit Database. According to Oregon economist Randal O’Toole, the results show that transit used more energy per passenger-mile than the average car or light truck in every urban area. Transit vehicles also emitted more greenhouse gasses than the average car or light truck in every urban area except New York.
Local planners seem to have missed this development. Metro’s proposed Regional Transportation Plan, which the agency will adopt in early December, recommends that we provide more funding for TriMet and take measures to increases ridership as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Obviously this strategy will fail, because transit itself is failing.
TriMet’s share of all regional trips today is about 4%, which means it’s irrelevant to most regional travelers. This suggests that it’s time to reconsider the basic purpose of the agency. Ridership peaked in 2012, and there is no evidence that it will ever come back. If there are few riders and transit vehicles are less efficient than cars, what is the point?
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Full-text: Oklahoma’s Parental Choice Tax Credit Program is the first universal, refundable tax credit for K-12 education expenses. Education Tax Credits: Restoring Trust in Families, a new report published by yes. every kid., explains how education tax credits can be a direct, unbureaucratic approach to expanding education options for all students.
“Personal education tax credits,” the report says, “are tax credits received by a parent or guardian for educating his or her student outside of the existing public school system. They are a simple way to give families support to offset the cost of educational expenses by returning their taxes to them and, in some cases, providing them with a refund.” Following the model of the federal Child Tax Credit, education tax credits “provide families direct funding with little bureaucratic interference and allow families to spend these funds in the most flexible way.”
The report recommends that states looking to enact a strong education tax credit policy should ensure that it applies to all families, retains parental autonomy over education decisions, ensures administrative efficiency, and is built on a sustainable basis.
Ten states now have universal or near-universal school choice laws: seven Education Savings Account programs, two voucher programs, and one tax credit program. Each of these approaches empowers parents to choose the best education options for their children. States can learn valuable lessons from each other’s policy approaches as they craft programs that suit the needs of their own families and voters.
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Full text: The homeschool landscape is changing. Our approach to school funding should, too.
A recent Washington Post study found that homeschooling is booming in popularity. In districts with available data, the homeschool population has grown on average 51% since the 2017-2018 school year.
Homeschooled students do not come from one ideological, racial, political, or religious background. The reasons families choose homeschooling are also diverse. Homeschoolers come from liberal districts and conservative districts alike, with diverse cultural makeups, pointing to the benefits of homeschooling and other non-traditional education settings for children from all walks of life.
As education options expand, states should let education funding follow the students so they can learn in the environments that best meet their needs. In 2023, school choice programs don’t serve one interest group. They serve everyone. States that are enacting school choice laws are helping families find the right fit for their children to succeed, whether that’s through public, charter, magnet, private, online, or home education. All children should have the opportunity to learn in the schools that are best for them.
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Full text: Last August, Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade issued a Request for Proposal for services to identify and mitigate “harmful information online as it relates to elections” (to see the full RFP document, click HERE). The Secretary is concerned with what she refers to as “misinformation,disinformation, and malinformation”, or MDM.
According to the RFP, the selected vendor shall review social and online media for alleged instances of MDM on a 24/7 basis, and share relevant information with local stakeholders including the FBI and State Police.
Assuming bids were received, the Secretary of State was scheduled to sign a service contract on October 27th.
While election integrity is a noble goal, it’s troubling that the Secretary is placing herself as the arbiter of truth regarding supposed problems of misinformation. Over the past decade, Oregon public officials have repeatedly shown themselves to beuntrustworthy. Specific cases include the early resignations of Secretary of State Shemia Fagin and Gov. John Kitzhaber; the disastrous mismanagement of the Oregon Public Employee Retirement system; and Gov. Kate Brown’s indefensible shutdown of public schools during the pandemic.
Moreover, it’s inevitable that monitoring social media related to elections will be broadened to include other kinds of speech that the government disapproves of.
This is an ill-advised move by the SOS, and should be terminated before it ever gets started.
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Full text: It’s time to end home equity theft in Oregon.
In Oregon, if a property has unpaid taxes, the county can legally seize and sell the property, and keep the proceeds.
Pacific Legal Foundation found that, most of the time, property owners’ tax liabilities are minuscule compared to the value of their homes: 75% of homes seized by Oregon counties had tax debts less than the price of a 10-year-old Ford F-150. Yet, the average homeowner lost $237,000 in equity beyond the debt owed.
Oregon counties have pocketed an excess of $11 million in home equity that was not owed to them. This behavior was both unethical and unconstitutional. The Fifth Amendment states, “Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” When homeowners fall on hard times and don’t pay their property taxes, the government has the right to collect what it’s owed. But the Fifth Amendment should stop governments from keeping more than what is due.
The solution is simple and uncostly. In a 9-0 decision in May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this government behavior is unconstitutional. The Oregon legislature should amend state law during the 2024 legislative session to comply with Tyler v. Hennepin County, the Supreme Court’s decision on home equity theft.
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Full-text: A long-standing question about taxpayer-funded school choice programs like vouchers, education tax credits, and Education Scholarship Accounts is whether such programs would cause tuition to rise at private elementary and high schools.
A new study by the Heritage Foundation shows that school choice programs have kept elementary school costs from increasing in their states and had no impact on high school tuition. Lucy Graves at The Daily Signal reports: “Over the past 10 years, states that adopted school choice policies had lower rates of tuition increases than states that never had school choice policies. When adjusted for inflation, the cost of tuition rose more slowly in states that had previously adopted school choice. States without school choice had an average 27.6% increase in tuition, while states with school choice saw a 15.4% increase, the study found.”
In recent polling, seventy-one percent of voters said parents should “have the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.” School choice laws make it easier for families with fewer financial means to choose tuition-based education options. Data from the Heritage Foundation study should reassure policymakers that “letting the money follow the child” doesn’t cause inflation in K-12 school tuition.
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Full-text: North Carolina has become the ninth state to enact universal school choice for K-12 children. The Opportunity Scholarship Program, created in 2013, offers vouchers applicable to private school costs, including tuition, fees, transportation, and necessary expenses.
In September, the General Assembly expanded eligibility to all families through an income-based system. Lower-income households have first priority. Middle- and upper-income families may apply as funding remains available, up to the statewide program cap. Lower-income families are eligible for 100 percent of the average state per-pupil allocation based on the prior fiscal year, about $7,200 in 2023-24. Households in higher income brackets will receive scholarships at reduced rates.
Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Utah, and West Virginia now have universal Education Savings Account (or “Scholarship Account”) programs. Indiana’s ESA program allows about 98% of families to participate, making it nearly universal. Oklahoma recently passed a universal tax credit program, and Ohio made its voucher program universal.
According to recent polling, seventy-one percent of voters say parents should “have the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.” Oregon policymakers should note that it’s increasingly important to families today to match their children’s educational needs with school environments that will serve them best. It’s time to offer more options to students here.
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Full-text: Lawmakers and activists across the country continue to push for massive increases in renewable energy, and here on the West Coast, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has unveiled a plan for large scale offshore wind farms. Representative David Gomberg of Oregon’s 10th district hosted a listening session on September 28th in Newport to hear the thoughts of his constituents on this subject. The response was overwhelmingly negative.
Over the course of two hours, coastal residents made it clear that they had no interest in BOEM’s plan, a sentiment that was expressed at similar meetings in Gold Beach, Brookings, and Coos Bay. Individuals from every part of the community had something to say, from engineers to fishers to city officials. Installing these farms would cost far too much, and the output would be far too little. The structures would negatively affect the ocean wildlife which in turn would be detrimental to the fishing trade, something the coastal cities heavily rely on. Turbines have a history of breaking after a short time, and they are rarely cleaned up well even on land.
One after another, locals made their point loud and clear: offshore wind farms are dangerous, unreliable, and ultimately not worth the cost.
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Full-text: Portland’s TriMet transit agency and the Metro regional government have long tried to shape the city’s growth and transportation landscape. But it’s abundantly clear the current transit model is woefully outdated, a relic of the early 1900s. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this situation, accelerating trends like telecommuting, job dispersion throughout the suburbs, and increased car ownership among low-income commuters.
Cascade Policy Institute’s new report by Randal O’Toole, a land use and transportation expert, is a wake-up call.
In TriMet in the Twenty-First Century, O’Toole explains that today’s downtown Portland has made the transit model obsolete. The dispersion of jobs away from the city center, increased car ridership, and the expansion of remote work have increasingly become normal for the Portland area. TriMet’s downtown-centric transit route system doesn’t make sense when ridership may never recover to pre-pandemic levels, and commuters need more service to other destinations throughout the region.
Public transit can remain relevant and become financially solvent if it responds to riders’ 21st-century needs. O’Toole imagines the possibilities of modern hub-based transportation systems, a public ride-share bus system, and subsidies reallocated towards income-based transportation vouchers.
TriMet’s model worked many decades ago, but now it’s time for innovative responses to the region’s current and future public transportation needs.
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Full-text: Have you heard of “No-School November”? Portland Public School (PPS) students could be away from their desks for a long time this fall. The district is bracing for a potentially imminent teacher strike at the behest of their union.
This is a classic example of how taxpaying families have lost power in public education.
Despite the union’s heavy demands, including a 23 percent hike in teachers’ compensation packages, the union stated at a September school board meeting that they wanted to find a resolution. But school officials revealed a different story. The union didn’t seem interested in a compromise; after reaching a formal impasse with the union, PPS released a statement indicating they were “disappointed” when the union made no counter-proposal, in addition to ignoring a compromise package created by PPS.
This event highlights one truth: Unions don’t represent the best interests of students; yet, they hold significant sway over what happens in publicly funded schools.
If parents want their kids at schools with quality education, it’s time to look to school choice. School choice allows state-level education funding to follow students to the schools that best serve their needs. Seven states now have universal or near-universal school choice laws, giving opportunities for every family to choose where and how their kids are educated.
Parents, not unions, should be in the driver’s seat of their children’s education.
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Full-text: TriMet’s Blue rail line to Hillsboro opened on September 12, 1998. Westside MAX was unlike any light rail line previously built in America: It was deliberately routed through vacant land with the expectation that it would be a catalyst for so-called “Transit-Oriented Development” (TOD).
TriMet planners claimed, “The success or failure of the public’s nearly $1 billion investment in Westside MAX will be determined in large part by what happens around its 20 stations. Unlike the East side MAX line, a substantial amount of land around the Westside is primed for development.”
After 25 years, has the strategy succeeded? Not really. Much of the land near light rail stations has been developed at high densities; but density is expensive so many of those projects were subsidized with below-cost land deals, tax abatements, or cash grants. And few people who live or work near rail stations actually use the train.
At Orenco Station in Hillsboro, a fully developed transit-oriented neighborhood, light rail ridership at the afternoon peak is only about seven percent of all passenger trips. Ridership is even lower at most other times.
The “Field of Dreams” strategy was a nice metaphor, but it has no basis in reality. TriMet and Metro should shut down their TOD programs and stop building light rail.
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Full-text: As K-12 students return to school, more than four-fifths of them will attend a district public school. However, recent polling by EdChoice shows that only 29% of parents say their zoned public school would be their first choice, and about one in four parents say parental choice is one of their top three K-12 education issues.
Here are three ways Oregon can expand options for K-12 students and parents:
1. EdChoice reports that 11% of parents polled would prefer a charter school. Raising Oregon’s cap on charter enrollment would allow successful charter schools to meet student demand.
2. Thirteen percent of parents said they would prefer to send their children to a public school outside the district where they live. Expanding district transfer policies would create incentives for schools to respond to families’ needs and reward public schools that achieve better outcomes.
3. Education Savings Account programs receive broad support in polling. Enacting an ESA program would allow parents to use state-level education funding allocated for their children’s education to pay for the schools or services that best meet their learning needs.
Seven states now offer universal or near-universal school choice programs. These states provide legislative models that states like Oregon can follow to help children everywhere find their best paths to educational success.
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Full-text: 2023 has been an outstanding year for school choice.
Utah, Iowa, Arkansas, and Florida enacted universal school choice programs for K-12 students. Families who opt into these programs may use a portion of their state education funds to pay for education costs including tuition or other education services.
Indiana expanded eligibility for its school choice programs, making its voucher program available to 96.5% of families with school-aged children.
Nebraska’s Opportunity Scholarship Act, a tax credit-funded program, provides opportunities for children to attend private schools chosen by their parents.
Legislation in Oklahoma included tax credits to offset tuition or homeschooling costs, pay increases for teachers, and funding for rural and charter schools.
Wisconsin increased funding for its existing school choice programs, charter school students, and the Special Needs Scholarship Program.
According to RealClear Opinion, seventy-one percent of voters nowsay parents should “have the right to use tax dollars designated for theirchild’s education to send their child to the public or private school whichbest serves their needs.” States that are empowering parents to find the right fit for their children’s educational needs are opening doors of opportunity for generations of students. Oregon should join them, so every student has a chance to succeed.
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Full-text: A June 2023 RealClear Opinion Research survey of registered voters shows public support for school choice has increased seven points since 2020. Seventy-one percent of voters—up from 64% three years ago—say parents should “have the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.”
Support for school choice commands a strong majority across political affiliations. Sixty-six percent of Democrats, 80% of Republicans, and 69% of Independents polled said they support this definition of school choice. Seventy percent of Asian, 73% of Black, and 71% of Hispanic voters also said they support it.
It’s clear parents want more choices. This year, five states passed or expanded universal or near-universal school choice laws. Others expanded their state laws to include more students. States that are empowering parents to find the right fit for their children’s educational needs are opening doors of opportunity for generations of students. It’s time Oregon let the “money follow the child” so every student has a chance to succeed.
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Full-text: Earlier this year, Oregon lawmakers proposed legislation allowing voters to reconsider their 1980 decision to effectively ban construction of new nuclear power plants in the state. The bills never received a hearing.
That was unfortunate, because state law requires electricity generation in Oregon to be 100% emissions-free by 2040. In order to phase out coal and natural gas, utilities will need other fuels that can provide clean, round-the-clock power; and nuclear is the only technology capable of doing that.
California has attempted to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar, but the effort is failing. During a heatwave in 2020, the state was forced to issue rolling blackouts as the sun went down and solar generation fell offline.
Ontario, Canada has been much more successful. The province completely phased out coal in 2014, and it now produces over 93% of its electricity emissions-free—with 63% of that power coming from nuclear.
The Oregon ballot measure approved in 1980 prohibits new nuclear plants from being built until a federally licensed waste depository becomes available; but after more than 40 years of waiting, the federal government still hasn’t followed through.
If Oregon legislators are really serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, they should place a measure on the ballot in 2024 allowing voters to reconsider the ban enacted 43 years ago.
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Full-text: Metro is the regional government of the greater Portland region. It is tasked with managing regional issues like transportation, land use, and public parks. Metro’s Regional Mobility Policy guides the region’s transportation investments toward its goals—directing investments in roads, bridges, bike lanes, light rail, and more.
One of Metro’s proposed policies for 2023 is the use of congestion pricing, meaning imposing tolls on users of high-traffic roadways. Cascade Policy Institute has long supported the use of toll lanes and congestion pricing to alleviate traffic, but Metro’s plans for implementing these policies leave much to be desired. Metro would use tolling revenues as if they were another form of general funding, financing unrelated projects like transit subsidization instead of reinvesting revenues back into the roadways that generated them.
Using pricing in this way amounts to just another tax. Clearing up existing roadways by making driving more expensive does nothing to resolve the underlying problem. For pricing to be effective, revenues from busy roadways should be reinvested in additional lanes or alternative routes that allow everyone to get where they need to go quickly and efficiently.
More taxes are not the solution to congested roads. Metro needs to seriously rethink its approach to pricing if it wants to make meaningful progress in reducing traffic in the greater Portland region.
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Full-text: During the 2023 session, the Oregon Legislature passed Cascade Policy Institute’s bill to ease state-level restrictions on taking the GED. Governor Kotek signed HB 3068 into law August 1.
General Educational Development (GED) tests are standardized exams that measure proficiency in science, mathematics, social studies, and language arts. When passed, the GED provides certification that the test-taker meets high school graduate-level academic skills. Higher scores demonstrate college readiness, and even higher scores can qualify students for college credit.
Oregon previously required that a person be 18 years or older to take the GED. The state permitted people as young as 16 to sit for the GED only in limited circumstances, such as if they already had dropped out of high school, were married or emancipated minors, or were in juvenile detention.
HB 3068 removes these restrictions. Cascade’s bill allows 11th and 12th graders (with parents’ permission) to graduate early by passing the GED. Importantly, students won’t have to drop out of high school to take the GED. Earning a GED while still enrolled in school provides students with a low-risk option to graduate early and move on to higher education or employment.
With bipartisan sponsorship and support, Cascade Policy Institute’s GED bill will make a meaningful difference to many students looking for a way to move forward more quickly toward college or a career.
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Full-text: Metro’s 2023 Regional Transportation Plan calls for expanding many different high-capacity transit lines but includes no mention of reducing the most costly ones.
As of this spring, the WES commuter rail from Beaverton to Wilsonville only sees 450 daily boardings. That is only 225 riders, assuming a round trip. To put that in perspective, the least popular of the five MAX rail lines, the Orange Line, has more than 5,000 daily boardings. Meanwhile, the Blue Line has almost 30,000.
Metro intended WES to be a huge success, predicting between 3,000 to 4,000 daily riders by 2020. At the height of its ridership, WES barely exceeded 2,000 daily boardings and, right before the pandemic, consistently saw fewer than 1,500.
This ghost train is not just a waste of space, but a huge waste of money. Each ride costs taxpayers $103. Multiplied by the daily boardings, WES costs taxpayers more than $46,000 every day it runs.
Eliminating this line would cost money in the near term, but getting rid of a consistent financial drain would save taxpayers millions in the long run. Before expanding public transit, Metro should eradicate underperforming train lines first.
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Full-text: For decades, Portland Public Schools (PPS) has tried to close the “achievement gap” between white and non-white students. “Race,” they wrote in their 2013 Racial Education Equity Policy, “must cease to be a predictor of student achievement and success.” To do this, they began dedicating 8% of their yearly budget to General Fund Equity. This fund has taken various forms, first as “action plan” reporting, then as professional development training, now as “transformative curriculum and pedagogy” through a Racial Equity and Social Justice (RESJ) Lens. Funds are directed selectively toward inner-city schools with more racial minorities, like Jefferson High School.
After 10 years, it’s still not clear what this has accomplished. The district’s Citizen Budget Review Committee routinely wants to know how specifically PPS uses these mechanisms to meet their equity goals. The answer is more social workers and updated curricula, but these ideas seem no different from non-equity-related programs.
These supposed remedies for the achievement gap also appear disconnected from statistical reality. In middle schools, as General Fund Equity payments increase with the district’s budget, test scores for “historically underserved” students continue to lag about 40% behind white students in English Language Arts (ELA) and math. This is especially true for PPS’s “focus” schools in the inner city. Meanwhile, test scores for all students continue to decline.
Portland Public Schools can celebrate improving graduation rates, but not much else. Instead of following the same old strategy, PPS should get creative. More alternative schools could incentivize students, including non-white students, to improve their academic performance. The result: educational equity, what the district wants.
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Full-text: Two years ago, the Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 2021, which requires Oregon’s investor-owned electric utilities to phase out fossil fuels by 2040, producing all electricity from renewables—mostly wind and solar.
But renewables have a problem: Wind and solar are notoriously unreliable. They must always depend on on-demand “dispatchable” resources, which in Oregon means natural gas and hydro. New hydro is nearly impossible to build, and with other dispatchables outlawed, Oregon could find itself without electricity when it’s really needed.
PacifiCorp, one of Oregon’s two investor-owned electric utilities, admits that it likely will be unable to meet customer needs without the invention of new technologies by 2030. Without such technologies, Oregon utilities will have two options: apply for exemptions to HB 2021’s requirements, or buy electricity from other states.
If other states don’t pursue similar policies, Oregon essentially would be paying a premium to shift the blame for its emissions onto its neighbors. It still would be reliant on other states’ on-demand fossil-powered generation, but would get to claim a “100% renewable” grid. If other states do adopt similar requirements, they will face the same reliability issues as Oregon and be unable to offer help.
Oregon shouldn’t be betting its energy future on technology that doesn’t exist, and it shouldn’t be forcing premiums on ratepayers to shift around blame.
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Full-text: Last week the elected Auditor for Metro published a report showing that the agency misled voters when it promised that funds raised from the $475 million bond measure approved in 2019 would be used to make Metro’s nature parks more accessible to the public.
It’s nice to see this concern validated by the Auditor, but it’s been obvious for decades that Metro was more interested in acquiring park land than inviting people to use it. Since 1995, Metro has spent over half a billion dollars buying more than 14,000 acres, but less than 12 percent of that acreage is accessible.
Roughly 70% of Metro acquisitions have been outside Metro’s own borders. More than 80% are outside the Portland urban growth boundary.
Even for lands that are easy to reach, few Metro properties have signage, parking lots, or trails.
Over time, Metro has deliberately moved away from the idea that parks are for people. Now the philosophy is that Metro buys land just for its natural properties, and people should be discouraged from visiting.
The Metro Council should shut down any more land acquisitions by staff until access improves for parks they already own.
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Full-text: Two weeks ago, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced plans to give a 2.6% tax break to businesses threatening to leave Portland. This is a win for businesses and could encourage some to stay. But it may be too little, too late.
Even after the worst of the pandemic, hundreds of businesses moved their headquarters out of Portland. And it’s not just businesses; people are fleeing, too. In 2022, Portland had a net loss of 8,000 people.
Mayor Wheeler finally learned one basic principle: High taxes discourage economic activity.
According to a study from ECONorthwest, Portland has the second highest marginal tax rate in the U.S. Only New York City is higher. Another study by Ernst & Young shows that Portland business taxes have increased by 32% since 2019.
Removing a 2.6% business tax is a good start, but Portland is far from being “business friendly.” In order for Portland (and more generally, Oregon) to attract more businesses, a substantial decrease in personal and business taxes is necessary.
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Full-text: Three states recently expanded education options for K-12 students through school choice laws. States that are empowering families to find the right fit for their children’s educational needs are opening doors of opportunity for generations of students.
In May, Nebraska passed the Opportunity Scholarship Act. The tax credit-funded program provides opportunities for children to attend private schools chosen by their parents. The average scholarship amount is capped at 75% of state per-pupil funding (approximately $9,200).
Oklahoma passed a historic education package including tax credits for families with school-aged children to offset private school tuition or homeschooling costs, pay increases for teachers, and funding for rural and charter schools.
In June, Wisconsin increased the per-pupil funding for its existing school choice programs. Participating families will qualify for up to $9,500 for elementary and middle school tuition and $12,000 for high school. Funding for charter school students and the Special Needs Scholarship Program also increased. This bill expands Wisconsin’s school choice funding by almost $300 million, the largest increase in state history.
This year, Iowa, Utah, Arkansas, Florida, and Indiana passed or expanded universal or near-universal school choice laws, joining West Virginia and Arizona. The school choice states provide Oregon with legislative models we can follow. Oregon needs to give students viable alternatives to zoned district schools that may not serve them well, so every child has a chance to succeed.
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Full-text: “3000 SE Powell Boulevard” is the name of Home Forward’s 6-year-old low-income housing development with a massive expenditure: $87 million, $75 million of which came from government tax credits and bond monies. Burdened by building height and design constraints, soil contamination worries, and delayed materials delivery, the expected opening date has been pushed back to next winter.
But perhaps the most distressing thing about 3000 Powell is parking, which seems tragically inadequate. Just 31 parking spaces will accommodate 206 housing units. Comparatively, the 90-unit Sunshine Portland Apartments, directly behind the complex, offer 34 parking spaces. Home Forward has made improvements to its parking plan, but the lot can only be accessed through a narrow road likely to be bustling with commuters.
With extra space reserved for a playground and a smoking shelter, parking is not a high priority here. Yet cars remain a crucial source of transportation for the poor. Counterintuitively, roughly 8 in 10 low-income workers have cars to drive; because they have less mobility and job stability, they must rely on them to commute.
If Home Forward’s “urgent” humanitarian aid includes accessible housing, shouldn’t it also include a convenient spot to park a car? For their safety, the poor cannot afford to miss the latter.
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Full-text: Most Republican members of the Oregon Senate have refused to participate in floor sessions since May 3, in a show of opposition to Democratic leadership. As a result, hundreds of bills are waiting for floor votes, which may never be taken before the mandatory adjournment date of June 25.
While this is frustrating for legislative insiders, the average Oregonian probably doesn’t care. Most people have no idea what is going on in the Capitol, for good reason. Bills are usually introduced for the benefit of narrow interests. If passed, they would eventually raise taxes for voters. Only on rare occasions does legislation actually benefit the public.
Some political analysts are focused on how future legislators can be compelled to show up, but perhaps the real lesson is how useless the legislature is.
This may be the Wally Pipp moment for politicians, a nod to the New York Yankees first basemen who sat out a game in 1925 and was replaced by Lou Gehrig— for the next 2,129 consecutive games.
Legislative arguments about the walkout sound like kids arguing in the sandbox. If politicians can’t do better, they should all go home, where they won’t be missed.
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Full-text: “More money, same result” is what Oregon’s Senate voted for this March. Now, the bill enters a different chamber, but faces a similar fate.
If passed, Senate Bill 442 allows government contractors to grant preferences to in-state bidders if the “goods or services cost not more than five percent more than [out of state] goods or services.”
Normally, when the government uses taxpayer dollars to purchase goods or services, it grants favor to the lowest bidder who offers an acceptable quality. This is similar to different retailers competing for your business. When faced with two equal-quality goods, you will usually choose the “lowest bidder.”
But sometimes, you might buy local to “help the environment” or “support local businesses.” That’s fine; it’s your choice. But when the government is spending your tax dollars, their main concern should be maximizing benefits while minimizing costs, not some version of their arbitrary goals. Under this bill, bureaucratic preferences triumph. The government is forcing you to buy local.
If the state government wants to prove they have Oregonians’ best interests in mind, they should vote ‘NAY’ on Senate Bill 442.
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Full-text: The Oregon Senate has come to a standstill over the past several weeks. Most Republican Senators are boycotting floor sessions due to objections about both policy and process.
Media accounts have portrayed the missing Senators in a negative light, but voters should ask why the majority party has driven Republicans to such extreme measures. Democrats hold all the power, so only they can broker a compromise. They’ve been unwilling to do that.
One of the most basic rules of political leadership is to treat minority members with respect, because you won’t always be in control. Democrats have been unwilling to do that since they became the majority party in 2013. Their abuse of power has only grown, leading to repeated walkouts by Republicans.
Last November, voters passed Measure 113, which limits legislators to 10 “unexcused absences” during a session. The punishment for going past 10 is the loss of eligibility to run for a legislative seat in the next election. Most of the Republican Senators have already missed more than 10 days.
I respect that they are willing to pay the price, but it doesn’t bode well for the institution.
Reaching a compromise is possible, but the majority caucus has to play the first card.
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Full-text: Over the next five weeks, the Oregon legislature will decide whether to make a down payment of $1 billion to replace the I-5 Interstate Bridge connecting Portland with Vancouver, WA. The total cost of the bridge is unknown, but is estimated to be at least $6 billion.
The legislature should reject this request.
There is no immediate need to replace the Interstate Bridge. It has decades of useful life remaining. The much bigger need is to accommodate growth by adding two new bridges - one upstream from the Glen Jackson I-205 Bridge, and one downstream from the I-5 Interstate Bridge. The new crossings would eliminate most congestion on the existing bridges, while providing essential redundancy in the event of a catastrophic earthquake.
We especially need a new Columbia River bridge with a direct connection to Highway 26 near Hillsboro. Not only would this reduce the total amount of driving for thousands of motorists, it would provide much-needed congestion relief at three current bottlenecks: the Sylvan hills tunnels on HW 26, the Fremont Bridge, and I-5 in North Portland.
Planning for a new Interstate Bridge began under Gov. Kitzhaber in 1997, and 25 years later we have nothing to show for it. We should stop fighting the last war. The region needs several new Columbia River crossings, not a single replacement bridge.
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Full-text: Two more states recently expanded their school choice programs, bringing the total number of states with universal or near-universal student eligibility to seven.
In March, Florida became the fourth state this year to enact a universal school choice program for K-12 students. All Florida children now have the option to choose an Education Savings Account (ESA) funded at about $7,500 per year. Families who want to opt into the program may use ESA funds to pay for non-public-school tuition, tutoring, or other education services.
Last week, Indiana expanded eligibility for its school choice programs. According to the American Federation for Children, Indiana’s voucher program is now available to any family with an income below 400% of Free and Reduced-Price Lunch levels ($222,000 for a family of four). Income eligibility for Indiana’s tax credit scholarship and ESA programs also increased to the same level. This means that about 96.5% of Indiana families with school-aged children would qualify for one of the state’s educational choice programs.
Arizona, West Virginia, Utah, Iowa, and Arkansas also have enacted universal school choice laws. Oregon should join these education pioneers, so families can match their children’s needs and goals with the school environments that will serve them best.
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Full-text: If you’re a Multnomah County homeowner, business owner, or have a retirement account, watch out for the May election. There’s a measure on the ballot that’s coming after you.
Measure 26-238 imposes a capital gains tax on Multnomah County residents. If you sell your home, you will pay the tax on the increased value since you bought it. If you sell your small business, you will pay on the gains from that sale. If you have a retirement account, every time you withdraw money, you will pay on the amount your investments grew over time.
Proponents say you don’t have to worry because the tax is based on the IRS definition of capital gains. But that’s not the whole story. That’s because Measure 26-238 does not include any of the IRS exemptions from capital gains. Under this measure, Multnomah County will put you on the hook for all of it—even if the Feds don’t tax it.
To make matters worse, Measure 26-238 clearly states that the tax rate is “adjustable.” Most of us have been around long enough to know that when a tax rate is adjustable, the only way is up.
To make matters even worse, the money will be used to fund lawsuits by evicted tenants against property owners. Think about that: Landlords will be hit with a tax to fund lawsuits against themselves.
Multnomah County has the second-highest marginal individual income tax rate in the United States after New York City. Measure 26-238 will push us over the top.
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Full Text: Earlier this month, Oregon lifted its mask mandate for hospitals and other health care facilities. For many, it’s one of the last steps indicating the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us. But, it’s also a reminder that one state policy caused so much damage during the pandemic.
That policy is Oregon’s “Certificate of Need” laws. If a health care provider wants to open a new facility or significantly expand an existing facility, the provider must get permission from the state and demonstrate that there is a need for more facilities. As part of the process, competing providers can weigh in and provide evidence that current capacity is sufficient. This imposes a huge roadblock to expanding health care services in the state.
As governor, Kate Brown imposed one of the most stringent and long-lasting lockdowns of any state. She stated time after time that these lockdowns were necessary to avoid overwhelming the state’s limited supply of hospital beds.
Oregon has the lowest number of hospital beds per capita in the country. There was a real risk that hospitals would be overwhelmed. That’s because our Certificate of Need laws stifled the construction of new hospital beds.
Now that this pandemic is over, we should begin preparing for the next one by repealing Oregon’s Certificate of Need laws so we can have enough hospital beds to avoid future long-running lockdowns.
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Full-text: While Oregonians are filling out their tax returns, their elected legislators are lining up some blow-out spending.
Last month, the Democratic co-chairs of the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee unveiled a budget “framework” that proposes more than $6 billion in new general fund spending—a 24% increase from the last budget. The biggest increases are in K-12 education and human services, which includes Medicaid.
Even though Oregon public school enrollment has dropped by 30,000 since before the pandemic, the co-chairs are proposing a stunning $1.2 billion increase in school spending. That’s an increase of more than $2,000 per student.
Over the years, Oregon has added more and more people to its Medicaid program. Now, about one-quarter of the state’s population is enrolled in Medicaid or similar programs. Many of these new enrollees are not eligible for federal matching funds, so Oregon must pay 100% of the costs. As a result, human services spending has grown from one-quarter of the general fund budget to more than one-third of the budget. Even so, Oregon has the highest rate of addiction in the U.S., but ranks at the bottom for treatment facilities.
In addition, the co-chairs are earmarking more than half a billion dollars for salary increases and employee recruiting and retention.
Over the past years, the state’s general fund spending has doubled. But, it seems the more they spend, the worse things get. Think about that when you’re paying this year’s tax bill and turning in your May ballots.
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Full text: Oregon’s economic engine is losing steam. For the second year in a row, Multnomah County lost population. The U.S. Census Bureau reports the county now has 21,000 fewer people than in 2020. In contrast, Clark County, Washington added more than 11,000 in population.
It’s not an accident and it’s not a mystery. Over that time, housing prices in the Portland region have increased by 30%. But, it’s more than just housing prices.
Portland now has the second highest tax burden of any major city in the U.S. Only New York City has higher taxes. If you can save thousands of dollars just by crossing the river to Clark County, you might just cross the river.
For decades, Portland coasted on its reputation of being one of the most livable cities in the country. But those days are over. Crime is rampant, and much of the city looks like a waste heap. Last month, my car was stolen and used in a shooting. A day after that, my neighbor’s car was broken into. Just this week, my other neighbor’s house was burgled and their car was stolen. All that happened on one block in the space of one month.
It’s no mystery why people are leaving Portland. They are voting with their feet.
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Full-text: Last November, voters in Arkansas elected Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders as their new Governor. Oregonians elected Democrat Tina Kotek.
On March 9, Gov. Huckabee Sanders signed the Arkansas LEARNS Act, her top legislative priority. The new law creates Educational Freedom Accounts for all K-12 students, to be phased in by 2026.
Individuals choosing a Freedom Account will get 90% of what public schools get per student in state funding from the previous school year, equal to $6,600 for the current year. They can spend this money on private school tuition, textbooks, tutoring, and other approved educational expenses.
The new law also raises the minimum starting salaries for public school teachers from $36,000 to $50,000.
In Oregon, we have the dysfunctional government school monopoly. Students are assigned to brick buildings based on their ZIP Code. If families don’t like the assigned schools, too bad; they don’t get a refund.
Oregon public schools have lost 30,000 students since 2019. It’s clear that families want other options, but legislators aren’t listening.
It took Gov. Huckabee Sanders exactly 30 days to secure passage of the biggest school reform in Arkansas history. Gov. Kotek isn’t even trying.
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Full-text: Cascade Policy Institute’s bill to make it easier for Oregon high school students to graduate early by passing the GED is getting a hearing this week. We hope you will reach out to the committee to voice your support for the bill.
This Wednesday, March 8, the Oregon House Committee on Education will hold a hearing on HB 3068.
Currently, it is almost impossible for an Oregon high school student to take the GED exam. In most cases, students must drop out of school before they’re allowed to take the GED.
HB 3068 lifts that restriction. If the bill passes, any student aged 16 or older can take the GED test. (Parental consent would be required for students under 18.) Students who pass will be awarded diplomas, meaning they will be considered high school graduates and free from compulsory school attendance.
HB 3068 will boost Oregon’s graduation rate because students who pass the GED receive diplomas and will be considered high school graduates.
HB 3068 will reduce Oregon’s dropout rate because students won’t have to drop out first before taking the exams.
Our bill has bipartisan support across both houses of the Oregon legislature. That’s because this is a common-sense solution that imposes no obligations on students, families, or the state. Even better, HB 3068 does not require any new spending or taxes.
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Full-text: Last week’s snowstorm was more than a snow-pocalypse, it was a dystopian scene of the decline of Portland civil society.
The storm snuck up on all of us. Because it came so quickly and so hard, many drivers had to abandon their vehicles on the side of the road. In response, the City of Portland announced not only would it tow those cars, they’d also ticket the owners for abandoning them. The city made some people’s worst day even worse.
The next day, I went out to walk my dog in 11 inches of snow only to discover my car had been stolen from my driveway in broad daylight.
My wife said, “Why don’t the bad guys go after the abandoned cars?” It turns out they did. Many owners who had to leave their cars came back to find out they’d been vandalized and looted.
In the middle of the storm, the city opened the East Portland Community Center as a warming shelter. My friend who lives across the street from the center told me one night some of the folks who were warming up went over to the school next door, ripped the door off the sports supply shed, and looted it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Taxes are the price of civilization.” But Portlanders seem to be paying ever higher taxes and getting ever less civilization.
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Full-text: This next week is going to be a big week for Oregon’s off-the-rails tolling projects. On Tuesday, the feds released their “Environmental Assessment” for the I-205 tolls. On Friday, a statewide toll advisory committee is meeting. Next Monday, a regional toll advisory committee is meeting.
In the Environment Assessment, the Oregon Department of Transportation reveals some eye-popping numbers:
- Toll payments on just the I-205 project will be $132 million a year; and
- Households will pay an average of $575 a year in tolls.
If you think this sounds like it’s bad for the economy, you’re right. ODOT projects the toll project will cause job losses, reduce labor income, and have close to zero effect on economic output.
ODOT has finally shown its hand: Its I-205 tolling project will make the region noticeably worse off. It’s one thing to collect $132 million a year in tolls to make life better, but it’s an entirely different thing to impoverish families and stifle businesses with nothing to show for it.
Now is the time for your voice to be heard. ODOT is seeking comments on its Environmental Assessment, and the Monday meeting has set aside time for public comment.
Our policymakers need to hear from you. It’ll be too late once the toll booths go up.
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Full-text: What do spy balloons, a state liquor scandal, and Oregon road tolling have in common?
The short answer is “not much”…except they are all examples of our government hiding stuff from us. And, when the government doesn’t want you to know what’s going on, it’s easy to assume the worst.
Those balloons are definitely not space aliens. We need to face the fact that we’ve been spied on for years. We’re only catching them now because we just started looking for them.
On the OLCC liquor scandal, the biggest unanswered question is, “Which elected officials got their hands on the fancy hooch?” Someone knows, but they’re not telling. It’s easy to assume the worst—that the scandal goes right to the top of Oregon government.
On tolling, ODOT gives only the vaguest hints of what the tolls might be. The first tolls are a little more than a year away. At this point, ODOT must have a general idea of what the tolls will be—but they’re not telling us. It’s easy to assume the worst. One estimate says we might be paying $15 each way from Wilsonville to the Washington border.
Ronald Reagan told us to “trust, but verify.” But, if you can’t verify, then you shouldn’t trust. That’s doubly true when your government gives you the silent treatment.
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Full text: At the end of last year, the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission adopted rules banning the sale of internal combustion cars by the year 2035. It’s not a stretch to say these rules will affect every single Oregon household and Oregon business.
Many Oregonians outraged by the ban have asked, “How can they do that?”
How they imposed the ban is even more outrageous than the ban itself.
Nearly 20 years ago, the Commission approved rules that tied Oregon’s low-emission vehicle rules to California’s rules. Put simply, whatever California does, Oregon has to do it also. Under some quirky federal rules, if a state wants to follow California’s lead, it has to enact the exact same rules as California.
Last summer, California banned the sale of internal combustion vehicles and in December, Oregon followed suit.
Here’s where things get really crazy. Neither the EQC nor California’s regulators are elected. In Oregon, they’re all appointed by the governor; and in California, a supermajority is appointed by the governor.
Put simply, Oregon’s rules are determined by an unelected board in another state.
But there’s hope. This year, the legislature will be considering House Bill 3022. If passed, this bill would require that any rules related to motor vehicle fuels or emissions must first be approved by the legislature.
It’s time to bring policymaking back to the legislature, and HB 3022 is a good first step.
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Full-text: Cascade Policy Institute has released a new report evaluating the effect of an Education Savings Account program on local public school district budgets.
“Education Savings Accounts Can Boost Per-Student Spending in Public Schools” examines funding for every Oregon school district. The report finds that if 5% of public-school students used an ESA program to transfer to schools outside the government-run school system, per-student spending for the remaining students would increase by an average of 1.7%.
In fact, evidence indicates it’s rising public school enrollment that puts the greatest strain on public school funding. Research indicates that states with the largest increases in public school enrollment tend to experience the biggest decreases in per-student spending. Moreover, states with smaller enrollment increases—if not declines—tend to be the states that have most significantly increased their K-12 spending per student.
Report author Eric Fruits concludes: “Contrary to critics’ concerns, school choice programs such as ESAs do not ‘defund’ public schools. Instead, school choice programs simultaneously reduce costs to public schools and increase per-student funding.”
Oregon students need more education options now. Children can’t afford to wait years or decades for slow-motion policy changes. Oregon should join the increasing number of states that have enacted ESA programs, so families can match their children’s needs and goals with the education environments that will serve them well.
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Full-text: This is National School Choice Week, an annual celebration of opportunity in K-12 education. Students and families need more education options now. School choice means giving parents access to the best options for their children.
Critics of school choice programs like Education Savings Accounts claim such programs would harm district public schools by reducing their state funding. However, a new report published by Cascade Policy Institute shows ESAs do not reduce public school funding at the state level or for individual school districts.
The report, “Education Savings Accounts: A School Choice Solution That Can Save States Money,” examines the effect an ESA program would have on Oregon’s state budget. It finds that a universal program in which all Oregon students would be eligible—similar to Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts—would require a 3% increase in state spending on K-12 education. And, because many eligible students would not participate in the program, per-student spending for public school students would increase by 2%.
Contrary to critics’ claims, ESA programs don’t “defund” public schools. A carefully constructed program could provide school choice to students, with no noticeable effect on the state budget. Enacting a universal ESA program would be a significant step to help K-12 students get a solid education in the academic settings that are best for them.
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Full-text: January 22-28 is National School Choice Week, a celebration of opportunity in K-12 education. Every January, thousands of independent events draw attention to the ways school choice brings quality education to millions of students.
Families increasingly believe parents should be able to choose among the schools and resources that best meet their children’s academic and developmental needs. Here are three ways Oregon leaders can expand options for students during the legislative session that begins this week:
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Support Oregon’s thriving public charter schools by raising the 3% cap on charter enrollment. Removing the cap would allow successful charters to meet student demand.
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Expand public school district transfer policies. This would create incentives for schools to respond to families’ needs and concerns, and reward public schools that achieve better outcomes.
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Enact an Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program like Arizona’s. State-level education funding is allocated per child and paid directly to district schools, regardless of student outcomes or parent satisfaction. A portion of this funding should be converted to portable accounts for students to use where they learn best.
Thirty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico already have student-centric educational choice programs. Oregon should join them, so families can match their children’s needs and goals with the educational environments that will serve them well.
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Full-text: My, how time flies. Just last month, I warned you that Multnomah County was coming for your gas stove. Now the Biden Administration is looking at a nationwide ban on gas stoves.
They claim it’s a consumer safety measure because gas stoves cause indoor air pollution. This is even though the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood, a comprehensive global study, found “no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis.”
This is all part of the left’s “electrify everything” program. Under their forced-electrification scheme, millions of Americans will have to replace their vehicles, stoves, furnaces, and water heaters with electric versions.
With no alternatives, the local electricity monopolies will be the only power providers. Toothless public utilities commissions will rubber-stamp every price hike, and Americans will be powerless to do anything about it.
Even worse, what happens when the electrical grid inevitably fails? Today, people with gas furnaces know they’ll still stay warm, and people with gas stoves know they’ll still be able to cook. But, when everything is electrified, everything goes down when the power fails.
When I was a kid, they told me nuclear war would bomb us back to the stone age. They never told me the journey back to the stone age would be many tiny steps that begin with banning gas stoves.
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Full-text: “We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark ... and we’re wearing sunglasses.” That line is from the Blues Brothers movie, but it’s an apt description of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s process to impose tolls on I-5 and I-205 all the way from Wilsonville to the Columbia River.
ODOT is gassed up and ready to go with tolling, but they have no idea where they’re going or what they’ll do once they get there.
They don’t know if they want to reduce congestion or maximize revenues. That’s a big question that can have big effects on how much drivers will pay. In particular, it is well known and widely accepted that tolls designed to raise revenues tend to be higher—sometimes much higher—than the tolls needed to reduce congestion.
They don’t know what they’ll do with the money. But, we do know what they won’t do with the money. They won’t be expanding roadway capacity—they’ve made that very clear.
This week, the transportation agency is taking comments on its tolling plan. Cascade Policy Institute will be telling ODOT to halt its tolling plans, step back, and figure out the problem tolls are supposed to solve and whether tolling will actually solve them.
Congestion pricing can be an effective way to reduce traffic jams, while raising money to build new roads. But, a plan that doesn’t reduce congestion and doesn’t build new roads should be a no-go.
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Full Text: ‘Tis the season for holiday wishes. And, toward that end, we at Cascade Policy Institute have some of our own wishes for the New Year.
We hope that someday soon, Oregon high school students who are 15 or 16 years old will be allowed to take the GED exam and graduate early with a diploma. Currently, it’s near impossible for high school students to take the GED. But, Cascade has a bill proposal that will change that and open up new opportunities to graduate early.
We wish that Oregon would join dozens of other states in fostering school choice. It can be as simple as enabling inter-district transfers or lifting the cap on charter school enrollment. It can be as bold as shifting state funding to support students, rather than the system. Just this year, Arizona expanded its school choice scholarship program to include all students. Oregon should follow their lead.
Lastly, a wish for all Oregonians. We hope that your power stays on in the years to come. Our elected leaders and unelected bureaucrats are taking drastic steps to electrify everything, from cars to stoves to furnaces. But, we simply don’t have enough electricity to do it. In this season of reflection, let’s hope that our policymakers take a pause in their march toward forced electrification, so that we can keep our lights on this Christmas and into the future.
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Full Text: If the Oregon Department of Transportation has its way, Portland-area freeways won’t be free for much longer. Tolling is coming to Oregon, and it’s coming in about two years.
ODOT’s current plan is to toll all lanes of I-5 and I-205 from just south of Wilsonville to all the way across the Columbia River. If you’re catching a flight at PDX, shopping at Bridgeport Village, or just trying to get to work, tolling is going to drain your bank account.
At a hearing last week, a legislator noted that by serving in the legislature, she would rack up $2,000 a year in tolls. TriMet complains it doesn’t have enough buses to handle all the people it expects will be forced onto public transit. The Metro Council President worries about Interstate traffic being diverted into residential neighborhoods. ODOT estimates more than a quarter of drivers won’t be able to afford the tolls and will need subsidies. Everyone hates tolling, but our politicians are blinded by the dollar signs from tolling revenues. We’re heading for a political pile-up.
It’s not too late to stop this tolling disaster. Tolls only make sense when the money is used to expand road capacity. ODOT’s current plans fail this basic test. When the legislature meets in February, one of its top priorities must be to pass a bill that stops ODOT’s misguided tolling plans.
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Full Text: First they banned styrofoam, then last week they banned flavored e-cigarettes, and now they’re taking steps to ban wood-burning fireplaces and your gas-fueled kitchen stoves. Multnomah County is going “ban”-anas with its banning bonanza.
When elected officials can’t do the jobs they were elected to do—like maintain roads and bridges or enforce public safety—they turn to feel-good virtue-signaling laws to give the impression they are “doing something.”
These bans are always born out of a moral panic. Styrofoam is destroying the ozone layer; flavored vapes are hooking our kids; fireplaces and gas stoves are killing us with bad air quality. First, they roll out reports filled with half-truths and quackery. Then, elected officials declare the science is settled, and conclude the only answer is to bring out the bans.
These bans aren’t just an inconvenience. They bring out the full force of the state to inspect our homes and businesses. They encourage neighbors to rat each other out.
A few years ago Multnomah County animal control would send inspectors to walk through neighborhoods looking for unlicensed animals in people’s windows.
A neighbor ratted out another’s Airbnb because they were fighting over whether a tree should be trimmed.
When elected officials go bananas over bans, it brings out the worst in local government and the people who elected them. We need a ban on bans.
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Cascade’s Kathryn Hickok talks with Kate Baker Demers about how she became one of New Hampshire’s staunchest advocates for educational choice. Kate, from Children’s Scholarship Fund New Hampshire, shares what she learned scaling up New Hampshire’s groundbreaking parental choice programs and what other states need to know to make school choice laws a success.
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Full Text: This year, Arizona became the first state to expand eligibility for its Education Savings Account program to all K-12 children. Parents who choose to opt out of their zoned public schools now can receive 90 percent of the state-level, per-student base funding in an ESA for their child (about $7,000 per student in 2022). The ESA may be used for tuition, homeschooling, tutoring, online education, education therapy, or other services.
It’s time Oregon parents had similar opportunities to match their students with teachers, schools, and resources who will help them learn best. Education Freedom for Oregon, a school choice advocacy group, is making that its goal. The group has received certified ballot titles from the Oregon Attorney General for two separate education ballot measures. One would create an Education Savings Account program for Oregon families. The other would offer statewide public school open enrollment. If enough voter signatures are received, Oregonians may be able to vote on these measures in 2024.
Families increasingly believe one-size-fits-all schools don’t work for all children, and polls show a majority of Oregon voters support school choice. Educational choice programs, like those already operating in other states, would increase students’ opportunities, improve outcomes, and help make schools accountable to the parents and students they serve.
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Full Text: This Thanksgiving let’s give thanks to the Pilgrims who discovered the life-saving power of private property.
We know the Pilgrims fled England to find religious freedom. And they found it—in Holland. But they found it hard to make ends meet in Holland and fled for America in search of economic freedom.
When they arrived, the Plymouth settlers arranged themselves the only way they knew how: lands were held in common and crops were shared out by need.
It was a disaster. Governor William Bradford complained the most able-bodied workers objected to being forced to spend their time and energy to feed other men’s families. No one had any incentive to improve a plot of land because the next year someone else might be working it. More than half of the Mayflower settlers died of malnutrition in their first year at Plymouth.
Bradford had a solution. He assigned each household its own plot of land. Families could keep what they produced on their land or trade for things they needed. The following year, Bradford reported, “[T]his had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.”
Our Thanksgiving story is one of experiments. First a failed experiment in socialism, then a successful experiment in private property. We should be thankful that success continues today.
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Full text: It’s the day after Election Day and the votes are still being tallied. One thing we know for sure: Oregon will have a new governor. Our new governor can make substantial changes on Day One by shaking up the agencies that have overseen our state’s decades-long decline.
We need a new PERS board who understands Oregon’s public employee retirement system is an anchor that is dragging down both the state and local governments. We can’t afford a business-as-usual PERS Board. We need a board that is willing to overhaul the system from within.
Believe it or not, the governor appoints the TriMet board. Public transit ridership is plummeting, and costs are skyrocketing. Nevertheless, the current board continues a light-rail-at-any-cost agenda. We need a new board to face the new reality that public transit is never coming back to where it was pre-pandemic.
We need a new director of the Oregon Health Authority. We need a director who will quickly approve new health care facilities—especially those for mental health, substance abuse, and skilled nursing. We need a new director who will replace the Measure 110 committee with new members who will focus on drug treatment, rather than so-called harm reduction.
We also need a new Superintendent of Public Instruction who will abandon identity politics and focus on improving academic achievement and graduation rates for all students.
Oregon’s governor has enormous power and—as the saying goes—with great power comes great responsibility.
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Full text: “What’s the one thing you’d do to fix Oregon?” That’s a tough question, because there’s no single fix for all of Oregon’s problems.
Every single issue the government touches in Oregon is in need of free-market reform.
Despite spending more than the national average, our schools have some of the worst achievement and graduation rates in the country.
Oregon has some of the worst housing affordability in the country because we make it so hard to build new housing.
We have a homelessness crisis because we have some of the highest rates of untreated mental illness and substance abuse.
We have a shortage of hospital beds because state law makes it virtually impossible to build new hospitals or add to existing ones.
We have some of the worst roads in the country because state and local leaders have waged a decades-long war on cars.
We’re facing a 30% chance of widespread power outages because state policy is focused on reducing the state’s carbon footprint at the expense of grid reliability.
Each of these crises affects the day-to-day lives of most Oregonians, and none of them can be solved with one quick fix. We need long-haul, top-to-bottom free-market reforms to bounce back to being the Most Livable Place in the Country. As you’re filling out your ballot this week, cast your vote for the candidates who are willing and able to carry this off.
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Full text: This week, Portland City Council is considering five resolutions dealing with homelessness and housing affordability. Mayor Ted Wheeler says these resolutions are a “moon shot” to solve the crisis. Like the original moon shot, the programs span a decade or more and will cost billions of dollars.
More accurately, this is the city’s Apollo 13 moment. “Portland, we have a problem.” It’s an urgent problem that needs a rapid response.
We can’t afford to wait a decade. We can’t rely on Multnomah County, Metro, the state, or the feds to ride to our rescue.
The Apollo 13 astronauts had to get out of their crisis quickly with the tools they had in their capsule. We’ve got to solve our crisis now with the tools we have.
We need to build shelter and sanctioned campsites now—before the worst winter weather sets in. If a natural disaster struck, we’d have FEMA trailers set up within weeks. We need to treat homelessness like the disaster it is.
Portland needs to pull out of the Joint Office of Homelessness and redeploy that $45 million toward building and staffing low-cost shelters and sanctioned campsites.
Once we have sufficient shelter and campsites, we can enforce a camping ban without running afoul of recent court decisions.
We’ll never reach the moon, but we can avoid crashing. No one else is coming to help us.
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Full Text: This week, ballots for the November election will be mailed to Oregon voters. It’s become clear that no one is happy with the status quo in Oregon, and Portland in particular. Voters are clamoring for change. But, what kind of change?
For people who want to see a change, you can put them into two categories: Yearners and Burners.
Yearners hope for change that will restore Oregon’s status as one of the Most Livable Places in the Country. They hope the candidates and measures they vote for will bring down crime, end homelessness, bring back businesses, improve our schools, and reduce taxes and burdensome regulations.
On the other hand, Burners have lost hope. They’ve witnessed decades of voters electing—over and over again—the politicians who have sent the state into a spiral of crime, drug addiction, homelessness, failing schools, and a downright hostility to business owners trying to make an honest buck. They’ve taken a “let it burn” attitude, believing that the only way for the state to bounce back is when it’s hit rock bottom. They echo the words of the famous curmudgeon, H. L. Mencken: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
If you have to choose, be a Yearner, not a Burner. Oregon’s best days may be ahead of us.
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Full Text: In just a few weeks, Oregon voters will be getting their ballots in the mail. In addition to voting for a new governor, legislators, and members of Congress, Oregonians will face several ballot measures. There are always a bunch of bad ones, and Measure 113 is one of the worst.
Measure 113 amends the state constitution to punish legislators for 10 or more unexcused absences from floor sessions. Any legislator with 10 or more unexcused absences would be banned from holding office in the next term.
Measure 113 is designed to put an end to the legislative walkouts that have succeeded in stopping odious bills from passing. The majority party gets mad when the minority party stands in the way of ramming through their agenda and Measure 113 is seen as a way to clear the path.
This measure should offend anyone who cares about the exercise of freedom of expression and election integrity. A walkout is one of the clearest forms of expression, and should be protected under the state’s constitution. Perhaps more importantly, many constituents want their legislators to walk out if doing so serves those constituents. The legislators who walked out were serving their constituents effectively and were rewarded by being re-elected. Measure 113 doesn’t just punish legislators, it punishes the voters of their districts.
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Full Text: The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is accepting public comments on proposed regulations that would ban the sale of new gasoline or diesel-powered cars and light trucks after 2034. The only new cars available would be electric vehicles (EVs).
These regulations were first adopted by the state of California on August 25. Now Kate Brown wants Oregonians to live under them as well.
There are many flaws in the proposed rules. First, the average cost of an EV last year was $66,000. Most people won’t be able to afford one.
Second, EVs need regular charging. The Oregon charging network barely exists, especially for apartment dwellers. This will make EVs inconvenient for most drivers.
Third, the primary reason for the regulation is to reduce “greenhouse gases” in Oregon, but the commercial electricity grid is powered mostly by fossil fuels and will be for decades. Shifting from internal combustion engines to electric motors will simply move vehicle-related emissions from cities to the countryside.
The rules will also prove to be unenforceable. While the government can require manufacturers to offer EVs for sale, it cannot force consumers to buy them. Traditional cars will continue to be available, either as used vehicles sold in Oregon, or new vehicles purchased by Oregonians from another state.
This proposal, which DEQ plans to adopt in December, is now being circulated for public comment. Voters should express their concerns to DEQ by email at the following address: Levzev2022@deq.oregon.gov. Comments will be accepted until 4:00 p.m. on Friday, October 21.
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Full Text: The Heritage Foundation recently released its first Education Freedom Report Card. The report analyzes and ranks each state’s “education freedom” according to factors related to school choice, transparency, regulatory freedom, and spending. The report seeks to assess what states do well, identify where they can improve, and help policymakers achieve real reforms.
Florida takes first place as the state that most “embraces education freedom, respects parents’ rights, and provides a decent [return on investment] for taxpayers.” In second place is Arizona, which just expanded its now-universal Education Scholarship Accounts program.
Where does Oregon rank? 40th overall, 37th in return on investment, and 49th in regulatory freedom.
According to the report, Oregon “spends $15,404 [per student] in cost-of-living-adjusted terms annually,” while coming in 32nd in its fourth-grade and eighth-grade average National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores. The state employs “0.76 teachers for every non-teacher in its public schools,” and its “unfunded teacher pension liability represents 8.7 percent of its state GDP.”
Oregon would improve its education freedom ranking by expanding education choice for all families, increasing academic transparency, “stopping the growth in non-teaching staff,” “addressing its considerable unfunded teacher pension liabilities,” and improving academic outcomes in the early grades. These goals should be at the top of any Oregon education reform agenda.
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Full Text: This summer, Arizona expanded the nation’s first Education Savings Account (ESA) program. Every child in Arizona is now eligible to choose an Empowerment Scholarship Account. Parents who want to opt out of their zoned public schools can choose to receive 90 percent of the state’s per-student base funding (about $7,000 in 2022). They may use their Empowerment Scholarship Accounts for tuition, homeschooling, tutoring, online education, education therapy, or other services.
State-level education funding in Oregon is allocated per child and paid directly to district schools, regardless of poor outcomes or parent dissatisfaction. It’s time Oregon provided parents with a “money-back guarantee” for education. Converting a portion of state-level funding to portable education accounts for students would empower parents to find the best fit for their children to succeed.
Families increasingly believe one-size-fits-all public schools don’t work for all children, and recent polls show an overwhelming majority of voters support school choice. A program like Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts would increase Oregon students’ opportunities, improve outcomes, reduce burdens on struggling districts, and make schools accountable to the parents and students they are meant to serve.
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Full Text: The ballot for November’s election is filling up, and a lot of local governments are trying to reach into your pocket for more of your tax dollars. Some of them are real doozies, like Portland Community College’s construction bond measure.
In 2017, PCC voters approved $185 million in new property taxes for construction projects. In that Voters’ Pamphlet, PCC boasted it had 78,000 students.
Five years later, PCC now wants another $485 million of your money. In this year’s Voters’ Pamphlet, PCC reports it has only 50,000 students. In just five years, PCC has lost 28,000 students. It shouldn’t be expanding; it should be shutting down campuses.
PCC says some of the money will be used for “flexible hybrid learning options.” That means more online instruction and less in-class instruction. OPB reports 50% of PCC classes this fall will be a hybrid format.
PCC doesn’t need fancy building remodels if enrollment is down and many of its classes are taught online.
PCC spent more than $6 million from the 2017 taxes to remodel a welding shop at its Rock Creek Campus. The welding shop remodel was completed just last year.
Now, according to The Portland Tribune, PCC wants to use your tax money to tear down and rebuild the entire building. Apparently, that $6 million remodel was a waste of money.
More money for modern buildings won’t save PCC from declining enrollment. It’s got bigger problems, and money management is one of them.
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Full Text: Oregon soon will have new statewide leadership. Oregon’s education policies need to catch up with students’ learning needs, and fresh leadership provides opportunities to respond to parents’ demand for more choices in K-12 education.
Here are three ways Oregon leaders can improve education in 2023:
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Support Oregon’s thriving public charter schools by raising the legislative cap on charter enrollment. Removing the enrollment cap would allow successful charters to meet student demand.
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Expand district transfer policies so parents can choose among public options. This would create incentives for schools to respond to families’ needs and concerns, and reward public schools that achieve better outcomes.
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Convert a portion of state-level funding to portable accounts for students to use where they learn best. Education funding is allocated per child and paid directly to district schools, regardless of student outcomes or parent satisfaction. Allowing some of this money to follow the child would empower parents to find the right fit for their students to succeed.
Shifting from top-down mandates to expanding options for families would work miracles for students and promote improvement in Oregon schools. Thirty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have enacted student-centric educational choice programs. Oregon should join them, so families can match their children’s needs and goals with the educational environments that will serve them well.
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Full Text: By now you’ve heard of President Biden’s student loan orders. You’ve probably also heard some say they provide life-changing relief, and you’ve heard others say they’re a fiscally reckless assault on personal responsibility.
But, there’s another issue that’s not getting much attention: The orders are bringing massive chaos to the millions of families who have kids in college right now. I should know. My daughter starts next month.
The question that I and other families are facing is: How much should we borrow? Tuition, room, and board at an Oregon public university is about $30,000 a year. Before Biden’s order, the choice was easy: take out a small amount of loans and pay the rest out-of-pocket.
Now, Biden has offered huge incentives to max out on student loans. In addition to canceling up to $20,000 in debt, there are new rules regarding income-based repayment plans. People on these plans won’t have to pay interest on their loans, plus they’ll get the opportunity to have much of their debt wiped out after 10 years of payments.
Here’s where the chaos comes in: Will any of this still be true when my daughter graduates?
Biden’s plan is an executive order. It wasn’t passed by Congress, and there’s a big chance much of it is illegal. Will a court toss it out? Also, because it’s an executive order, the next president can rejigger or reverse it. Will that happen? No one knows.
Bad policies are bad, but they’re made worse when they come with so many question marks. President Biden’s student loan orders are going to bring years of chaos to college students, their families, and the courts.
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Full text: If you feel like Oregon politicians are spending more, but you’re getting less, you are not alone and you are not crazy. State spending has spun out of control, and we have little to show for it.
According to the state budget office, spending from the state’s general and lottery funds has doubled since the Great Recession. That’s a huge increase, especially since Oregon’s population has only grown by 11% since then.
The biggest growth has been in the human services budget, driven by Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. On top of that, Governor Kate Brown has successfully pushed to expand the Oregon Health Plan to include people who are “not legally present” in the United States. The feds won’t pay for that expansion, so Oregonians are on the hook for these extra costs.
The area that’s seen the lowest growth: public safety. The most recent budget cut nearly half a billion dollars from public safety. It should come as no surprise that we’ve seen a huge spike in crime over the past few years.
Sure, budgets are boring, but a budget is the best indication of politicians’ policy preferences. It’s clear that our politicians prefer spending more money expanding expensive entitlement programs to a few at the expense of providing public safety for all of us. Keep that in mind when your ballots land in your mailbox this fall.
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Full Text: In less than two weeks, Oregon students will be heading back to school. Most parents have hopes for an engaging, educational school year. But unfortunately, some kids get in trouble. Under the Biden Administration, schools could have their discipline policies controlled by the federal government.
Catherine Lhamon is the head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which is the second time she has held this position. Last time she was there, her department observed that certain racial groups seemed more likely to be suspended than others. In response, she opened investigations into hundreds of school districts. The schools were told to get their racial disparity numbers down.
This policy had disastrous effects. For example, as part of its agreement with the federal government, the Minneapolis Public School District set goals for how many students of each race could be suspended.
Portland Public Schools also used race-based goals, setting a goal of reducing the amount of minorities being suspended compared to white students by one-third.
Regardless of racial disparities, quotas are not a good way to run a classroom. Teachers and principals are in the best position to judge how students should be disciplined. A top-down approach from the federal government is inappropriate.
We should let local school districts determine discipline, not the feds.
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Full Text: It seems everywhere you look, “clean energy” is in the news. Portland just handed out nearly $120 million to local nonprofits who promise to provide clean energy technologies. Congress is expected to pass the slimmed down version of President Biden’s Build Back Better program, with more than $300 billion going to clean energy.
Much of this spending will be wasted if Oregon’s experience with an almost-unheard-of program is any guide. The program is called “1.5% for Green Energy Technology,” or GET.
Under the program, any government construction or renovation project costing $5 million or more must spend 1.5% of its budget on green energy technologies, such as solar panels.
Cascade Policy Institute reviewed all of the available annual reports from the GET program and found that almost none of the projects pencil out financially.
Portland was forced to spend $90,000 to install solar panels on a fire station, even though the city said the station is “not the best solar site.” The new Multnomah County Courthouse was required to spend $6.6 million on investments that will have a payback period of nearly five centuries.
When the legislature meets next year, one of the first orders of business should be to shut down the GET program. We can never get to a clean energy future if none of the projects make any financial sense.
The full report can be found on Cascade’s website: Solar Panels in a Dark Room.
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Full Text: Connecticut’s bus service just pulled its entire fleet of electric buses after one bus burst into uncontrollable flames. While the small risk of an electric bus fire is scary, Portland’s TriMet could face huge financial fires if it continues growing its electric fleet.
The upfront costs to go electric are high, and TriMet has no plans to cover these costs. Until this year, TriMet received one-time federal grants and funds to purchase electric buses. Now, the agency doesn’t know how it will sustain future spending. TriMet can purchase each bus for about $1 million, or almost double the price of a diesel bus.
TriMet operated its first five electric buses on Line 62 and stated that the buses “required a lot of maintenance and experienced a lot of down-time.” TriMet admits there are unanswered questions about how far buses can last without a charge, where on-route chargers will be, and when costly batteries will need replacing.
TriMet’s job is to move passengers, not to invest in brand-new technology with money it doesn’t have. Without proper funding, planning, or a guarantee that the investment will pay off, the right thing for TriMet to do is to pull the plug on its electric bus plans.
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Full Text: Things are not going well in the Portland region. The region’s residents, voters, taxpayers, and businesses complain about rising crime, spreading homelessness, increasing traffic congestion, and a general decline in livability. Local officials try to tell us things aren’t that bad and that they’re on top of things.
But they are that bad. Just look at all the emergencies they have declared over the past few years. Portland has declared a housing emergency, several homelessness emergencies, and—just last week—a gun violence emergency. Multnomah County has declared racism to be a public health crisis.
These are all areas that are under the control of local governments. But their emergency declarations demonstrate their inability to keep these crises under control.
Willamette Week reported that just a few years ago, city-declared emergencies were related only to natural disasters. Today, policy failures count as emergencies. Portland and Multnomah County vowed to “end” homelessness 17 years ago, and now it’s worse than ever. Gang violence has been a problem for more than a decade, which is why Portland established the now-disbanded Gang Violence Reduction Team in the first place.
Simply declaring a series of emergencies will do nothing to stop the policy-made crises facing the region. Our local officials need to confront their past failures and change course to enforce public safety and restore the city’s livability. Don’t let these emergencies go to waste.
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Full Text: Have you heard of the Portland Clean Energy Fund? Portlanders voted to pass the program four years ago. It gives funding to nonprofits for all things green—including green energy projects, energy-efficient infrastructure, and jobs in the green energy industry. Program expenses this year amount to about $118 million in tax revenue, or about $425 for every Portland household.
During a hearing last week, a program committee member called the price tag a “drop in the bucket.” But it was clear City Council knew it was a lot of money. This late in the game, they worried when the committee didn’t have adequate accountability measures. The committee co-chair admitted he didn’t know which projects the committee recommended. Commissioner Hardesty asked how they would ensure each grant recipient would use best practices with the money. Mayor Wheeler was adamant that Portlanders deserved more assurance of rigorous vetting and contract oversight.
If the Clean Energy Fund fumbles or the money is squandered, voters and taxpayers will look to their elected City Council for answers. Council can avoid this risk by rejecting this round of proposals until key questions are answered. The best way to ensure accountability is to hold back the money until the accountability arrives.
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Full Text: Two of my kids are young adults working retail. They are eyewitnesses to the decline of what was once The Most Livable City in the Nation.
Over the weekend, my daughter was working her shift, when a man walked into the store and started haranguing her. He accused her of following him through the store. “I was just hanging up clothes,” she told me. When she left on break, he was hanging outside the store and berated her again. He spent most of that afternoon aggressively harassing people up and down Hawthorne Boulevard.
A few days earlier, my son stopped at a fast-food drive-through on his way home. Ahead of him was a pedestrian at the drive-through window. That guy pulled a gun on the cashier. The quick-thinking cashier shut the window, walked away, and called the police who arrived 30 minutes later.
It’s not just my kids. Starbucks recently announced it’s closing two Portland stores out of concerns for employee safety.
I know people like to say, “Keep Portland Weird.” But, weird isn’t working. City leaders think they’re serving some social justice cause by allowing troubled people to harass or threaten teens who are just trying to do their jobs. There’s no justice in wondering if working your retail or fast-food shift might end in getting assaulted or shot.
Portland can be a livable city, but public safety is a key ingredient. We’re missing that ingredient, and it seems City Hall has little interest in bringing it back.
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Full Text: Too much, all at once.
Portland’s city charter is long overdue for some rewrites. Few people deny that. Last month, the city’s Charter Review Commission announced its proposal to overhaul the city’s charter, with the reforms going to the voters on the November ballot.
A central part of the reforms is shifting Portland to a “City Manager” form of government. But, the proposed changes do much more than just that. Stuffed into the ballot measure is also a reformation of the City Council into a 12-member body, which would be divided among four new geographic districts. Also new to the charter is the imposition of a ranked-choice voting system to elect commissioners and the mayor.
To be clear, Portland’s government badly needs reforms. The commission system does not seem to be adequately addressing Portlanders’ concerns. Unfortunately, the Charter Review Commission has chosen to jam other tangentially related reforms onto the ballot, forcing Portlanders to either vote for all of the changes, or for none of them. This has raised concerns even from those who support charter reform efforts, such as City Commissioner Mingus Mapps.
Instead, the Commission should have separated these reforms into separate ballot measures. Putting them all together forces Portland’s voters to make an all-or-nothing choice, which may very well result in no meaningful changes being made at all.
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Full Text: Last week, an Oregonian story reported that for years, the city’s parks bureau claimed it did not have the money for capital improvements, maintenance, or security in one of its rundown parks. The article noted that the streetlights in the area stopped working and were never fixed, leading to crime in and around a food cart pod in the park.
A few days later, a local TV station reported that a light pole fell down in a Portland park, injuring a boy and his caretaker, sending both of them to the hospital.
These stories highlight a major failure of local government: Portland city hall cannot deliver even the most basic of basic services. If city leaders can’t be bothered to keep the lights on—and keep the light poles upright—how can we expect them to carry out all the big, bold projects they roll out in their breathless press releases?
For years, the city has had a 10-cents-a-gallon gas tax to pay for road safety, including street lights. Two years ago, Portland voters approved a property tax increase for the parks department that brings in $48 million a year. But, somehow the city doesn’t seem to have enough of this money to keep up with the basics.
I get it. Street lights are boring. No one shows up to a light pole ribbon cutting. But when they fail, safety suffers and people get hurt. Good government is about services delivered, and city hall is failing its citizens.
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Full Text: Portland City Council is trying its best to bring electric vehicles to the masses. But by mistake, they’re really saying, “Let them eat cake.”
Last year, Oregon passed HB 2180, which requires a fifth of new multi-family residential parking spots to be “Electric Vehicle Ready,” meaning they have the electrical capacity to host EV chargers. Not to be outdone, Portland proposed the “EV Ready Code,” increasing the EV Ready requirement to 50% of spaces.
The kicker is the code doesn’t even require developers to build chargers; they’re only required to build electrical capacity for the chargers. This means tenants will pay more rent for wires in the ground. If a tenant wants a charger installed, they still have to pay big prices through higher rents or add-ons. Total charger installation costs between $7,000 and $10,000 per parking space.
Fewer than 3% of vehicle registrations in Multnomah County are for electric vehicles, so EV expansion has a long way to go. Right now, EVs are too great an extravagance for low-income residents.
The EV Ready Code isn’t exactly a cakewalk to EV expansion. City Council should reject the EV Ready Code and stick to policies that allow residents to afford their homes and their cars.
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Full Text: Starting July 1, Portland property owners will have new choices about how residential land can be used.
The Portland City Council unanimously approved a wide array of changes to the city’s restrictive zoning policies, ending zoning laws that limited what types of homes could be constructed.
Specifically, the decision removes a regulation known as single-family zoning, a requirement that says by law, the only type of construction that can occur is single-family housing. The regulation change doesn’t mean new single-family homes can’t be built, but it does mean that property owners and developers may build other types of homes on the property. Property owners may now choose to build denser housing to meet rising demand, which could relieve Portland’s housing shortage and cost of living crisis without resorting to regressive policies like rent control.
Loosening zoning restrictions is one small step toward increasing the supply of housing, but it cannot stop there. The City of Portland should begin planning a moderate expansion of the urban growth boundary alongside allowing denser urban design choices, which would enable Portland developers to meet the high housing demands of today.
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Full Text: It’s budget season for local governments in Oregon. Budgets may sound boring. In reality, they are the best demonstration of what politicians truly prioritize. Forget the campaign promises and the press releases. The budget is where the action is.
This year, there is a line item tucked into the City of Portland budget for Prosper Portland to provide money to small businesses that were damaged by vandalism or theft.
Your gut instinct may be to say, “That’s great! Finally, Portland is doing something to help.”
But think about it. This boring budget line item highlights local government dysfunction.
Businesses pay taxes to support the police and the district attorney, who seem to do little to prevent and punish crime. Criminals know this and target those same businesses for vandalism and theft, causing tens of millions of dollars in damage. Then, the city uses even more taxpayer dollars to pay for the damage that could have been avoided if the city actually did something to prevent the crime in the first place.
Once the bad guys get wind that the city will cover the losses, they may be encouraged to do even more damage and looting.
Our elected leaders need to get back to the basics by cracking down on crime and enforcing property rights. Arrest the bad guys, prosecute them, and send them to jail. These are not victimless crimes. With this new budget item, all of us become victims.
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Full Text: This year, Portland Public Schools is in a financial sweet spot. Federal and state COVID relief funds will add nearly $100 million to the district’s coffers. But, next year much of that one-time money will be gone.
Since the pandemic began, parents have increasingly favored alternatives to their district schools, including public charter schools, private schools, homeschooling, and learning pods. PPS projects enrollment will be down 14% from pre-pandemic levels. Since the state’s school funding formula relies heavily on student enrollment, the combination of low enrollment and nearly dried-up relief dollars means PPS is in for future budget trouble.
With enrollment down, the school board initially considered staffing cuts. But, under pressure from employees and their unions, the board switched gears, promising no cuts to licensed employees in the upcoming school year. There’s no sign that enrollment drops are slowing, though, so there’s no telling how many years they can put off cuts.
PPS can’t count on ever-increasing state funding to fix things. Opinion polls show that parents are moving away from public schools for their children. PPS should plan for the possibility that current enrollment declines may never reverse. They need to adjust to the reality of the future.
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Full Text: Over-promised and under-delivered.
Throughout its 18-year life, TriMet’s Yellow Line MAX has never met its promised ridership projections.
In fact, just before the pandemic hit, Yellow Line ridership was more than 25% lower than where it was projected to be for 2020. Following the COVID-19 drop-off in ridership, TriMet now doesn’t expect transit ridership to hit pre-pandemic levels until sometime after 2045.
Because of low ridership, TriMet is failing to abide by its commitments to service frequency. TriMet promised the Federal Transit Administration that Yellow Line trains would arrive every ten minutes during peak hours and every 15 minutes off-peak. Instead, Yellow Line trains run every 15 minutes during peak periods and every 30 minutes during other parts of the day.
Despite this consistent underperformance, TriMet has continued to push for expansion of the Yellow Line, with plans to extend the line into Washington State across the proposed new I-5 bridge.
Is slow, low-ridership light rail really the best usage of lane space on the proposed I-5 bridge? Or, should the new bridge instead expand lane capacity for trucks and cars usage to reduce congestion on the region’s freeways?
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Full Text: By the time you’re reading this, your May primary ballot should have been counted. I say “should” because some ballots are still in the mail on the way to county elections offices.
That’s because this is the first year in which mailed-in ballots can be postmarked as late as 11:59 PM on Election Day. Under this new law, any ballot received within seven days will be counted.
As these ballots trickle in, we may see some wild swings in some important races. The person who you thought won on Election Night may end up losing as the last of the ballots get tallied over the next week.
If enough of these races flip, shenanigans will be suspected, and many will begin to question the “integrity” of Oregon’s vote-by-mail system.
For decades, Oregonians have had faith in our voting system. One reason for that faith was knowing that by 8 PM on Election Night, all the ballots would be in and will be counted. Voters could go to bed with a good idea of who won and which measures passed.
Now, that faith is likely to be shaken.
Oregon’s vote-by-mail system used to be a model for the country. It still can be, if we’re clear that a deadline is a deadline and ballots must be in by 8 PM on Election Night.
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Full Text: According to a revised report from economic consulting firm ECONorthwest, Portland lost 14% of its single family rental houses between 2017 and 2020. That’s a decline of more than 1,300 rental homes per year.
This steep drop shouldn’t come as a surprise given the policies enacted by the Portland City Council in recent years, which have made it increasingly difficult for landlords to operate their rentals.
In early 2017, Portland passed an ordinance requiring landlords to pay up to $4,500 in a tenant’s relocation costs if the landlord decides not to renew a lease or raises rent more than 10%. Two years later, the City Council limited a landlord’s ability to deny rental applicants based on their criminal record, income level, and credit history.
Some are likely to blame the drop in single family rental homes on a hot housing market. However, the City of Portland lost rental homes at twice the rate of the rest of the region, indicating that these policies have played a role in driving the shortage.
While these regulations were meant to help tenants, they have largely hurt them by making it even harder to find a place to live amid a limited supply of rental housing. The City Council should act on this new data and repeal these harmful policies before more damage is done.
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QP: Next week is National Charter Schools Week. Oregon passed charter school legislation in 1999, and today, families can choose from more than 130 charter schools for their students.
During the pandemic, enrollment in online charter schools skyrocketed and interest remains strong. So much, in fact, that many charters now have a waiting list. But, why are there waiting lists?
Simple. The legislature set an arbitrary cap on the number of students that can be enrolled in charter schools. That cap stands in the way of many students enrolling in charters.
The entrenched public education establishment does not like charter schools. Teachers’ unions in particular hate charters because many of the schools do not have collective bargaining agreements with the unions.
What they forget—or choose to ignore—is the fact that charter schools are public schools. They just operate differently. Those differences are what make charters so attractive. COVID-19 gave families a chance to explore alternatives to traditional brick-and-mortar public schools. Many families found the experiment was successful.
It’s time to lift the state caps on charter school enrollment. Lifting the cap imposes no obligations on families or schools. It merely opens up options.
No one walks into Baskin-Robbins 31 Flavors and says, “I wish they had only one flavor.” If we welcome choice in something as trivial as ice cream, we should demand choice in something as important as education.
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Full Text: For more than a year, Cascade Policy Institute has urged Metro to convert all or part of its Expo Center into a shelter for the region’s homeless. For much of that year, the City of Portland and Metro have had on-again, off-again conversations about using the site.
Let’s face it. The Expo Center is a money pit. It needs subsidies from Metro, Portland, and Multnomah County just to cover its operating costs.
Metro likes to brag that the Expo Center generates $50 million of economic activity in the region. That’s the equivalent of a single Fred Meyer store. If the Expo Center shut down tomorrow, no one would notice.
Nevertheless, the commission overseeing the Expo Center seems to want no part in helping to address the region’s homelessness crisis. Their rationale seems to fall into two categories: nostalgia and NIMBYism.
Last week, the chair of the commission objected because she said she went to the Expo Center as a child and has fond memories of going to the county fair there. The fair left the Expo Center more than a quarter-century ago. I don’t think it’s coming back.
On the NIMBY front, the chair complained that she didn’t want stolen vehicles parked at the Expo Center—as if it’s somehow better that stolen vehicles are lined up along Marine Drive. Commissioners were concerned that the sight of homeless people and vehicles would turn off the polite society that attends Expo Center events.
If our homeless situation seems hopeless, you can point one finger at the unelected commission that’s standing in the way of one straightforward solution.
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Full Text: The last two years have made it clear: Oregon parents deserve real choices in their children’s education.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, government and teachers’ union policies have disappointed and angered parents whose students’ academic needs haven’t been met by their assigned public schools. In addition, the online public instruction options available while schools were closed allowed parents to witness actual classroom teaching. These experiences have led parents to demand a meaningful say in where and how their kids are educated, and the ability to choose among a variety of education options.
As parents “vote with their feet” for schools they believe are the best fit for their children, public opinion increasingly favors their ability to do that. A February poll by RealClear Opinion Research reports overwhelming public support for school choice. Participants were asked if parents should have “the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.” Black respondents supported school choice at 70%, Hispanics at 77%, and all respondents at 72%.
As Oregonians move forward from their pandemic education experiences, legislators and policymakers should value all learning options that empower students to succeed. Education funding should “follow the child” so parents can choose schools that best meet their students’ needs. It’s time to fund students, not systems, and serve all children better through school choice.
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Full Text: For years, Portland residents have dealt with homeless individuals parking cars and RVs along neighborhood sidewalks, bringing garbage, drug usage, and even blazing fires along with them. This illegal parking has drastically reduced the safety and cleanliness of the city.
In late 2020, the City of Portland and Metro began to consider a simple solution: Allow those who live out of their vehicles to park legally at Portland’s underused Expo Center.
The plan seemed logical. The Expo Center is removed from residential and commercial areas, boasts an expansive parking lot, and offers easy access to public transit. Once in a centralized location, homeless campers could also more easily connect with resources to help them get back on their feet.
After almost a year of discussions, the two sides abandoned the project over a dispute about which part of the parking lot to use. Now, with primary elections just around the corner, public officials seem to have found a much-needed sense of urgency.
On April 18, Metro and the City of Portland will hold an emergency meeting to move forward with the homeless parking site. For Portland’s livability to be restored, the two jurisdictions need to do whatever it takes to fast-track the project’s development. And, once completed, they need to begin making campers move there.
While this should have been done well over a year ago, it’s better late than never.
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Full Text: The Oregon Transportation Commission recently decided how to allocate $412 million in discretionary federal funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The commission’s plan, though, was quickly criticized by a coalition of environmental and transportation groups.
The coalition complained that the spending plan prioritizes “highways over community safety,” even though about half of the funds will be spent on various “climate-friendly” transportation projects, investments in safer biking and walking routes, and improved ADA accessibility.
Prior to the commission’s decision, the coalition of activists had crafted its own vision for how to allocate the money. Had the group had its way, all $125 million earmarked for repairing and improving roads would have been put toward local transportation funding, with the intent that the money would be focused on active and public transportation.
To anti-car activists, a dollar spent on roads is a dollar wasted. But, whether they like it or not, Oregon needs an efficient, well-maintained road network. 80% of the state’s workforce commutes by car, and virtually all freight in Oregon relies on road transportation at some point in its journey.
When making future funding decisions, transportation authorities and elected officials should prioritize infrastructure investments that will benefit the vast majority of Oregonians who drive, rather than seeking to please activists who happen to be the loudest voices in the room.
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Full Text: The Census just released the latest population estimates and, for the first time in nearly two decades, Multnomah County’s population has dropped. From 2020 to 2021, the county’s population decreased by more than 12,000 people, or 1.5%.
Neighboring Washington and Clackamas counties reported almost no change, while Clark County in Washington saw a 1.3% increase in population.
With months of riots shuttering downtown Portland, crime rising, and homeless camps in nearly every neighborhood, it should come as no surprise that people are leaving the county.
But there’s another factor: Taxes. In 2021, three new taxes went into effect in Multnomah County. First, there’s the county’s 1% income tax for free preschool. Then, there’s Metro’s 1% personal income tax and a 1% business income tax for subsidized housing.
We’ve been here before. The last time Multnomah County saw a drop in population was when the county imposed a 1% income tax from 2003 to 2005.
Proponents of the taxes will say they only hit so-called “high income” earners. And, that’s the rub.
High-income earners have a big incentive to take action to reduce their tax bills. If they have a second home at the coast or in the mountains, it doesn’t take much to change their address to escape Multnomah County’s three new income taxes.
People respond to incentives. If the incentives say, “We don’t want you here,” then people will get the message and leave—even if it’s only on their tax forms.
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Full Text: This time they’re coming for your home. Earlier this month, Oregon’s Secretary of State released an audit of Oregon’s mortgage interest tax deduction. According to the audit, the tax deduction is “regressive and inequitable.”
This audit is unusual in that it calls into question policy decisions made by the legislature. In particular, it claims that the deduction has no “clear purpose.” Incredibly, the audit recommends that the legislature come up with a clear purpose and direct a state agency to make sure the tax deduction is meeting that clear purpose.
It is well known that one clear purpose for the mortgage interest deduction is to foster homeownership. For many first-time homeowners, the tax deduction is the primary reason they can even afford to become homeowners.
More importantly, these homeowners enter into 30-year loans based on the expectation that the interest on those loans would be tax deductible. Yanking that deduction away could increase many homeowners’ tax bills by thousands of dollars.
Even more outrageous is the Secretary of State giving what amounts to marching orders to the legislature. Every session the legislature passes scads of laws that have no “clear purpose.” Yet, this audit seeks to upend one measure of the tax code that benefits a majority of Oregon voters.
I hope the Secretary of State’s audit falls on deaf ears, but I fear it may be the opening shot in the state’s assault on homeowners.
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Full Text: According to a new survey from the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center, 71% of Oregonians are either somewhat or very concerned about hospitals having enough beds to take care of all patients requiring care.
These fears aren’t unfounded—even as the pandemic comes to an end. Oregon has the fewest number of hospital beds per capita in the nation, leaving its health care system vulnerable to being overwhelmed during future emergencies.
Hospital capacity in Oregon has been stifled for decades by the state’s certificate-of-need laws. Under these laws, hospitals who wish to expand capacity must demonstrate that there is a “need” for more health care services in their region. During this process, though, competing hospitals nearby are allowed to petition the Oregon Health Authority and ask for this expansion to be stopped, all in the name of protecting their own profits.
This cronyism has consequences, even outside of public emergencies. For instance, the resulting lack of competition among hospitals keeps prices for health care artificially high. One study estimated that per capita health care spending in Oregon is $220 more per year due to the state’s certificate-of-need laws.
As COVID-19 fades from the minds of Oregonians, the flaws the pandemic exposed in Oregon’s health care system shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s time for the Oregon Health Authority to review its stance on certificate-of-need and push our elected officials to repeal these harmful laws.
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Over the past five years, Portland and Multnomah County have spent more than $280 million addressing homelessness. Even so, the crisis is worse today than ever before, and it's clear that a different approach is needed. In an interview with Greg Frick of HFO-TV, Cascade Policy Institute's VP of Research Dr. Eric Fruits proposes practical solutions to homelessness that can help those in need and create cleaner, safer communities where businesses and individuals can flourish.
Listen to Part 1 - Portland's Homelessness Crisis: The History of Homelessness in Portland
HFO is a Portland, Oregon-based commercial real estate brokerage firm. HFO's proprietary channel, HFO-TV, offers industry insights in a unique, convenient, and engaging format. Cascade Policy Institute would like to thank HFO for allowing it to republish this recording. More information on HFO-TV can be found at https://www.hfore.com/videos.aspx.
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Homelessness is the biggest issue facing Portland—and the state of Oregon—today. Tarps, tents, and heaps of garbage are a common sight in nearly every neighborhood of the city. But how did the crisis get so bad? In an interview with Greg Frick of HFO-TV, Cascade Policy Institute's VP of Research Dr. Eric Fruits outlines the history of homelessness in Portland from the end of World War II to the present day. The conversation covers past efforts to address the homelessness crisis and explores why more recent efforts have failed to produce results.
Listen to Part 2 - Portland's Homelessness Crisis: Straightforward Solutions to a Complex Problem
HFO is a Portland, Oregon-based commercial real estate brokerage firm. HFO's proprietary channel, HFO-TV, offers industry insights in a unique, convenient, and engaging format. Cascade Policy Institute would like to thank HFO for allowing it to republish this recording. More information on HFO-TV can be found at https://www.hfore.com/videos.aspx.
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Full Text: Just five months ago, Portland City Council announced that the city was going to have an unexpected $62 million surplus. Earlier that year, the mayor was begging people to come back downtown to shop in stores and eat in restaurants.
Fast forward to today, and Portland has revealed that, somehow, the city’s transportation budget is underwater by more than $12 million dollars. To fill that gap, the city council voted unanimously to raise a giant middle finger to all the downtown shoppers, diners, and workers. The new ordinance raises the price of parking by 40 cents an hour and imposes a 20-cent so-called “equity and mobility transaction fee.” Only a government monopoly would respond to a decrease in demand by raising its price.
Pre-pandemic, surveys showed that the cost and inconvenience of downtown parking was one of the main reasons people shied away from the Portland city center. Washington Square, Bridgeport Village, and Clackamas Town Center provide plenty of free parking—and security patrols.
Now, in Portland you are going to pay more for the privilege of returning to your car only to find the windows have been smashed.
Why would Portland do something so stupid? The answer is they’re not stupid. The answer is the city council hates you and they hate the car you drive. They won’t say it to your face, but they shout it through their legislation.
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Full Text: Everyone loves getting a raise. Our Oregon state legislators are no exception. Recently, a large group of senators and representatives tried to increase their yearly salary from $33,000 to around $63,000. The proposed pay increase would have made Oregon’s state legislature the highest paid part-time legislature in the United States.
Even though Oregon’s legislature only meets for a fraction of the year, proponents of the raise argue that being a representative is actually a full-time job. Serving in the legislature, though, wasn’t always so demanding.
For most of the state’s history, Oregon had a part-time legislature that met every other year. But, the legislature itself pushed for annual sessions and asked voters to approve the constitutional change back in 2010 without a corresponding pay raise.
If legislators complain that they are clocking too many hours, it’s up to them to bring themselves some work-life balance. They can go back to meeting every other year. They can hold back on submitting so many bills. They can focus only on the big problems facing the state, and reduce the size and scope of the state’s government. Although the proposed pay increase failed to pass out of the legislature this year, it’s likely to resurface again soon. When it does, our representatives should first remember that they can always work less instead of asking for more taxpayer money.
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Full Text: People in the Portland area love their parks and they love nature. So much that in 2019, voters approved $475 million in bonds for Metro’s “Parks and Nature” program.
What voters thought they were voting for—and what they were told they would get—was more public parks for people and the protection of natural areas.
However a recent job posting placed by the regional government revealed a dirty little secret. About 10% of the land purchased by Metro’s Parks and Nature program is being actively farmed or leased to farmers. That’s more than 1,300 acres of parks and nature land that Metro is using for commercial farming.
Metro’s new employee—who will pull in a six-figure salary—is expected to, among other things, “develop new leases, ensure lease compliance, and oversee rent collection.”
The fact that the new employee is responsible for developing new leases suggests that Metro intends to make commercial farming a permanent feature of its so-called “Parks and Nature” program.
I’m willing to bet that no one who voted for Metro’s bond measure thought their tax dollars would be spent to buy land so that the regional government could play it’s own version of Farmville.
Metro needs to sell its farming operations and use the proceeds to provide parks and protect natural areas as the region’s voters were promised.
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The Oregon State Legislature could turn the Elliott State Forest into the "Elliott State Research Forest" by passing Senate Bill 1546 during the 2022 legislative session. Many have hailed SB 1546 as a grand compromise between loggers and environmentalists, and the Oregonian editorial board called it a "win" for the state of Oregon. However, few know the full history of the Elliott State Forest and its intended purpose—funding Oregon's schools. Listen to Cascade Policy Institute's President and CEO, John Charles, explain why Senate Bill 1546 is a bad deal for taxpayers, families, and students across the state.
To access the livestream of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Natural Resources on 2/23/2022, click here.
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Full Text: Why does Oregon still have a mask mandate? Oregon is now one of the last states to have a statewide mask mandate for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
If you listen closely to our public health experts, they say they’re focused on hospitalizations. Once the hospitalizations come down, they say then we can throw off our masks.
Way back in August, when Governor Kate Brown re-imposed the mask mandate, she said it was so we wouldn’t overwhelm the state’s hospitals.
Why is Oregon hung up on hospitalizations? It’s simple: we have the fewest number of hospital beds per capita in the country.
That’s not an accident. For decades, Oregon has had laws on the books that are designed to reduce the supply of hospital beds and other health care services. These laws, known as “Certificate of Need,” are explicitly designed to shield health care providers from competition.
With Certificate of Need, existing hospitals can ask the state to halt the construction of new hospitals or the expansion of existing hospitals. All in the name of stifling competition.
While the rest of the country is running around maskless, you can thank Oregon’s Certificate of Need laws for making us the last state in the nation with a mask mandate.
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Full Text: Land use regulations in Oregon are adversely impacting the state’s residents and economy. A quick glance at recent news headlines reveals as much.
OPB reports that the Oregon Department of Transportation cannot repair key portions of Highway 101 along the Oregon coast due to a land use regulation that prohibits the fortification of highway infrastructure along the shoreline. Thanks to this regulation, parts of Highway 101 are literally crumbling into the ocean below, creating a public safety hazard.
In Clackamas County, a faith-based addiction recovery facility is being shut down simply because it sits on land zoned for agriculture. According to the Portland Tribune, the facility was intentionally placed in a rural setting to limit access to drugs and alcohol for individuals in the program. To the county, though, this was irrelevant.
Perhaps most alarmingly, The Oregonian revealed that Intel chose to expand its operations in Ohio rather than Oregon due in part to a lack of available land. The state’s largest employer needed 1,000 acres for its new factory, but the biggest parcel zoned for industrial use in the Portland region was only 200 acres.
Excessive regulation is preventing individuals, businesses, and even the government from using land productively. It’s time for elected officials to take action and relax the stringent land use rules that are holding Oregon back.
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Full Text: A recent poll by the Portland Business Alliance found that 88% of voters believe their quality of life is getting worse. This is up significantly from 2017, when less than half of voters said the same thing. It’s not hard to understand why; all you need to do is step outside.
Tents and trash line our sidewalks, shootings are rising, and more cars are being stolen.
According to the poll, “voters overwhelmingly support requiring people currently living outside to sleep in shelters or designated camping areas” and 83% of voters support funding to hire and train new police officers. In fact, voters said that homelessness and crime are the top two issues facing our region.
This is the opposite of what elected officials have been doing. The Portland City Council voted to cut $15 million from the police budget in 2020, and most resources for homelessness are being used to place a handful of people “at risk of homelessness” into permanent housing. Perhaps this is why 81% of voters view Portland City Council as ineffective at providing services.
To regain the public’s trust, officials need to take action to solve the problems that voters are most concerned about. This would include shifting funds away from permanent housing to providing more shelter beds and designated camping areas, cleaning up the streets we once enjoyed, and setting the tone that crime is not tolerated in our neighborhoods.
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Full Text: January 23-29 is National School Choice Week, a 50-state celebration of opportunity in K-12 education. Every January, tens of thousands of independent events and activities draw attention to the ways school choice brings quality education to millions of students. School Choice Week provides free, practical resources year-round on its website to help families looking for options in their states. Resources specific to Oregon can be found on National School Choice Week’s website at schoolchoiceweek.com.
During the past two years, increasing numbers of parents have “voted with their feet” for school choice. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, 8.7 million children switched from public to private schools nationwide. Between the last two school years, charter school enrollment in Oregon increased 20.8%, and the number of Oregon homeschooled students increased 73%.
Oregon’s education policies should value all options that empower students to learn successfully, and parents should be free to choose the best fit for their children. Oregon can expand educational opportunity in many ways. We could lift the cap on charter school enrollment; let state education funding follow the child, thus funding students rather than systems; and remove regulatory barriers to the GED test, so high schoolers can more easily demonstrate graduation-level proficiency. As education in Oregon moves forward from the pandemic school closures, we can serve all students better through educational choice.
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Full Text: Earlier this week, the Michigan Democratic Party’s Facebook account landed in some hot water. A post published to the page mocked parents who say they should have a voice in what public schools teach.
The post went on to say that public schools teach kids what society “needs them to know.” This was the same argument made 100 years ago when Oregon voters banned all private schools in the state.
The measure, sponsored by the Masonic Grand Lodge of Oregon and the state chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, required all school-age children to attend Oregon public school, and only public school. They argued that an influx of Catholic immigrants had beliefs that were incompatible with American values. They argued that only a public school could teach these kids what society needed them to know.
While the measure was passed by voters, it went down in flames before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1925, the Court unanimously struck down the measure, legalized private schools throughout the country, and famously declared, “the child is not the mere creature of the state.”
Perhaps this should be the first lesson they teach in public schools: The government serves us, not the other way around.
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Full Text: With the start of a new year, power customers will see a new charge on their electricity bills.
The Oregon legislature passed HB 2165 at the end of the 2021 session, which requires utilities to collect a monthly charge beginning January 1 for transportation electrification infrastructure. Of the funds collected, at least half must be spent on “underserved communities.”
Everyone will pay to support the 1% who can afford to register an electric vehicle (EV) in Oregon. And while some funds will be spent on underserved communities, the reality is that most EV owners are wealthy Portlanders.
Oregon politicians think they are smarter than the market. Just like with the rise of gasoline-powered cars in the 20th century, the free market will come up with a solution if there is sufficient consumer demand for a product. We certainly didn’t need the government to build gas stations to get people to buy cars. All new technology comes with risks. By funding EV infrastructure with utility rates, that risk now falls on ratepayers.
The state should stop subsidizing the EV industry and instead allow entrepreneurs to invest in EV infrastructure when there is real need for the product.
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Full Text: Just after dinner on New Year’s Eve, my oldest son got a text from his friend who was hosting a party that night: “Party’s cancelled … car and wallet stolen.”
While he was at the gym, someone got past the front desk and into the locker room. The thief cut the lock off the locker, grabbed the contents, and used the car keys to steal the car. After that, he tried to use the stolen credit card at a gas station, a liquor store, and a convenience store.
Our friend contacted the Portland police who assigned an officer to the matter. But, it turns out the officer was on vacation and wouldn’t be back until the following Thursday.
In the meantime, our friend went back to the gym, the gas station, the liquor store, and the convenience store and asked to see the footage from the security cameras. No luck. They all said they’d only show the footage to police. The one who was off duty for nearly a week.
In frustration, our young friend muttered, “No one seems to care. No one wants to help.” That’s how many Portland residents feel today. In two years, we’ve gone from “The City That Works” to “We’re All in This Together” to a new era, the YOYO era: “You’re On Your Own.” We need to get back to the city that works.
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Full Text: As 2021 is wrapping up, it turns out that this year was much like last year. Let’s hope that 2022 is not a three-peat of the last two years. There does seem to be room for hope.
We’re now at the point that anyone who wants a COVID vaccine can get one. While it seems that almost everyone is going to get Omicron, it also seems to be much more mild. It’s getting more difficult to justify another round of shutdowns and lock-ins.
Nevertheless, given the skittish proclivities of public health experts, I fear that many public schools will return to online instruction. If this happens again, I predict that 2022 will be the year that many families give up on the public school system and demand that state education funding flow to the students themselves.
But there’s more work to be done, and 2022 is the perfect time to do it. We can relax the regulations surrounding getting a GED in Oregon, so students can graduate sooner and avoid the stress of on-again/off-again online learning. We can get rid of our silly Certificate of Need laws that make it impossible to quickly add hospital capacity.
Over the past two years, we learned that our state and local leaders will leave us on our own when we need them the most. If they won’t lead, they need to get rid of the rules that stop us from helping ourselves. Here’s to a new year!
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Full Text: Nearly a year after Oregon’s drug decriminalization experiment began, results point to fewer arrests but little interest in addiction services.
In 2020, Oregon voters approved Measure 110 which decriminalizes small amounts of controlled substances, including meth and heroin, and funds drug addiction treatment and recovery services. It came into effect on February 1, 2021.
As predicted, fewer drug arrests were made in 2021. Instead of earning jail time, those found in possession of drugs are charged with a violation and pay a $100 fine. Or, they can avoid the fine altogether by participating in a health assessment over the phone.
As of November, there have been 68 total health assessment screenings. However, 49 callers were not interested in resources and merely underwent the assessment to escape the fine, while only 11 people were connected to some kind of addiction or recovery service.
While M110 is still early in its implementation, this data is telling. What good will pumping millions of dollars into the behavioral health network be if no one’s there seeking help?
What’s missing in this equation is any kind of personal accountability. Many of those who need help won’t seek it out. Drug courts were helpful in this regard because they pushed addicts into treatment which reduced substance use and drug-involved crimes. Officials should consider adding similar “teeth” to this program.
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Full Text: If you guessed that Oregonians think homelessness is the most important problem facing the state, you’d be right. That’s no surprise.
What’s surprising is what came in second. It turns out, according to a poll by DHM Research, more than 1-in-6 Oregonians think politicians and government are the biggest problem facing our state. At the beginning of the year, only 2% of Oregonians had such a dim view of government.
That’s a huge turnaround in less than a year. The people we elected to lead our community out of the pandemic are now seen as a bigger problem than the pandemic itself.
Despite sitting on a gusher of tax revenues and federal relief funds, our state and local governments have checked out and left us on our own. Thousands have waited months for unemployment assistance. Schools are shutting down because they can’t handle rowdy students. Residents are cleaning up city parks because the city won’t do it. Businesses are hiring their own private security, because we don’t have enough police.
Remember when they said, “We’re all in this together?” Yeah … that ranks right up there with, “The check is in the mail.”
Fortunately, next year is an election year, up and down the ballot. Perhaps it’s time our elected leaders learn that when they abandon voters, the voters will abandon them. We may be looking at a ballot box revolution.
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Full Text: It’s been more than six years since Portland declared a homelessness emergency. For many residents, the crisis will only end when the tarps and tents littering sidewalks, greenspaces, and interstate on-ramps are gone and the individuals on the street get the support they need.
The region’s elected officials would like to claim they are making a difference. But, even the casual observer knows the crisis has gotten worse. Though Multnomah County continues to pursue an expensive “Housing First” strategy, it seems that even its small successes have been inflated.
Last week, the Multnomah County Auditor concluded that the Joint Office of Homeless Services, operated by the county and the City of Portland, overstated the number of individuals it placed into permanent housing by more than 20% over the past two years.
The timing of this news is concerning, as Multnomah County is just beginning to spend its share of a $2.5 billion regional homelessness tax. If residents can’t trust the Joint Office to accurately report data, why should they trust it to effectively spend hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes? Comedian Groucho Marx once quipped, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?” Our region needs fudge-free data that matches what we see with our own eyes and shows whether or not costly programs are working to get the unsheltered off the streets.
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Full Text: The public school shutdowns have gone too far.
Once reserved only for emergencies and dangerous weather, shutdowns at Oregon public schools have become commonplace for disciplinary reasons, adult staffing shortages, and lesson planning.
In November, Reynolds Middle School canceled in-person learning for three weeks because of fights and disruptive behavior. After two years of online learning, many students are finding it difficult to socialize and learn in person. But the last thing the school district should have done is shut down the school for behavior caused by shutting down the school.
As pointed out by Leslie Bienen in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, this shutdown tells students that poor behavior gets them out of school.
Keeping schools fully open for in-person instruction isn’t a partisan issue. Democrat State Senator Sara Gelser Blouin recently tweeted on this topic that “we must unite to demand these kids immediately receive full time in person school.”
Kids have had a difficult two years; why is it OK for school districts to take the easy way out?
Schools should remain open unless a legitimate emergency requires them to close. If they can’t, students and their families should be allowed to take the money the state would have spent on them at their local school and go elsewhere.
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Full Text: The quintessential American holiday, Thanksgiving evolved from the Pilgrims’ celebrations to thank God for the harvests that saved Plymouth Colony. What most people didn’t learn in school is that nearly half the Mayflower Pilgrims died of starvation because many refused to work in the fields.
Plymouth Colony originally had a socialist economy. Land and crops were held in common. In the words of Governor William Bradford, “the young men who were most able objected to being forced to spend their time and strength working for other men’s wives and children without any recompense.” Collectivism incentivized colonists needlessly to rely on the efforts of others. Realizing this, Governor Bradford assigned each household its own plot of land. Families could keep what they produced or trade for things they needed. The result was a bountiful harvest in 1623.
Instituting private property and respecting the autonomy of the family unit caused Plymouth to survive. Collectivism and central planning produce scarcity. Private property, free markets, and personal responsibility lead to prosperity and plenty. A healthy economy, with strong and independent families, enables a community to help those who genuinely need assistance. All are important lessons for America today from William Bradford’s first Thanksgiving.
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Full Text: Economist Milton Friedman passed away 15 years ago this week. In celebration of his life, I’d like to recount part of his interview with ultra-liberal talk show host Phil Donahue.
Donahue asked, “When you see the greed and the concentration of power, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed’s a good idea to run on?”
Quick as a wink, Friedman responded, “Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? … What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy. It’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.”
The real zinger came later, when Friedman asked, “Is it really nobler to pursue political self-interest than economic self-interest? … Where in the world are we going to find these angels who are going to organize society for us?”
We seem to have forgotten Friedman’s lesson. The politicians and bureaucrats who want to organize our lives are not angels. Instead they are just like us—greedily looking out for their own self-interest. Remember that next time they tell you that they are looking out for your best interests.
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Full Text: In a recent November special election, Lincoln County approved a ballot measure that imposes restrictions and bans on short-term rental housing, such as vacation rentals and Airbnbs.
In some areas of unincorporated Lincoln County, existing short-term rentals will be phased out over the next five years, and permits for new rentals will no longer be issued. The measure also reduces the occupancy limits of short-term rentals countywide, among other restrictions.
Fundamentally, the measure represents an infringement on the property rights of landowners in the county, who can no longer provide a valuable service for visitors to the community. With fewer rentals available, fewer tourists will be able to visit the county and spend money at local businesses. This will undoubtedly harm the county’s economy.
Proponents of the measure say short term rentals have caused the county’s increasingly expensive housing costs, but this blame is misplaced. The county’s own land use restrictions have prohibited residential construction in huge portions of the county. In zones where housing can be constructed, multifamily residences are often not allowed.
Rather than turning on property owners, Lincoln County should open up more land for high-density residential construction. In the meantime, the county’s commissioners should immediately repeal the new measure’s restrictions before they do permanent harm to property owners and the local economy.
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Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents have been constantly frustrated by school closures, quarantines, and the quality of their child's remote education. Many have also learned that different education settings may better meet the needs of their child than their assigned public school. In response, support for school choice has surged in Oregon.
Listen to Micah Perry discuss new education trends, the emergence of innovative learning environments, and policy proposals that can meet the growing demand for school choice throughout the state.
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Full Text: Governor Kate Brown has joined other state and national representatives at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, despite Oregon producing less than 1% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. While the conference has been filled with doom, Oregonians have a reason to look at the glass half full.
Oregon emissions per capita have fallen by 22% between 1990 and 2016, and emissions per unit of GDP (or economic output) have fallen by over 50% during the same time period. Further, energy use per capita in 2016 was at its lowest since 1960.
No doubt, politicians at this conference will focus their discussions on increased taxes and regulations. However, a recent Reason Foundation study found that top-down approaches to controlling GHG emissions “may not be as effective as bottom-up approaches that harness the natural tendency of entrepreneurs and innovators to identify more efficient and cost-effective ways to produce goods and services.”
Oregon should veer away from regulations and carbon taxes, and instead adopt some of Reason’s bottom-up recommendations such as de-monopolizing energy markets, reducing energy subsidies and tax expenditures, streamlining permitting, and eliminating arbitrary, energy-specific mandates.
Since emissions per capita and unit of GDP have been declining for over 20 years, it’s clear Oregon has done its part. Governor Brown should come home and rescind her emissions-related Executive Order immediately.
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Full Text: Next week, the Washington County Commission is expected to vote to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco and vaping products.
Because only one in seven Oregonians use tobacco, some may cheer this decision. Others may not care at all because it won’t affect them.
But it will affect the community. Without the sale of flavored nicotine products, most Washington County vape shops will shut down. Their employees will be out of work, and their storefronts will sit empty.
Then there are local convenience stores. Many cannot stay in business if they can’t sell nicotine products. Not only will their employees be out of work and their stores sit empty, but your quick stop to pick up milk on the way home will turn into a lengthy detour to the closest grocery superstore.
At a public hearing about the proposed ban, I listened to the testimony from the convenience store owners. Many were Korean, Afghan, Pakistani. They came to America to make their lives better for them and their families.
But Washington County doesn’t care about small businesses. As far as the commissioners are concerned, they can leave and make a living somewhere else. That’s the message the county is sending to struggling business owners and their employees. Maybe you don’t care. But where will you be when Washington County decides your job or business is next?
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Full Text: Tired of wearing a mask? You’re not alone. In August, Governor Brown reinstated mask mandates in an effort to prevent Oregon’s hospitals from running out of beds. While the Delta variant is an easy scapegoat for this near catastrophe, the state’s outdated certificate-of-need laws have prevented healthcare providers from expanding capacity for decades.
When a healthcare provider in Oregon wants to build a new hospital or expand certain services, the provider must undergo a lengthy review process to prove that there is a “need” for the new facility. During the review, competing hospitals can step in and claim the facility is not needed in a community. In essence, existing providers can have veto power over a new entrant. Predictably, they often do this to protect themselves from competition.
The state asserts that certificate-of-need programs prevent “unnecessary investment in unneeded facilities and services.” In reality, the law has given us a shortage of much-needed hospital beds and mental health services. Because of these laws, it’s no accident that Oregon has the lowest number of hospital beds per capita in the nation.
Throughout the pandemic, many of the state’s heavy-handed mandates have been in response to concerns over the state’s low hospital capacity, but this is a self-inflicted wound. The government and competing providers are the wrong people to ask whether we need more healthcare facilities. It’s time to pull the plug on Oregon’s certificate of need law.
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Full Text: Just over a year ago the Portland City Council cut millions from the police bureau, eliminating 84 positions. Prior to April 2021, 115 police officers left the bureau to either retire early or work in a different city, leaving 129 vacancies. Those absences are being felt across the Metro area.
Portland police responded to 14 shootings over the weekend with one fatality, increasing the number of homicides this year to 69. This is just one less than the number of homicides in 1987, Portland’s most violent year on record.
One of these calls was held up for more than 20 minutes due to a lack of available officers. A single lieutenant eventually responded to the scene, but required help from nearby community members to begin the investigation.
According to Patrol Sergeant Julian Carroll this was done out of “sheer desperation” and “one citizen stopped traffic for the lieutenant and another citizen actually assisted in dropping placards on the brass casings while the sergeant took measurements.” Not only do we need additional officers to fill vacancies, but Portland needs to stop current officers from leaving. Common reasons cited in exit interviews are morale issues and the lack of support from City Hall. It’s clear we have an attitude problem that starts with Mayor Wheeler and the rest of the City Commissioners. They need to set the tone that protecting lives and property rights is important to our city.
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Full Text: Oregon elected officials and appointed staff love to claim they base their decisions on the best and most accurate data available.
A recent Oregon Department of Transportation study demonstrates that this often isn’t the case. In fact, staff are knowingly using inaccurate data to reach seemingly favorable conclusions.
ODOT’s Climate Office Program Manager admitted in an August meeting that her office is falling short on its vision for emissions reductions. Oregon missed its 2020 goal of 50,000 registered electric vehicles and is projected to also fall short of its 2025 and 2030 goals.
As of last month, there are fewer than 36,000 registered EVs in the state. Of those, about 12,000 are plug-in hybrid vehicles, which still have combustion engines and use traditional gasoline for longer trips.
As part of ODOT’s efforts, staff conducted a study to identify gaps in the EV charging infrastructure and propose solutions to accelerate EV adoption.
However, the study is based on the false assumption that we already met our state EV goal. The report claims that there is an “extraordinary need” for more than 70,000 public charging ports and 770,000 home chargers by 2030. Many of these chargers would be paid for by utility ratepayers and taxpayers, most of whom won’t use them.
ODOT should reverse course immediately and use the true number of EVs on the road, not the number it wished we had.
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In Oregon, when the actual tax revenue for a biennium exceeds the forecasted revenue by 2% or more, taxpayers get a rebate, which Oregonians call a “Kicker.” Debate about the Kicker has grown in recent years–with advocates on both sides of the issues taking out markedly different positions.
In this forum hosted by the City Club of Eugene, Dr. Eric Fruits of Cascade Policy Institute and Daniel Hauser of the Oregon Center for Public Policy debate the merits and effectiveness of the Kicker.
Cascade Policy Institute would like to thank the City Club of Eugene for allowing it to republish this recording. More information about the City Club of Eugene can be found at https://cityclubofeugene.org/.
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Full Text: A few months ago, Oregonians learned they will be getting a Kicker next year. Now, like clockwork, a noisy network of naysayers is clamoring to kick the Kicker to the curb. I say, “No way!”
Experience has taught us that our Oregon legislature will spend every dollar it can extract from its citizens and businesses. And, if that’s not enough, it will raise taxes to spend even more.
Legislative budgets are not made on the basis of what is needed. Instead, legislators start with what the bureaucrats call the “current service level” based on the previous budget. From there, they expand existing programs and add new programs. Then they do it all over again the next session.
Over time, this method massively ratchets up spending.
Over the last 10 years, Oregon’s general fund has grown at more than double the rate of inflation and population growth.
It would be much worse without the Kicker, which returns to taxpayers the money that is collected in excess of the amount budgeted. That money belongs to us, and the Kicker makes sure we keep it.
Keep the Kicker. It’s a rare and sensible protection against the spend-every-dollar philosophy that afflicts politicians on both sides of the aisle.
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Full Text: At a time when many Portlanders are sleeping on sidewalks, tax dollars shouldn’t be wasted on expensive and unnecessary government redevelopment projects.
Earlier this month, commercial real estate firm Continuum Partners pulled out of its agreement with the City of Portland to redevelop a postal facility downtown, citing the real estate environment and “complexities of the project.” This sudden change should serve as a wake-up call for the city and force it to reexamine its priorities.
Prosper Portland, the city’s economic and urban development agency, purchased the old post office property for a whopping $88 million in 2016; but it has made little progress on the site. Rather than fostering rapid redevelopment, it seems Prosper Portland may be what’s standing in the way. Private developers would likely be more eager to invest in the improvement of a premier downtown location if they didn’t have to work with the demanding and slow-moving city agency.
If the city sold the property to the private sector, it would immediately have tens of millions of dollars to put toward expanding shelter space for the unhoused in Portland. Alternatively, the site could easily be repurposed as one of the city’s Safe Rest Villages. Either way, the City of Portland should stop wasting resources on expensive vanity projects and leverage every asset at its disposal to address its most pressing needs.
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Cascade Policy Institute was recently joined by Wall Street Journal columnist Jason L. Riley for a discussion about his newly published book, MAVERICK: A Biography of Thomas Sowell.
Listen to Cascade's Vice President of Research Dr. Eric Fruits interview Jason Riley about Thomas Sowell's contributions to economic and social thought and about how Sowell's writings remain relevant in the present day. Their wide-ranging conversation covers topics from social inequality to minimum wage laws to race in America.
Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several previous books, including Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.
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Full Text: During the past 18 months, parents have taken a hard look at their children’s schools and considered whether or not their students’ educational needs were being met. This experience has led many families to make different education choices this year besides their assigned district public schools.
Traditional public schools, public charter schools, magnet schools, online learning, private and parochial schools, homeschooling—and now micro schools and pods—are all paths to success for K-12 students. Empowering parents to choose among many options can unlock the unique potential of every child. More than half the states in the U.S. currently give families this power through educational choice programs.
A RealClear Opinion Research poll released in June found that 74% of registered voters now support school choice, defined as “giv[ing] parents the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.” This is a substantial change in public opinion since early 2020.
As Oregon moves forward from the pandemic school closures, policymakers must recognize that each family should be able to find the right fit for their students to learn effectively and safely. All options should be valued, and education policies should promote parents’ ability to choose among them to help their children learn.
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Full Text: Last week, I attended my first out-of-state conference in nearly two years. This week, Portland City Council is considering an emergency ordinance banning the city and its employees from doing business with the State of Texas. The ordinance is in response to a new Texas law effectively banning abortion in the state. What do these two things have to do with each other?
At the conference, I learned that outside of Oregon, no one really knows—or cares—about Oregon. They don’t care about our homelessness crisis. Every major city has a homelessness crisis. They don’t care about our spike in gun violence. Every major city is seeing a spike. They’ve heard about our wildfires; but to most people, that’s just something that happens out west.
So, when Portland City Council puts on a cowboy hat to talk tough to a state seven times bigger, you can bet our friends in Texas won’t be shaking in their boots. Heck, it may not even make it into their local papers.
Our region is facing some real emergencies; we’re on our own to solve them. We pay taxes and elect people to do the hard work to solve these problems. It’s time for our elected officials to saddle up and fix our own problems first before sticking their noses in other states’ business.
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Full text: Did you just have an order for a desktop computer or gaming system cancelled by Dell? You have Oregon elected officials to thank for that.
Dell recently stated that it will cancel all orders of certain energy-intensive computer systems to Oregon and five other states due to local energy regulations.
California naturally led the way in limiting computer energy use through tight appliance standards approved in 2016.
It didn’t take long for Oregon to follow suit. The Oregon Department of Energy developed new energy efficiency standards for 11 products, including computers and monitors, in 2020 to match the most stringent standards among neighboring states. The Oregon Legislature formally adopted those rules during the 2021 session after passage of House Bill 2062.
Other products affected by the new energy efficiency standards include things such as faucets, gas fireplaces, showerheads, water coolers, and free-standing hot tubs.
However, the State Legislature is indecisive over its stance on reducing electricity use given the recent push for electric vehicles. Governor Kate Brown signed the appliance efficiency standards into law within a week of signing House Bill 2165, which expands access to energy-intensive electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. Thus, it appears that expanding energy use is acceptable only if it’s the “right” kind of appliance. While you may be banned from your dream desktop, your neighbor can receive incentives from the state for their new flashy Tesla.
Oregon officials should roll back these efficiency standards as soon as possible and allow consumers to choose the best products for them and their families. Additionally, the government should not dictate how Oregon ratepayers use the electricity they pay for. In the meantime, Dell customers can bypass this regulation by purchasing computer parts and building their desired computer themselves.
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Full text: Recently, Governor Kate Brown quietly signed Senate Bill 744. The new law drops the requirement that high school students show proficiency in math, reading, and writing in order to graduate. The move has received significant media coverage. But little attention is being paid to what will happen once these students receive their diplomas.
A high school diploma is a sign of accomplishment. It shows the student has demonstrated reasonable proficiency in reading, writing, and math. These are important skills for any career path—especially if that path involves college. The new law makes it more likely college admissions staff will think twice before admitting graduates from an Oregon public school. Why would a college want a student who can’t do long division? Why would an employer hire a candidate who doesn’t understand basic algebra?
Just a few years ago, the education establishment pushed STEM skills: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Oregon’s new law effectively says the days of STEM are over. With SB 744, simply warming a chair is all that’s needed to get a diploma in an Oregon public school.
Believe it or not, the Oregon legislature reconvenes in less than 6 months. In the meantime, let your representative know how important it is we bring back proficiency requirements. The futures of our children are at stake.
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Full text: Portland’s Harriet Tubman Middle School might be on the move.
The Oregonian reported last week that Portland Public Schools’ board demanded the state pay for the relocation of the school away from the I-5 corridor. PPS claims emissions from the freeway endanger the health of Tubman students, though it’s unclear why they didn’t express the same care and urgency when Tubman reopened back in 2018.
At first blush, it seems everyone walks away happy. PPS gets a new school. ODOT gets its freeway widening. Never mind that Oregon taxpayers from Coos Bay to Pendleton have to foot the bill.
But another question remains: What will happen to the existing Tubman property?
If Tubman does move, then it’ll leave behind an attractive piece of land. The property is on commercial/mixed use zoning, so there are prime opportunities for intense development. It’s next to a park, close to the river, three minutes from the freeway entrance, and covers a whopping 100,000 square feet of land.
There are plenty of neighborhood stakeholders who could profit from developing the site. We need to be assured that whoever acquires the property pays the full market value for the site. Taxpayers don’t deserve to pay for PPS giving away the site with a sweetheart deal.
The Tubman move may solve awkward problems for PPS and ODOT, but it raises more questions than answers. Cascade will follow what happens to the property, and you should too.
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Listen to Micah Perry interview Mia Tiwana and Stew Robertson about their experience interning at Cascade Policy Institute. Mia and Stew recently joined Cascade as research associates for its nine week summer internship program, which runs from June to August.
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Full Text: You would think that Portland Parks and Rec is on a roll. Since 2013, the city has opened six new parks. Last year, Portland voters approved a property tax increase expected to bring in an additional $48 million a year to the parks department.
Even so, the city has put off park maintenance. It’s gotten so bad that 73 of the city’s 103 tennis courts have fallen into disrepair.
You may believe that, with their facilities deteriorating and money for repairs lacking, Parks and Rec would be grateful for any group of citizens looking to help. You would be wrong.
Fed up with only half of Sellwood Park’s tennis courts being usable, the retirees of the PDX Pickleball Club decided to take matters into their own hands. They raised $9,000 of their own money to repair the courts and, in alignment with Parks and Rec’s eventual plans, convert them to pickleball courts.
But just two weeks into their work, Parks and Rec ordered them to stop. They were told they would need to pay $1,000 to apply for a permit and, if accepted, an additional $2,500 per week in rent while the repairs were being undertaken.
We’re entering an era of do-it-yourself government. We have people filling in their own potholes. We have businesses hiring their own armed security. Now we have people maintaining their own parks. If the bureaucrats can’t do the jobs we hire them to do, they should at least get out of our way when we try to do them ourselves.
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When Uri Rafaeli accidentally underpaid his property taxes by $8, Oakland County took his Michigan rental home. The county sold it for $25,000 and kept all the profits. Shockingly, this same kind of home equity theft is happening in approximately a dozen states including Oregon.
Listen to Christina Martin speak about the dangers of home equity theft in this recording of Cascade Policy Institute's July Policy Picnic.
Christina Martin is a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, where she fights to bring justice to her clients and set precedents that protect individuals across the country from government overreach. Prior to working at PLF, Christina was a Policy Analyst at Cascade Policy Institute.
Pacific Legal Foundation is leading the fight to end this theft and has already seen victories in Michigan, North Dakota, and Montana. Learn about the problem, the traditional property rights at stake, and strategies to end the theft at this virtual policy picnic.
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Full text: If we want to continue seeing downtown Portland improve, maybe it’s time to refund the police.
City leaders reopened Portland this weekend, hosting a flurry of festivities meant to attract people back into downtown. The reopening, called “Welcome Back to the Heart of Portland,” included concerts, musical performances, and pop-up vaccination centers.
Portland does seem to be slowly getting back on its feet. Mayor Ted Wheeler reported that a committee found fewer plywood boards on buildings. The city is cleaning more homeless campsites and has identified 70 potential spots to locate what the city calls “Safe Rest Villages” for homeless people.
With these modest improvements, downtowners report an increase in visible foot traffic.
A major missing link to Portland’s recovery is a police presence.
The equation is simple: Downtown attractions plus visible safety measures equals people making their way back to the city.
Portland Police Bureau teamed up with the FBI to cover their bases during last weekend’s festivities, in an effort to make Portlanders feel a sense of safety amid rising gun violence. But without the FBI, Portland police currently cannot manage patrolling streets on their own. Traffic safety is down to only one full-time traffic enforcement officer for the whole city. Defunding the police may have drawn focus to scrutinizing police practices, but it created an ongoing wave of unsafe situations.
The way forward for Portland to reopen is to create a trusted police presence, not to continue without any safety measures.
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According to a recent poll, 74% of voters support school choice in the United States. Micah and Helen discuss the reasons behind this surge in support, policy wins in the past year that have resulted from it, and the outlook for school choice in Oregon.
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Full text: The City of Portland’s housing state of emergency, first declared in October 2015 and recently extended into next year, is set to turn six years old this fall. Over the course of two mayors, we were told the declaration would expedite the building of affordable housing and help alleviate our housing shortage.
By that measure the city has failed. In fact, the city has taken steps to make things worse. One of these steps was 2017’s “inclusionary zoning” ordinance.
Portland’s inclusionary zoning law requires developers of any project over 20 units to set aside at least 10-20% of those units for low-income housing.
The result? The number of permits for new housing units has plummeted from almost 7,400 in 2017 to under 1,800 in 2020. In the same period, the mandate has resulted in the creation of only 237 affordable units in the entire city.
Because the majority of households below the Area Median Income are still renting at market-rate, suppressing these developments under the guise of creating more “affordable” housing is a betrayal of these people. While the 200 or so families who do receive subsidized units will benefit, thousands of families will see their already-high rent continue to skyrocket.
Portland needs to stop with its “affordable housing” fantasy, and instead work toward making housing affordable for everyone. One way to start is by getting out of our own way and stop handcuffing developers who are trying to provide it.
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Full Text: Portland is on its way to having more than three shootings per day.
Last year amid nationwide protests, Portlanders were among some of the loudest voices shouting, “Defund the Police.” Last summer, Mayor Ted Wheeler disbanded the city’s Gun Violence Reduction team, claiming that the team excessively targeted black people.
What do we have to show for it?
As expected, we’re seeing a sharp uptick in violent crime. Portland police data report 38 homicide offenses through May of this year. Over the same period last year, only 6 homicides were reported. That’s over a 600% increase.
We’ve also seen more than double the number of shootings this year, with 580 incidents.
City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty asserts the shootings are “a totally unrelated issue,” even going so far as to say the police have a role “to solve crime…not to prevent crime.” This simply doesn’t make sense. Just one month after the city disbanded the Gun Violence Reduction team, the number of shootings doubled, and homicides increased seven-fold.
What’s worse is that increasing violent crimes disproportionately affects people of color—they make up almost half of all homicide victims. If City Council wants to stop the violence, they cannot ignore that our police force is underfunded and understaffed. Local leaders must listen to the people they represent, not just the Defund the Police elites who have their ears.
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Listen to Helen Doran interview Micah Perry, Cascade's newest staff member! Micah interned with Cascade in 2019 and is now serving as a program assistant for External Affairs.
Micah can be contacted at micah@cascadepolicy.org.
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Full text: The U.S. Postal Service boasts that “neither snow nor rain nor heat” can keep mail carriers from swiftly completing their rounds; TriMet’s MAX Light Rail service can make no such claim.
Last week, the heatwave brought temperatures well into the 100s, causing MAX services to shut down from Saturday to Tuesday. If you are from the Portland area, you know these closures aren’t just limited to heat. They also happen when we have ice, snow, or—most commonly in Portland—excessive rain. If you are depending on public transit to get to work, why lean on the unreliability of light rail?
Despite the billions of dollars our local, state, and federal governments sink into light rail, daily bus ridership doubles that of the MAX. This should come as no surprise, as buses are more reliable, faster on average, and get you much closer to your final destination. Every time the MAX fails, the buses are there to bail it out.
But local leaders still haven’t given up on their obsession with trains. Congressman Earl Blumenauer insists that any I-5 replacement bridge over the Columbia River must include an extension of light rail to Vancouver. However, an Express Bus Route operated by C-TRAN already runs along the same path and gets passengers into Downtown Portland—far more quickly than light rail could. Let’s instead focus on what works—investing in reliable roads that support the smooth travel of our cars and buses.
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A proposed ordinance aims to deprioritize some homeless camps considered “low impact”
Full text: The city says a camp is low impact if it’s 150 feet away from a childcare facility, preschool, or primary school. That’s a 30-second walk. I’m sure most parents would think having a sprawling homeless camp less than a minute from their kids’ school isn’t low impact.
Once kids hit high school, the Council’s new rule says a camp is low impact if it’s only ten feet—or just 20 seconds away.
But, it gets worse. The city won’t clear camps more than ten feet away from a residential or commercial building. In front of your home is a no-no. But, across the street from your house is okay in the city’s eyes.
The proposed ordinance turns a blind eye to the devastating toll the camps have taken on Portland. They’re more than just a visual blight, they’re a public health and safety nuisance. When camps pop up in a neighborhood, they bring garbage, crime, and violence. They are a danger to the community and to the campers themselves.
There is no such thing as a low-impact camp because small camps can grow into sprawling camps in a matter of days. Ignoring low-impact camps only redistributes the problem, it doesn’t solve the problem.
The city must find enough shelter space to begin cleaning up all camps.
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Full text: If you get the Sunday New York Times, your Fathers’ Day edition had a very special message from Travel Portland, whose job is to convince people that the Rose City is a great place to visit.
Don’t get me wrong. Portland is a great place to visit. But, not right now. You see, we’ve got some issues to work out before we’re ready for visitors.
First, we’ve got to get the plywood off of our storefronts. But, unfortunately, every time that happens, a group of mostly peaceful rioters break our windows and loot our stores.
We’d love to have you eat in our restaurants. But, we can’t seem to hit the governor’s target vaccination rate, so you’ll have to order takeout or wait an hour for socially distanced seating. Oh, and make sure you bring a mask. We don’t fluoridate our water, but everyone needs a mask.
We’d love to have you see the sights. But, you have to have a taste for sitting in traffic. Our rush hour starts at about 2 pm and runs all the way past 6 pm. Just treat that as an opportunity to count tents and tarps. You might even catch a street brawl with transients beating each other with sticks.
As the ad says, “Come see for yourself.” Just give us a few years to tidy up the place first.
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Listen to Helen Doran interview Vlad Yurlov, policy analyst at Cascade Policy Institute, on the current state of homelessness in the Portland-metro region and what needs to happen to actually address the root cause of the crisis.
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Full text: On Saturday, police responded to a call that a man was in the middle of I-84, swinging a pipe at cars. As police approached, the man jumped the freeway barrier onto the MAX tracks, where he got creamed by a train and was pronounced dead at the scene.
But there’s more.
Just two hours earlier, the same man entered a house and confronted a woman working upstairs. He refused her order to leave and left only when her husband and children came home. Police quickly tracked him down and arrested him.
But, get this, they didn’t book him because of so-called “booking restrictions” at the city jail. So, they issued a citation and let him go.
In a space of two hours, a person was killed and dozens of people got traumatized—the homeowners, the MAX driver, the police officers, and the team who had to deal with the aftermath of the crash.
Much of this could have been prevented if only the man had been booked after his first run-in with police.
Something is fundamentally wrong if we think it is compassionate to let clearly troubled people remain on the streets. If he’d been booked, he’d be alive. Instead, he’s dead and many have been traumatized by his actions. We did no favors to the dead man with our catch-and-release policy and we’re making a mockery of public safety.
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Full text: The Portland region’s top homelessness officials delivered another set of promises and excuses in a statement last Thursday.
Instead of cutting off funds to failed approaches, our policymakers promise to “permanently end homelessness” with another $1 billion over ten years. In the same breath, they blame untreated mental health and substance abuse disorders for the homelessness crisis, the very thing their programs failed to do.
These are the direct results of programs that promised to “end” homelessness with a “Housing First” approach since 2005. A Housing First approach believes that homelessness can be solved by simply keeping people in some sort of supportive housing with no requirement that any of the support services are used. Unfortunately, the people who are most in need of treatment are also the most resistant to being treated.
You can see that the Housing First approach failed, because as homeless services budgets tripled, the streets are more hazardous, the sidewalks are increasingly impassable, and the total number of homeless isn’t decreasing.
Our public programs do everything but require harmful problems to be solved. And our public officials intend to keep pouring money into this failed approach, so it’s time to demand that your dollars go to those who want help.
It’s time to put Reentry First: Resources must be focused on those who want to use them to regain independence.
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Full text: Yesterday, the Oregon Senate overwhelmingly approved a $9.3 billion education budget. That amounts to $11,800 per student—and that doesn’t count the money from local sources.
What do we get from that kind of spending? We get the third worst graduation rate in the country and a middle-of-the-pack ranking in college preparedness.
What could we get with that kind of money?
One thing you don’t hear much in the mainstream media is that the average private school tuition is about $9,800 a year. Think about that: Our kids can get a private school education for $2,000 less than the average cost per student in the public school system.
Just think of what a family could do if state school fund money went to the student instead of the system. Their kids can get a first rate education and still have money left over to buy books, pay for tutors, and enroll in enrichment classes.
Our state is failing its students and the system is failing families. The time is now for families to demand that state funding support students instead of the system dominated by entrenched special interests.
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Full text: A newly redeveloped model used by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council to calculate annual loss of load probability (LOLP) shows significantly higher LOLP in 2023 compared to previous predictions.
The LOLP calculates the likelihood that utilities will have to take some kind of emergency measure in order to prevent a blackout. Emergency measures could include initiating rolling blackouts, calling on ratepayers to decrease usage, and buying back power from large industrial users.
The classic model estimated the LOLP in 2023 would be 15.7% with a resource need of 1250 MW. The redeveloped model, which simulates more aspects of the power system in detail, predicts an LOLP in 2023 of 32% and a resource need of 1600 MW. That’s a 104% increase for LOLP and a 28% increase for resource need from previous predictions.
Rolling blackouts are becoming less of an anomaly now that more reliable resources like nuclear and natural gas are being replaced by intermittent resources like solar and wind.
Oregon officials can reduce LOLP by legalizing nuclear power, ensuring current resources stay on the grid, and investing in resources that promote reliability like natural gas and hydropower. These steps can prevent Oregon from becoming the next Texas or California.
Learn more at cascadepolicy.org.
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Listen to Vlad Yurlov explain why Portland Street Response has been struggling to operate at full capacity.
Full text: "Portland’s Lents neighborhood got a new homeless program in 2021. Could you tell? For the past three months, a paramedic and a social worker have been connecting homeless people to social services and addressing disturbances. But the pilot team has been waiting for police dispatch to give it leads, so it goes on just two calls per day. Relieving Portland’s officers from non-emergency calls is useful, but a proactive approach would be more beneficial for homeless people and worn-out police officers.
The City intended Portland Street Response to reduce interactions between police and homeless people and those in mental crisis. Dispatch calls can be one method of contact, but the team is hitting just one quarter of its capacity.
There have been thousands of calls requesting non-violent interaction with the homeless since the program began. The team could easily fill its capacity by scanning sidewalks and connecting homeless people to resources while waiting for opportunities from dispatch. This would truly prevent police interaction and fulfill the program’s mission. Before expanding the program citywide with millions of dollars, Portland Street Response must operate at maximum capacity. Portland deserves proactive solutions."
Learn more at cascadepolicy.org.
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Remember Portland’s 10-year plan to end homelessness by 2015? The plan fizzled out, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. Roughly $70 million flowed into affordable housing production, homelessness prevention, and support services each year. Despite all these efforts and all that spending, the number of homeless continues to rise in the Portland area.
Portland’s homeless service response during the pandemic reveals how quickly taxpayer money can evaporate with no effect. In June 2020, the Joint Office of Homeless Services began providing motel vouchers totaling more than 400 bedrooms across eight buildings by late 2020. The monthly bill to run these programs is over $2.2 million per month. That’s roughly $1,900 in rent per bed plus $1.4 million in services every month. But use of these services is largely voluntary, so after funding runs out, the underlying issues which may have caused residents to need such services could easily drag them into the streets again.
Listen to Vlad Yurlov discuss the failures of Portland's current homeless policies and what the future could entail.
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Last week, a Craigslist post brought it home—we’re in the era of Do It Yourself Government.
The Craigslist post offered $50 an hour to so-called “real men” to monitor police scanners and to “find the troublemakers” vandalizing downtown Portland. It brought home the fact that many residents have lost confidence in their local government and are doing the jobs that government won’t or can’t do anymore.
They believe they’ve been abandoned. They’ve been abandoned by the police. They’re on their own to protect themselves and their property. They’ve been abandoned by the public schools. They’re on their own to teach their kids or set up learning pods. Some residents have even started filling the potholes in their local streets, because they’ve been abandoned by the transportation bureau.
It’s easy to think that some of our local governments have given up on us, and now it seems some local residents are giving up on them. How can voters keep supporting new taxes and higher taxes, when the money government already has isn’t being used to keep the promises politicians have already made?
When people take public safety into their own hands, it doesn’t end well. That’s what happens when local officials abandon their people.
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Learning pods have become a popular solution for parents searching for additional support for their children struggling to learn during the pandemic. Here are four things you should know about learning pods in Oregon:
- A recent survey conducted hints that learning pods are here to stay. In March, one out of every five families was actively participating in a pod and another was looking to find one. Moreover, one in four teachers expressed interest in teaching a learning pod.
- Learning pods in Oregon are subject to Early Learning Division (ELD) regulations for at-home daycares. These numerous regulations can be impossible for learning pods, which have more in common with the less-regulated homeschooling sector than at-home daycares.
- The Oregon Department of Education has explicitly discouraged the formation of learning pods on the basis of equity, since pods have the possibility of “leaving out students who are already underserved by our school system.”
- Establishing an Education Savings Account (ESA) program in Oregon would address equity concerns by allowing low-income and underserved families the opportunity to use their child’s education dollars for creative solutions such as learning pods.
Learning pods hint at the future of education. Parents want more flexibility and more options for their children. Let’s ensure that future is possible in Oregon.
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As a new driver, I avoid Portland’s Rose Quarter because I’m not eager to test my car’s insurance policy. There were over 800 crashes in the Rose Quarter between 2011 and 2017. It’s congested for most of the day and drivers must bob-and-weave through the short lanes between ramps.
That could change with the Rose Quarter Improvement Project. The project, approved by the Oregon legislature and signed by Governor Kate Brown, would relieve the largest bottleneck in the region by adding auxiliary lanes and expanding safety shoulders.
Listen to why Vlad Yurlov believes the Rose Quarter Improvement Project could bring relief to Portland's congestion and explains what's stopping politicians from providing a solution.
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We’ve heard a lot of bad news during the pandemic: business closures, job losses, weight gain. But, there’s one area that’s seen a massive boom—online charter schools.
Over the past year, enrollment in online charter schools has increased by a whopping 58%.
But, like many things, government is getting in the way of growth. Under Oregon law, online charter school enrollment is capped at 3% of a sponsoring district’s enrollment.
That could change. Oregon Senate Bill 240 would remove the cap on online charter school enrollment.
During this pandemic, families have been forced into an experiment with distance learning. Some have found it to be an incredible success, while others have seen dismal failure.
Regardless, families have both the interest and incentives to move forward with the educational options that work best for them and their students. If online learning works for your family, you deserve to have that choice.
The Senate Education Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday, April 21, on Senate Bill 240. Let your voice be heard and tell the Senate to lift the cap.
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Should we breach Northwest hydropower dams to replenish native fish species on the Columbia or continue benefiting from hydro’s cheap and reliable power?
With the innovative Whooshh Fish Passage System, our region wouldn’t have to choose between the two. And, yes, the company is really called “Whoosh.”
The system is set up alongside dams to help fish reach their spawning grounds. It knows the fish better than their own moms. It figures out the fish’s size, whether it’s wild or from a hatchery, if it’s a native species, and whether it’s injured. The system then propels the fish through the appropriate tube to the other side of the dam. Whooshh also has machines available that focus on invasive species removal.
The technology has been tested at several Northwest dams and has proven to be safe without causing the fish stress. It also costs significantly less than a traditional fish ladder. While a fish ladder would take years to build and cost $50-60 million, Whooshh’s system could be built within a couple of months and cost $7-10 million.
Instead of breaching our region’s dams, Oregon officials should utilize new and innovative technologies that improve fish passage over them.
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The president of the National Education Association recently said she does not expect schools to be back to normal in the fall. “We still have a lot of questions,” she concluded. For many Oregon parents, the thought of some form of distancing learning in the fall is the last straw, especially as school leaders hesitate to promise a full-time return.
Despite mounting pressure from parents, Oregon has trailed behind much of the country in offering hybrid learning. According to a national survey of 8,000 school districts, 94% of participating districts offered fully in-person or hybrid instruction when Governor Brown required Oregon schools to offer some form of in-person instruction by the end of March.
According to Return to Learn Tracker, Oregon is currently ranked the third most cautious state in returning to classroom instruction. For many parents, this extreme caution does not match up with the state’s low COVID-19 case counts and the CDC’s recommendations for full-time school.
Students have already lost a valuable year of classroom instruction, and with it, community, extracurriculars, and individualized support. Oregon’s school leaders should follow the example of states successfully ending distance learning and commit to the goal of full-time school in the fall.
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Bad legislation often hides in “tweaks” and what sponsors call “housekeeping” measures. Oregon House Bill 2419 and Senate Bill 493 are two examples. With just a few words, the bills tweak Oregon’s formula for calculating prevailing wages throughout the state. Their results would increase costs for nearly every public works project in the state with no end in sight.
The prevailing wage is the rate of pay and benefits that contractors and vendors must offer their employees when a government agency funds the project. Currently, Oregon’s prevailing wages are based on an independent wage survey conducted by the state’s labor commissioner.
HB 2419 and SB 493 propose a radical departure from current policy. Every region’s prevailing wage will be based on the highest wage rate among collective bargaining agreements in the region. In other words, every contractor would have to pay the same wages as the highest collective bargaining agreement in each region.
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As Oregon students return to the classrooms, watch out for a new fad that could make our state’s academic performance even worse.
That fad is known as the “four day school week.”
Oregon is one of only nine states that allows four day school weeks and more than 130 districts operate on a four-day schedule. Post-pandemic that number is sure to climb.
Many teachers and administrators like that it provides for a three day weekend every week.
Proponents push the four day week as a way to cut costs without harming academics. But this claim is only half true.
Moving to a four day school week does cut costs. But, it also cuts total instructional time.
Recent research on Oregon’s experience with the four day week finds that schools that moved to a four day week experience significant declines in reading and math achievement. Moreover, these declines worsen over time.
Everyone’s heard the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.” The same goes for Oregon’s faddish adoption of the four day school week. It’s claims simply aren’t true.
I am Eric Fruits, Vice President of Research at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market research organization.
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Every student deserves access to a quality education. Despite the setbacks caused by closing public school buildings, many Oregon students were already struggling to succeed in the public school system before the pandemic. According to the National Association of Education Progress, only 34% of Oregon fourth-graders tested “proficient” in reading in 2019. Moreover, Oregon continues to have one of the lowest graduation rates in the nation.
Now, more than ever, students and families are demanding greater access to a quality education that fits their unique needs. A proven way of providing that access is by giving families control over their students’ portion of the state’s education funding.
Currently, more than half the states in the U.S. give families flexibility to direct their children’s education through scholarships, tax credits, and Education Savings Accounts.
Oregon is one of 29 states to have introduced legislation this year to fund students directly. Senate Bill 658 would establish an Education Savings Account (ESA) program for Oregon parents who want to opt out of their government-assigned public schools for other options, such as private school or homeschool. The program “allows participating students to obtain grants from education savings accounts to fund attendance at specified types of schools or education programs.”
Not every child is going to thrive in the public school system. It’s time for Oregon to provide equal opportunities for a quality education by funding students, not systems, through such legislation as SB 658.
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For 30 years, the Portland metro region has dutifully followed Oregon’s Transportation Planning Rule. By attempting to “manage demand” instead of building new capacity for automobiles, the region has some of the worst congestion in the country.
Learn more at cascadepolicy.org.
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It’s a bad sign when businesses need to fortify their storefronts to survive. But after the pandemic and lockdowns shuttered many Portland businesses, spiraling crime rates added to the damage. The Portland Police Bureau reports burglary and vandalism are up 35% over the past year. Reported arsons doubled.
Eager to re-open, many businesses are trying to beef up security by installing gates and more lighting. But Portland’s lengthy and costly design review process has stood in the way. In response, the city council exempted lighting and security gates from design review to help what they call the “green shoots” of our economy.
It’s encouraging to see the City of Portland recognize some of the harmful effects of design review laws. City council should treat its recent decision to relax rules as the first step toward removing all of its design review requirements. So often, the best way for government to allow green shoots to blossom into gardens is to simply get out of the way.
I’m Vlad Yurlov from Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market think-tank.
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Last week, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum’s office reached a settlement with four hotels over price gouging during last year’s wildfires. The hotels have to pay more than $100,000 to the state. In addition, they have to reimburse more than a hundred families for their hotel costs.
Laws against price gouging are about as old as the price system itself. But these laws miss the entire point of the price system—to allocate resources. There are many ways to allocate resources, but nearly all of them are inferior to the price system. These hotels weren’t “gouging” they were working toward ensuring that their scarce resource—namely hotel rooms—were allocated to those who valued them most.
Without the higher prices how should the rooms have been allocated? First come, first served? Lottery? How are those methods any more fair than the price system? Short answer: They’re not.
After thousands of years of prices and thousands of years of anti-price gouging laws, you’d think we’d have finally realized they simply don’t work. Let’s get rid of these silly laws and let our attorney general work on prosecuting real criminals.
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In 1991, Oregon adopted a goal of reducing vehicle miles traveled by 20% over a 30-year period. Proponents claimed that such a reduction would improve air quality, increase demand for public transit, reduce the rate of global warming, lower traffic-related fatalities, and help improve the livability of cities.
The 30-year clock is running out, and it's clear that the original goal will not be met. Even before the pandemic, transit ridership in major cities was falling, and reliance on auto travel—especially SUVs and pick-ups—was increasing.
The only real impact of Oregon's Transportation Planning Rule has been to add new bureaucratic delays to virtually any new construction project. Cascade Policy Institute analyst Vlad Yurlov has written a detailed case study of this central-planning failure.
Listen to Vlad Yurlov's presentation of the Transportation Planning Rule as well as a discussion about the future of transportation in Oregon.
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Oregon has always been a national leader in providing clean energy to ratepayers due to our hydroelectric dominated energy portfolio. In 2018, around 54% of Oregon’s electricity use resource mix was zero-emitting.
The current renewable portfolio standard (RPS) does not reflect this reality.
Oregon’s RPS was established in 2007 and created a requirement for how much of our electricity must come from “renewable” sources. The target for 2020 was 20%, even though over half of the electricity Oregon consumes is renewable. In 2016 the RPS target was raised to 50% by 2040. Currently, only PGE, PacifiCorp, and EWEB are required to be compliant with the law.
Eligible resources for Oregon’s RPS include: wind, solar, wave, tidal and ocean thermal energy, geothermal, biomass, and hydroelectric built after January 1, 1995. Notably missing from this list are nuclear and legacy hydroelectric. Unlike intermittent solar and wind resources, nuclear and hydro are reliable and do not need to be curtailed or backed up by baseload power as solar and wind often are.
Senate Bill 540, sponsored by Senator Fred Girod, would change that. This bill specifies that all electricity generated by a hydroelectric facility, no matter the facility’s age, can be used to comply with the RPS.
Oregon’s RPS needs to account for the region’s legacy hydroelectric resources and the deep decarbonization already in place in most rural areas in Oregon. Legislators should vote yes on SB 540.
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Why is “affordable housing” so expensive? Many politicians, bureaucrats, and affordable housing advocates treat the question as one of life’s many mysteries. But it’s really not that mysterious. Many regulations governing public projects add up, piece by piece, to affordable housing’s staggering price tags.
Learn more at cascadepolicy.org or by emailing info@cascadepolicy.org.
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Oregon is home to NuScale Power, the nation’s leading small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) developer. However, our state isn’t able to take advantage of NuScale’s innovative technology because it is illegal to site a nuclear plant in Oregon. Three bills being considered in Oregon’s current legislative session could change that.
HB 2332 would repeal current legal provisions requiring that there be a permanent storage site for waste and that voters approve the proposal before a nuclear power plant could be issued a site certificate.
Instead of repealing these provisions, HB 2692 would carve out an exemption for SMRs and would require the Oregon Department of Energy to develop a program to educate the public about the new technology.
SB 360 would also offer an exemption for SMRs. However, cities or counties first would have to approve the siting of SMRs in their jurisdiction before they could be located there.
While HB 2332 would grant the most amount of freedom for siting nuclear plants, any of these three bills would be a step in the right direction for our state.
Recent blackouts in California and Texas demonstrate that the grid needs baseload energy resources capable of backing up renewables when they fail to produce power. If Oregon officials are serious about operating the grid with 100% renewable power, they need to bring SMRs into the discussion. Legislators should vote in favor of these three bills to bring reliable power to Oregon.
For Cascade Policy Institute, I'm Rachel Dawson.
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If you thought hospital food was bland now, get ready to hear this. The Oregon Legislature is considering a bill that bans hospitals from serving bacon and every other salted, smoked, or cured meat. Because House Bill 2348 also requires hospitals to make plant-based food available, proponents argue that this is simply about promoting good health. But who’s to say that a room full of legislators knows more than a hospital full of doctors?
Being stuck in a hospital bed is bad enough. Patients need to eat to keep up their strength. And comfort food is one secret that gets people eating and happy to be alive. So if the bedridden want bacon, give them bacon.
Politicians are ready to trade your range of choices for their own agendas, especially if they don’t have to eat the results. So let’s save the health food kick for home. If the “bacon ban” passes, buying comfort food from a hospital will only be harder for those that could really use some comfort.
I’m Vlad Yurlov from Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market think-tank.
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Oregonians blame Californians for many of our state’s woes. They drive up our housing prices, crowd our roads, and import nanny-state policies like banning plastic bags, plastic straws, and styrofoam cups. Many Oregonians wish they’d just go back home.
But what if the Golden State stopped sending us their residents?
The short answer: We’re toast. Over the past two years, Californians accounted for about half of Oregon’s population growth. Their college degrees hide Oregon’s dismal public education system. The business they bring with them fuels employment growth. And, their incomes provide the tax revenues for Salem’s never-ending expansion.
If all that stopped, Oregon would be done for. But will it stop? It might. Oregon’s a nice place to live, but nice only gets you so far. They’re moving here because California has gotten so bad. If Oregon continues to fall into Golden State levels of dysfunction, Californians looking to leave may decide Texas, Arizona, or Nevada are better places to raise their families and grow their businesses.
I fear that day may come sooner than we’d like. Oregon taxes have skyrocketed, our public schools have stagnated, and the public sector has rolled back crucial services. Oregon lawmakers should enact public policies that promote economic opportunity at all income levels, increase choices in education for Oregon parents, and foster a robust culture of entrepreneurship. That will make our state a great place to visit, live, and work for our current and future residents. If we don’t make Oregon the opportunity state, we’re toast.
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With teachers’ unions slow-walking the governor’s guidance for reopening schools, it is looking more likely that many of Oregon’s largest school districts will not return to full-time in-person instruction for all students this year.
In Cascade Policy Institute's February online Policy Picnic, Vice President of Research Dr. Eric Fruits argues that families should be compensated for the time and resources they must spend to manage their kids’ online public schooling. In this virtual presentation, he outlines the state law that could allow for such compensation and identify a readily available funding source.
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Since 2015, Portland City Council has declared continuous housing emergencies. We’re now into the sixth year, and the City’s housing and homelessness crises are still in full swing. Yet nobody even knows where or how many shelter beds are available in the metro area. Cascade Policy Institute released a new report that offers straightforward solutions to the growing number of unsheltered homeless in the Portland region. It’s time to get back to the basics. And what is more basic than knowing where homeless people can go?
This means tracking where shelter beds are available and distributing this information to outreach workers and officers. If there really isn’t space, we need to know. But if there are available beds, we must offer every homeless individual a roof over their head.
Cities in both Washington and California use tracking systems to help more people get shelter. Meanwhile, Portland is behind the curve and paying for it. Instead of using shelter space more efficiently, the City Council pushed a housing bond that calls spending nearly $300 thousand per unit “affordable.”
We can’t keep extending emergency declarations and borrowing forever. A shelter tracking system would allow Portland to finally take account of the homelessness crisis.
I’m Vlad Yurlov from Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market think-tank.
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A recent column published in Forbes has caused quite a stir. The editorial, by Oregon economist Bill Conerly, asks whether Portland is experiencing the death of a city. For months, the Oregonian, Willamette Week, and the Mercury have run articles reporting on business closures, vandalism, and rising violence. Yet, when Cascade Policy Institute’s chairman comments on these same things, the local media change their tune to “it’s all good, nothing to see here.”
Sure, it’s true much of Portland’s recent malaise was brought on by a worldwide pandemic. But it’s also revealed so much of our town’s failures to live up to its motto as the “City That Works.” We have a city council that views business as a parasite to be managed with new and higher taxes and ever-increasing regulations. We have city policies more focused on avenging past wrongs than in preparing for a future where businesses can prosper and people can flourish. Rather than serving the voters, more and more politicians behave as if we serve them. As if it’s our job to make them look good.
Portland isn’t dying, but it’s got a disease. We’ve got to treat the symptoms, shake the illness, and bring our city back to its status as one of the world’s most livable cities.
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January 24-30 is National School Choice Week, the world’s largest celebration of parental choice in education and the diversity of options available to help today’s students learn. Since 2011, National School Choice Week has affirmed that “every child deserves an effective, challenging, and motivating education.”
“School choice” means empowering parents to choose the education options that are best for their individual children’s needs, goals, talents, and circumstances. Traditional public schools, public charter schools, magnet schools, online learning, private and parochial schools, and homeschooling are all paths to success for K-12 students. Empowering parents to choose among many options can unlock the unique potential of every child. More than half the states in the U.S. currently give families more flexibility to direct their children’s education through educational choice programs including scholarships, education tax credits, and Education Savings Accounts.As Oregon works to reopen schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is especially urgent that policymakers recognize that each family needs to find the right fit for their student to learn effectively and safely. All options should be valued, and education policies should promote parents’ ability to choose among them to help their child succeed.
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Despite its many “green” policies, the Portland region is attempting to solve its homelessness crisis by creating rather than reusing public resources. In response, Cascade Policy Institute’s latest report offers straightforward solutions that use public resources more effectively. Publicly-owned and operated buildings should serve as homeless shelters to eliminate the need for illegal camping. Homeless people need shelter and buildings such as the Portland Expo Center have the space.
The Expo Center has never generated much revenue and the property has capital needs that are not in the budget. This makes it a great candidate for Metro’s recent Supportive Housing Services funds, which can redevelop the Expo Center into a massive amount of shelter space. This 330,000 square foot building sits on 53 acres of land. At 100 square feet per person, the exhibition space alone could shelter thousands of people. The kitchen, restaurant, meeting rooms, and other flexible space can easily provide the services emergency shelters need. Finally, the massive parking areas that surround the building can serve as efficient outdoor shelters for tents or vehicles.
To solve the homelessness crisis, readily available opportunities, such as the Expo Center, must be activated as shelter space.
I’m Vlad Yurlov from Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market think-tank.
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In Metro’s latest quarterly newsletter, “Our Big Backyard,” the reader is invited to agree with Metro’s vision of nature on the condition that he or she keeps off Metro’s properties.
Ways readers can have access to Metro’s “Big Backyard” are glaringly absent from the newsletter. In fact, a better title for the newsletter could be “Our Hidden Lands” because an estimated 88% of Metro’s land acquisitions are inaccessible to the public. Moreover, the parks available to the public emphasize “passive recreation,” which often means no dogs, no playsets, and no picnic spaces.
Metro has a vision for nature that fits specifically with its agenda, not with the needs voiced repeatedly by area residents. Ironically, Metro condemns this micromanaging of nature in its newest newsletter, stating that historically, “Nature often creates very real barriers to access, but more often these barriers are constructed by us” by defining what is “city” and what is “wilderness.”
It’s time for Metro to take its own advice and break down the very barriers to nature it has imposed. Residents want accessible parks with recreational opportunities near residential areas. Metro needs to abandon its agenda of hiding nature and bring it to the people it serves.
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Would you like to have a nice picnic near a garbage dump? How about a meeting? If Metro has its way, these are just some of the frills that will come attached to its newest waste facility. A new transfer station is being planned in Cornelius to expand waste management services to the west side of the region. But instead of providing a functional facility that benefits the region, Metro is pitching expensive features that have nothing to do with waste management, such as meeting spaces, parks, and education centers.
If Metro continues down this path, the new transfer station will have flair instead of function. Waste management debt will be used to fund unrelated goals, while regional improvements still beg for attention. Metro’s systems planning manager says both of the current transfer stations in Portland and Oregon City are “at capacity” and “increasingly costly to operate.” Metro should focus on improving waste management, not adding expensive extras. If the region really needs a new transfer station, there is no room for frills.
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Oregon couldn’t let a new year commence without the rollout of a new tax increase.
Voters passed Measure 108 last year which increases cigarette and cigar taxes and establishes a new tax on vaping products beginning January 1, 2021.
The measure was approved by 65% of voters, likely because it was painted as an effort to reduce smoking and help low-income Oregonians by directing 90% of funds to the Oregon Health Plan. However, once in practice these new changes will have unintended consequences.
First, the taxes are regressive and will hurt low-income Oregonians. A recent study found that “low socioeconomic status is generally associated with a high prevalence of cigarette smoking.” It’s absurd that the state is taxing some of the very same people these medical services are supposed to help.
Second, only 10% of raised funds will go to tobacco-use prevention and cessation. It’s clear the purpose of these taxes is to fill a budget hole, not to help tobacco users quit their addiction. E-cigarettes and vaping products, both safer alternatives to cigarettes, will now be taxed. One study found that for every 10% increase in e-cigarette prices, sales dropped by 26%, leading to an increase in traditional cigarette use.
If officials are truly committed to protecting public health by reducing cigarette use, they should allocate a higher percentage of the taxes’ revenue to smoking cessation and prevention programs.
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When businesses fail, they shut down. But when the government shuts down businesses, it simply increases taxes. More than 85% of Oregon businesses will pay higher unemployment insurance rates in 2021. This is after lockdowns and restrictions forced their workers to use unemployment benefits in the first place. Most businesses pay unemployment insurance taxes into Oregon’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which the state distributes to employees that are laid off without cause.
Oregon’s pandemic response shut down hundreds of businesses, but its effects will continue to dampen economic recovery. Higher unemployment insurance tax rates mean that fewer people can go back to work. And any delay in employment furthers economic instability.
Oregon boasts “one of the healthiest [trust funds] in the nation.” The reserves are meant to supply benefits for 18 months and there is $4.1 billion in the fund today. So why should businesses have to increase their unemployment taxes? If it were up to employers, they would gladly hire their workers back instead! As revenues struggle above break-even, businesses should not be responsible for government restrictions that increase the use of unemployment benefits.
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If a homeless person asks you to find them shelter space, could you do it? It’s harder than you think. That’s because Portland lacks a key piece of a shelter system. No one knows which shelters have space or how much space is available. The first step in sheltering people is knowing where space exists. Without a tracking system, campsites spiral out of control, while their residents suffer. People with mental health problems and drug addictions are effectively cut off from recovery options.
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As government-imposed shutdowns continue, more Oregonians are struggling to pay their electricity bills. Portland General Electric reported in June that arrears (when payment is 31 days past due or more) were up 41% compared to the same time last year. Economic hardship likely will persist for many people long after the COVID-19 vaccine is distributed.
It’s clear that Oregon ratepayers need relief. One way for legislators to provide such relief would be to eliminate the Public Purpose Charge (PPC) energy tax, or to allow Oregonians to opt out of it.
This 3% tax has been paid by PGE and PacifiCorp ratepayers since 2002. It was originally intended to last 10 years to help fund energy conservation and to subsidize the renewable energy industry until it became market competitive. The PPC has since been extended to 2026.
A recent Cascade Policy Institute report found the PPC’s ten-year mission has been met and recommends the tax should not be further extended. Just as intended, the most cost-effective programs were completed in the early years of the tax, leading to a 73% increase in costs per unit of energy saved. The cost of installing solar has decreased 76% between 1999 and 2019. Thus, it appears the solar industry no longer needs PPC subsidies to be market competitive.
Ending the PPC is long overdue. And doing this during a recession would be a great way to immediately aid many struggling Oregonians.
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President Trump is not the only one refusing to accept election results. The general manager of TriMet, Doug Kelsey, is claiming that the $3 billion Tigard light rail project is still alive, even though Portland-area voters rejected a proposed funding measure by a wide margin last month.
At a recent public meeting, Mr. Kelsey stated that Tigard light rail would be built eventually because “demand still exists.”
That is a complete fantasy. Peak-hour ridership on all MAX lines during October was down 72% from a year ago. Unlike driving levels, which have nearly returned to normal, transit ridership has remained depressed over the past 9 months. Transit riders have simply moved on to other options.
Rail transit in particular requires high levels of both residential and worker density, but COVID has induced a mass exodus of workers from downtown Portland. Many of these changes will become permanent. Employers have discovered that remote working is not only feasible, it’s preferred by many employees.
Where is the value proposition for a network of slow trains to the city center if few people need to go there?
The TriMet board should start downsizing the agency immediately, and the easiest first step would be to cancel a rail line that doesn’t yet exist.
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Clearly, in the middle of a turbulent year, Oregon businesses’ innovation and creativity shine through, despite the heavy weight of lockdowns and restrictions. Even so, the next few months will be critical for many local businesses. Oregonians should rally behind their local businesses this holiday season. That might be the Christmas miracle we all need.
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Oregon’s government is finally feeling the pain of lockdowns. Last April, an executive order banned the eviction of tenants based on non-payment until June 30, 2020. This action has been extended twice and currently ends January 1st.
Now that the year is coming to a close, the Legislature is deciding whether to extend the moratorium for another six months or let it sunset. But this time, constituents have guided the current proposals to send $100 million from the state's general fund to renters and property owners to relieve back rent.
Kate Brown initiated the moratorium because many people have lost jobs and are likely to miss rent. But it is largely due to lockdown mandates that have directly limited the ability of people to earn a living.
But it’s not only property owners that deserve compensation for the damages associated with government mandates. Lockdowns have restricted restaurants, cinemas, and offices all over Oregon from earning a living. To align the interests of the public and private sector, everyone damaged by government mandated lockdowns strategies should receive reimbursement for their losses. The politicians who say, “We’re all in this together” should put their money where their mouths are and face the financial consequences of their decisions.
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COVID-19 cases are spiking in Oregon and hospitals across the state are struggling to keep up. The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reports that over 80% of Oregon’s adult Intensive Care Unit beds are full. But the OHA has continued to suppress health care facilities and services, by using Certificate of Need (CON) laws. For more than 50 years, Oregon has required health care facilities to demonstrate a “need” for any new or expanded facilities. Throughout the lengthy certificate of need process, competing providers are permitted to provide evidence showing that current and future demand for services can be satisfied by existing facilities. In this way, existing providers can block the entry of newcomers. In the best of times, stifling the supply of health care facilities can be life threatening. During a pandemic, it can be catastrophic.
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The quintessential American holiday, Thanksgiving evolved from the Pilgrims’ celebrations to thank God for the harvests that saved Plymouth Colony. What most people didn’t learn in school is that nearly half the Mayflower Pilgrims died of starvation because many refused to work in the fields.
Plymouth Colonyoriginally had a socialist economy. Land and crops were held in common. In the words of Governor William Bradford, “the young men who were most able objected to being forced to spend their time and strength working for other men’s wives and children without any recompense.” Collectivism incentivized colonists needlessly to rely on the efforts of others. Realizing this, Governor Bradford assigned each household its own plot of land. Families could keep what they produced or trade for things they needed. The result was a bountiful harvest in 1623.
Instituting private property and respecting the autonomy of the family unit caused Plymouth to survive. Collectivism and central planning produce scarcity. Private property, free markets, and personal responsibility lead to prosperity and plenty. A healthy economy, with strong and independent families, enables a community to help those who genuinely need assistance. All are important lessons for America today from William Bradford’s first Thanksgiving.
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The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates up to 500,000 birds are killed annually in the United States due to wind turbine collisions. The number of deaths will continue to increase as more turbines populate our nation’s landscape.
Raptors are especially vulnerable to colliding with wind turbines due to their flight patterns. They typically soar during high winds, bringing them in line with spinning turbines that appear to them as nothing more than a blur.
The first wind farm to formally ask the Fish and Wildlife Service for permission to harm golden eagles is located right here in Central Oregon. The Obama Administration later passed a rule allowing energy companies to apply for 30-year permits for any “non-intentional eagle deaths at wind farms.”
However, Norwegian researchers may have a simple solution to save their lives.
Dr. Roel May from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research presented a decade-long study to the Oregon House Committee on Natural Resources earlier this year about how black paint could minimize fatalities.
Researchers painted one turbine blade black, reducing the “motion smear” that makes it difficult for birds to see the spinning blades. The result was an astonishing 71% decrease in collisions.
Wind farms should not get a free pass to kill a protected species. However, if the government continues to turn a blind eye, wind farms should at least consider the results of this study and paint turbine blades black to save our birds.
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Governor Kate Brown recently decided to take her Coronavirus “two-week pause” one step further by issuing an aggressive statewide “two-week freeze” running from November 18th through December 2nd (with an additional two weeks for Multnomah County).
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Among its many restrictions, the freeze forces restaurants and bars to offer take-out only, and gyms, museums, and many indoor entertainment activities will be required to close once again.
The freeze comes at a time when more Oregon restaurants and bars are permanently shutting their doors due to lost revenue from the pandemic. Unfortunately, they will feel some of the hardest effects of the freeze even though health officials found that restaurants are not to blame for the recent rise in covid cases. Oregon health officials stated that social gatherings, including at least five Halloween events and parties, are the main culprits for the case increase over the past few weeks.
According to the president of the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Association, “Few cases of the virus have been linked to the state's food and drink establishments, which provide a needed refuge.” Placing stricter rules on restaurants and bars may very well backfire on officials as Oregonians shift their outings elsewhere, increasing the number of private gatherings where social distancing is less likely than in a formal restaurant setting.
Restaurants represent many Oregonians’ livelihoods and should not be used as a scapegoat for the state. Governor Brown should rescind her restriction on restaurants.
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“What is going on?” That’s what many Oregon parents are asking as their kids struggle with online learning, all while public officials flip-flop on education policies during a wave of COVID-19 cases.
On October 30th, Governor Kate Brown added to the mayhem. On the same day the state announced a record breaking number of cases, the governor rolled out relaxed safety standards for reopening Oregon elementary schools. Since then, the case count has climbed higher by the day.
The Oregon Department of Education explained that the change in direction was because the benefit of in-person education outweighed the risk of spreading the disease. But why was this announced when cases are at an all time high...after two months of distance learning?
The governor’s relaxed standards at a time when cases are trending dramatically in the wrong direction is a cognitive dissonance for exhausted parents who have been told that keeping their kids behind a laptop was for the greater good.
Students and families can’t afford to ride the ODE’s wave of ever-changing priorities and promises. A money-back guarantee would be a lifeline for students struggling in the public school system and needing a solution urgently. Oregon needs to make school choice a priority during the 2021 legislative session. Children’s futures depend on it.
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While many people in the Portland region value efficient governments, prevailing wage laws are rarely questioned. Prevailing wage laws drain tax-payer funded resources by increasing the labor costs of public construction projects such as affordable housing. These laws were originally enacted to shut out minorities from construction jobs in the 1930s. Portland and Metro are currently using more than $900 million in tax dollars to build affordable housing projects. Both jurisdictions are subject to prevailing wage laws that significantly decrease their efficiency.
Portland and Metro’s housing bonds are already spending roughly $300 thousand per new unit, which is nearly double market-rate projects. The Bond Stakeholder Advisory Group of the Portland Housing Bureau found that “[p]revailing wage typically increases the labor costs in a project by approximately 12% to 18%.” This means fewer housing units can be built.
One of Portland’s recent projects avoided paying prevailing wages by limiting the number of project-based vouchers that their building contained. This clearly shows that prevailing wages inhibit the creation of affordable housing. To increase efficiency in affordable housing construction, Oregon must end prevailing wage laws.
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Did you know that more than three-fourths of Metro’s park lands purchased with bonds since 1995 are hidden from the public? You might as well call Metro’s lands haunted.
Metro has no problems with this fact, no matter how shocking this number is to its residents. In fact, with its newest land acquisition -- an 86-acre property in the Sandy River Basin -- Metro makes it painstakingly clear that this land (along with its 1,400 acres already in the area) is not for human use.
What will the land accomplish for taxpayers? Unfortunately, the answer is a bundle of vague promises, none of which help the average Oregonian. For example, Metro promises that the land will “improve landscape connectivity and climate resilience” as well as “provide potential opportunities for native plant harvest by Indigenous communities.”
These promises have very little to do with Metro’s residents and everything to do with Metro’s mission creep. You might as well call it “nature creep” because the restoration and conservation work supposedly occurring on 88% of Metro’s properties has no end date. Even Metro’s promised Chehalem Ridge park, which has been undergoing supposed restoration for over a decade, will periodically close to visitors for restoration once finally opened.
It’s time for Metro to stop investing in haunted lands and end its nature creep. Taxpayers should encourage Metro to use its 2019 bond money to build more parks that are useful to the public.
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Metro is proposing $5.2 billion in additional payroll taxes to fund a train that creates congestion, a pedestrian bridge that is minutes away from another, and a roundabout that cost over 18 times its original price. Rachel and Vlad go over some ridiculous flaws in Metro’s Measure 26-218 and urge a “no” vote.
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On Thursday, October 15, Portland General Electric pulled the plug on the Boardman Coal Plant, PGE’s largest power plant. Boardman had a nameplate capacity of 550 firm megawatts of power and was decommissioned 20 years prematurely.
While environmentalists celebrate the plant’s closure, utility executives are still trying to figure out how they will keep the lights on in our region.
That’s because the more coal plants our region removes from the grid, the more likely we are to experience future blackouts. Multiple studies from groups like the Northwest Power Pool, E3, and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council all reached the same conclusion: Our region will have a shortage of power by the mid-2020s that could lead to blackouts and extreme price volatility.
Curious about what this would look like? Look no further than California. In August, the state experienced rolling blackouts because it leaned too heavily on imports and didn’t have enough of its own firm power.
Our utilities aren’t far behind. Large Northwest utilities plan on investing in wind, solar, batteries, and—like California—market purchases.
To avoid California’s same fate, our utilities and officials need to acknowledge that an intermittent resource powered grid is not a reliable or an affordable grid. Instead of celebrating Boardman’s closure, they should invest in firm power sources like natural gas and clean nuclear power.
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A RealClear Opinion poll released at the end of September revealed that parents with children in school increasingly—and overwhelmingly—favor the concept of school choice. More than 2,000 registered voters were asked this question:
“Recent federal legislation gave governors new funding they can use for K-12 education. Some governors have let families control the funds for the purchase of education technology and materials, private school tuition, and home education. Would you support or oppose your governor sending the funding directly to families and allowing them to choose how to use those funds to support their child’s education?”
Seventy-eight percent of public school parents and 79% of non-public school parents supported that statement.
As families today struggle with school situations that aren’t meeting their children’s learning needs, options have suddenly become necessary for many parents, especially low-income and single parents. If their zoned public schools aren’t working for their children or families, Oregon parents should get a kind of “money-back guarantee” that will enable them to make other arrangements. One simple way to do this would be an Education Savings Account program, like those already operating in other states. ESA programs give parents control of a portion of their state’s allocated education funding, which they can use to pay for out-of-pocket education expenses.
An ESA program would be a lifeline for Oregon families whose kids are not being served well by their zoned public schools. The purpose of education funding should be educating students, and all parents should be empowered to obtain a quality education for their kids.
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On October 2, Helping Hands unveiled its latest transitional housing facility. After Wapato Jail collected dust for 14 years, Jordan Schnitzer bought the facility to create a homeless shelter. Allen Evans, someone who spent years battling homelessness, was eventually tapped to lead the effort. During months-long negotiations and media coverage, many public officials denounced the plan to house homeless people in what they still thought of as a jail. If a deal had not been made, the whole building would have been demolished.
All of their concerns were addressed by Helping Hands, the data-driven nonprofit organization that is now set to offer transitional housing to the homeless population. Under the leadership of Allen Evans, Helping Hands worked with many organizations to supply the Bybee Lakes Hope Center with education, internet access, and transportation.
At the grand opening, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler admitted, “Government couldn’t do it alone.” Even when a solution was presented, the government didn’t back the shelter for months. The philanthropic community and private businesses banded together to solve a problem in an innovative way without the need for public money. To solve homelessness, Portland should embrace public-private partnerships that are led by people who know how to get things done.
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Listen to Helen Doran, program assistant for External Affairs at Cascade Policy Institute, talk about her homeschooling background and how this drives her support for school choice!
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Hardly a week goes by that Metro isn’t reaching into your pocketbook or getting deeper in debt. This week, Metro will move forward on issuing $28 million in bonds.
Why does Metro need to borrow $28 million? There are two reasons.
First, Metro needs the money because that’s how much it’s going to cost to set up its new system to collect TWO new income taxes that go into effect in the New Year. We warned you it would be expensive to implement two new taxes on short order. But, even we had no idea it would cost a whopping $28 million. It takes a lot of money to take a lot of money.
Believe it or not, the second reason is even worse. Metro is out of money.
Since Lynn Peterson began leading Metro, the regional government has more than quadrupled its debt load and now has more than $1 billion in debt.
And that’s where the problems really are. Metro has never brought in enough money to cover its expenses. Out of control spending combined with reduced revenues because of the pandemic have worsened its shortfall.
As a result, Metro is under enormous pressure to raise more money from taxes, fees, and charges. They’ve dug us into a hole, and the only way they can fill it is with our tax dollars.
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Listen now to Dr. Eric Fruits and a roundtable discussion about providing a money-back guarantee for Oregon public education. This recording comes from Cascade Policy Institute's September 24th virtual policy picnic. To learn about future events, be sure to visit cascadepolicy.org and sign up for our newsletter for more information.
Oregon parents are concerned about the increasing inequity in education because of distance learning and the lack of support from the ODE. In Cascade Policy Institute’s online "Policy Picnic," Dr. Eric Fruits explains why the quickest and most effective way to achieve equity during the COVID-19 pandemic would be to support students directly by providing each student with as much as $10,500 from the State School Fund. This gives students more options for a quality education as well as responsibility back to the parents.
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Oregon’s very own NuScale Power, a nuclear company developing small-modular reactors (SMRs), has officially received a final safety evaluation report from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NuScale is the first company to be issued a report for an SMR by the Commission, and receiving one serves as a technical review and design approval for the new technology.
This is a major milestone for NuScale which originally submitted its certification application in 2016, and puts it one step closer to installing its first 720-megawatt plant in Idaho Falls.
This is also good news for the Northwest, which is in need of reliable baseload energy in the future based on predictions that we’ll experience insufficient energy resources by the mid-2020s.
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council estimates the earliest commercial online date for an SMR plant in our region is 2030. The Council forecasts its potential maximum build-out to be 3,420-megawatts, produced by five reference plants.
However, no new SMR plant can currently be built in Oregon due to a moratorium passed by voters in 1980. Legislation was considered in 2017 to carve-out an exception for SMRs, however, it never made it out of House Committee after passing through the Senate.
Recent blackouts in California and upcoming coal-plant retirements in the Northwest have established unique circumstances that call for additional reliable resources. Oregon officials should reintroduce legislation that would allow us to take advantage of NuScale’s new nuclear technology.
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Public school parents are now part of the educational workforce, except they’re not getting compensated. There is an equitable solution to this.
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Freedom is America's precious treasure - and never too far from being lost. Despite the unprecedented events of 2020, let's remember to pause and reflect on this day of remembrance for all who died and were affected by the events of September 11th, 2001. Freedom is a gift. Let's never forget it.
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"Metro spent years finding ways to spend money on transportation projects, while spending about two months figuring out how to pay for it. They only settled on a payroll tax because polling was good."
Listen to Vlad Yurlov talk about Metro's newest tax measure, a $5.2 billion dollar payroll tax that will primarily go to building a light rail to Bridgeport.
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President Trump is frequently accused of lying. But, he doesn’t have a monopoly on falsehood. Look around the Portland region and you’ll see our local politicians lying to us time after time. And their lies have real consequences.
Listen to Dr. Eric Fruits, Vice President of Research at Cascade Policy Institute, talk about Metro's "Get Moving 2020" measure and how Metro is deceiving voters.
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California’s recent blackouts should serve as a warning to officials in the Northwest as we continue to increasingly crowd out fossil-fuel plants in favor of renewable alternatives.
The rolling blackouts were a “perfect storm” of events, resulting from sudden drops in solar and wind power, a heatwave driving up demand, the sudden loss of a natural gas powered plant, and the inability to import electricity from neighboring states dealing with their own extreme heat.
Over the past decade, California has replaced natural gas plants with solar and wind power as part of its efforts to reach 100% renewable energy by 2045. In fact, California reduced natural-gas consumption by 21% between 2014 and 2018, while increasing renewable energy capacity by 54%.
To make up for the loss of reliable baseload power during times when solar and wind aren’t producing power, California has increased its reliance on importing power from neighboring states. This risky tactic left California vulnerable when its own resources failed to produce sufficient power.
Oregon isn’t immune to threats of blackouts: Officials warn we may face a capacity deficit of thousands of megawatts due to planned coal plant closures, which may result in both extreme price volatility and blackouts by the mid-2020s. To avoid California’s fate, our region needs to continue utilizing reliable baseload resources such as natural gas, nuclear, and hydropower. Otherwise, officials may risk keeping Oregonians in the dark.
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Metro tried to predict the future of the tri-county region in 1995. Now, 20 years into the 40-year plan, Cooper Conway explains how this prediction has affected Oregonians today.
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Oregon guidelines for the 2020 fall semester have been remarkably inconsistent, causing confusion and mayhem for faculty, parents, and students alike. The Oregon Department of Education recently released new guidelines that allow students with special needs to have limited in-person instruction but with reduced hours and class size. This includes students with disabilities, English language learners, and those enrolled in career technical education (CTE) programs.
But even these guidelines are dependent on the absence of Covid-19 cases among staff and students for two weeks.This doesn’t guarantee a stable learning environment for students that need stability the most.
The guidelines also fail to explicitly address those affected by the decision to continue virtual learning in the fall. What happens to the student experiencing homelessness who has no access to a hotspot? What about the single mother who has to choose between keeping a job and staying at home with her child?
It’s time to face the reality that Oregon’s public school system cannot guarantee a “one-size fits all” solution for students this fall. A money-back guarantee for K-12 education would go a long way in empowering parents to find the stability they need in uncertain times.
Every parent and every child find themselves uniquely affected by the pandemic. They deserve unique solutions too. Let’s put the money in the hands of the parents, not the system.
I’m Helen Doran, program assistant for external affairs at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free-market think tank.
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Joe Rogan, the outspoken commenter, comedian, and host, announced on a recent episode of his popular podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” that he would be moving to Texas in search of less homelessness, less taxes, and a little bit more freedom.
Rogan will be bringing his business that recently signed a 100-million-dollar deal with Spotify, too. The move to the Lone Star state will save Rogan and his company over $13 million in taxes and provide more economic growth for the state that is the perennial winner of the Governor’s Cup for economic growth and job creation.
Unlike California, Texas has no income tax and frequently poaches businesses from the West Coast, such as Tesla, Charles Schwab, and McKesson.
Oregon, whose top income tax rate is slightly under California’s at 10 percent, should note the multiple businesses fleeing California for Texas and follow Texas’s tax policy lead instead of California’s.
Amid a pandemic, now more than ever is the time for economic development and job creation to flood Oregon, allowing Oregonians to succeed. The implementation of free-market solutions such as lower-income taxes will alleviate local business owners from the damage that COVID has done while allowing more Oregonians to rejoin the workforce.
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Once again, Oregon’s legislature has succumbed to shortsighted politics. Effective June 30, House Bill 4213 prohibits landlords from evicting tenants due to nonpayment until next April, regardless of their circumstances.
Of course, there could be many reasons tenants might not pay their rent. One of the most pressing is Oregon’s lockdown policy, which effectively prohibited many businesses and entire industries from operating, and their employees from supporting themselves. While these conditions may warrant legislative action, people who have continued to earn an income may simply choose to delay their rent payments.
By being so broadly applied, this legislation will harm landlords, particularly small private owners who still must pay utilities and property taxes on their units. But property owners won’t be alone in suffering. This moratorium will make it even harder for people to find apartments for rent, because only the most secure tenants would be considered during a time when anyone can simply put off their payments. In addition, the end of the moratorium likely will bring more debt, eviction, and ultimately homelessness to an already stretched system.
Legislators should understand that seemingly simplistic quick fixes can cause long-run damage. This legislation will push Oregon from having a health crisis to an even deeper housing crisis. Laws should be made with specificity, not reactionary haste.
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Last week, the United States officially surpassed 4 million documented coronavirus cases. With only a few weeks before students return to school, parents in Oregon are scrambling to find—or create—a safe and effective learning environment for their children.
Of the options available, some parents believe they have found the best solution for their family with micro-schools.
Micro-schools are small groups of children that learn at home. The parents of children in micro-schools pool their resources to hire a teacher, or instead become teachers themselves by obtaining teaching materials through homeschooling programs.
However, some families cannot afford a private teacher’s salary, even if they pool their funds with other parents. Parents who can’t or won’t send their children to public schools deserve to get their kids’ share of state instruction funds.
It’s a matter of equity. If public schools can’t safely and effectively provide education, the funds should flow to families so they can find a solution that works for them and their children. Putting schooling funds directly into the family’s hands allows for maximum flexibility when the local government school is unable to provide an option that parents feel comfortable with.
Parents know what options are best for their children, and Oregon lawmakers should allow all families, not just wealthy ones, to have the same access to those options.
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TriMet’s weekly system boardings were down 68% in May compared to last year due to the Coronavirus, and ridership will likely stay down since the CDC is recommending that people avoid transit altogether. But it’s not just the pandemic; ridership has been dropping for years.
TriMet’s revenues have increased by 171 percent since 2000, while the agency’s ridership (number of originating rides) has increased by only 18 percent. However, ridership peaked in 2012 and has since dropped by 7 percent between 2012 and 2019.
The negative trend for ridership is primarily due to a drop in light rail utilization. Since the peak in 2012, bus ridership has decreased by 2% while light rail has decreased by 12% (a difference of just under one million for bus and 4.2 million for light rail).
Since 2000, TriMet has constructed four new light rail lines: the Red Line (2001), Yellow Line (2004), Green Line (2009), and Orange Line (2015). However, the costly increase in light rail capacity has not corresponded with a similar increase in ridership.
TriMet seems to have learned the wrong lesson from this underperformance. The agency is proposing a $2.6-2.8 billion light rail line from Downtown Portland to the Bridgeport Village mall, nearly $1 billion of which TriMet expects will be paid for by Metro’s Get Moving 2020 transportation measure.
The Southwest Corridor project is the wrong investment for our region. Portland Metro area voters should vote “no” on Metro’s transportation measure this fall.
Learn more at nomorefailedrail.com or cascadepolicy.org.
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Listen to Cascade's Policy Analyst, Vlad Yurlov, advise in a July 16th testimony against Metro's Get Moving 2020 measure, which will now be referred to the voters on the November ballot.
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On March 16, Governor Kate Brown directed Oregon schools to stop in-person classes to slow the spread of COVID-19. Facing an uncertain future for “brick and mortar” schooling, 300 Oregon students completed the process to transfer to one of Oregon’s 14 online charter schools.
Eleven days after the shutdown of in-person schools, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) prevented additional student transfers to online charter schools. Jeff Kropf, the founder of Oregon Connections Academy, estimated that around 1,600 students were unable to move to his school because of ODE’s decision to freeze further transfers.
ODE’s decision curtailed thousands of students from reaching their full learning potential this past semester. However, policymakers have a rare chance to right these wrongs going forward.
Nine states have reported spikes in COVID-19 this past month, and a similar situation may occur this coming fall. Given the uncertainties about the safety and feasibility of reopening all Oregon schools, lawmakers should allow parents to choose what kind of school in which to enroll their children. The resulting increase in competition among charter, private, and public schools will encourage all education providers to adapt to the current circumstances to provide the best education possible for students.
In addition to increasing the educational opportunities that will be available for students, rolling back unnecessary regulation of charter schools will put more power over education choices into the hands of parents, where it belongs.
Learn more at info@cascadepolicy.org or at cascadepolicy.org.
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Listen to Dr. Bill Conerly's May 14th Policy Picnic presentation, "Oregon’s Policy Response to the COVID Pandemic (or What Would Friedrich Hayek Say about Kate Brown’s Shelter-in-Place Order?)"
Dr. Bill Conerly is an Oregon economist with a global reputation. He is a Senior Contributor to Forbes with a Duke University Ph.D. As a consultant, he connects the dots between the economy and business. He is chairman of the board of directors of Cascade Policy Institute.
Dr. Conerly’s articles are at Forbes.com. He is also the author of The Flexible Stance: Thriving in a Boom/Bust Economy (2017) as well as Businomics (2007). He has been interviewed on PBS, CNN and CNBC, and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, and Willamette Week.
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On June 25th, Metro approved $700,000 in taxpayer money for what is best entitled a nice sentiment: Metro’s Nature in Neighborhoods program. The program hopes to improve water quality and wildlife habitats through grants to local organizations that promote racial and cultural equality.
But the program has a serious flaw: Success is not easily measured, despite the large amount of taxpayer dollars flowing into the grants.
Metro’s approved recipients for 2020 demonstrate the subjectivity of the program. Objectives include bringing “healing to the community and landscape through Traditional Indigenous healing practices” as well as building “youth of color’s relationship around the water and waterways.”
Perhaps an important question is whether our local government should be exploring these objectives with taxpayer dollars, especially during this time of economic instability. Ironically, Metro councilor Craig Dirkensen came close to this question when he asked whether Metro’s grant program was unique. The simple answer was “no.” Similar programs do exist, just not at taxpayers’ expense.
Metro should get out of the grant business and into the park-building business. The Nature in Neighborhoods program is yet another example of how Metro consumes taxpayer dollars without measurable benchmarks for success.
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Listen to Rachel's June 30th presentation, "Grid Reliability and Resource Adequacy in the Northwest:"
Multiple coal plants will be decommissioned over the next decade, with Oregon's only coal plant closing at the end of 2020. This means that thousands of megawatts of reliable power will be taken off the grid and "brownouts" could occur as soon as this year. Instead of replacing the lost megawatts with equally reliable power, local utilities are planning on purchasing contracts and increasing investments in renewable resources. This could spell trouble for grid reliability, and affordability, in the Northwest.
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On July 1st, the Portland area’s minimum wage will increase from $12.50 per hour to $13.25. This wage increase is part of a multi-year phase-in of Oregon’s three-tiered minimum wage law, passed by the State Legislature in 2016.
Andy Ricker, Michelin star chef and owner of Portland’s Pok Pok restaurant, foresaw the adverse effects of raising the minimum wage in 2016 when he told the Portland Business Journal that three of his restaurants would close partly due to the hikes in the minimum wage.
Four years later, his prophecy came true—and then some—with an Instagram post on June 15th announcing the closure of four of his restaurants based in Oregon. Sadly, Ricker’s former employees will join more than 41 million workers who have filed for unemployment since the coronavirus pandemic started.
Now is not the time to increase the costs of running businesses in Portland. Oregon lawmakers should extend a helping hand to those who are hurting and embrace free-market policies, not price job creators out of the market. Oregon should stop the economic bleeding and roll back regulations that were ill-conceived in the first place. Continuing to add to them when so many businesses are struggling to reopen their doors will only worsen the economic downturn and hurt Oregonians for years to come.
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By Kathryn Hickock
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 30 in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenuethat states’ school choice laws may not discriminate against religiously affiliated schools.
Montana’s tax credit scholarship program, passed in 2015, enabled families to send their children to the private schools of their choice. The program was ruled unconstitutional by the Montana Supreme Court because some participating students wanted to apply their scholarships to religious schools, which the Department of Revenue argued violated the state’s Blaine Amendment. The Institute for Justice (IJ) appealed this decision on behalf of parents, arguing that the Court’s decision violated the Free Exercise, Equal Protection, and Establishment Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
The Supreme Court decided in favor of the Montana parents, stating that “[a] State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”
Reacting to the Court’s ruling, IJ’s president and general counsel Scott Bullock commented:
The Montana high court claimed, as [educational] choice opponents have for decades, that allowing parents like Kendra [Espinoza] to [use a tax credit scholarship at a religious school] violated the state constitution’s Blaine Amendment—which forbids state funding of so-called sectarian institutions. The U.S. Supreme Court made clear in its ruling today that it was wrong. As Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, “Drawing on ‘enduring American tradition,’” the Court has long recognized the rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.
Back in 1926, another private school controversy made it all the way to the Supreme Court. With the goal of preventing students from choosing a Catholic education, the state of Oregon had outlawed all private schools. In the landmark ruling Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the Supreme Court wrote that “[t]he fundamental theory of liberty…excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only.”
Parents have a right to direct the education of their children—they did in 1926 and they still do today. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Espinoza v. Montana upholds parental choice in education by ensuring that state-run school choice programs don’t discriminate on the basis of religion.
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Alcohol-lovers may have a reason for a toast. Oregon’s Liquor Control Commission is taking steps to decrease regulations on sellers, thereby expanding economic opportunity in the food and beverage industry, which was hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 crisis.
Alcohol sales are tightly controlled by the OLCC, which imposes stringent rules on individuals and businesses before, during, and after alcohol purchases. When restaurants and bars had to close their doors to on-site service due to Oregon’s coronavirus response, the OLCC temporarily relaxed some rules regarding alcohol delivery. Because these rules are temporary, though, Oregonians’ easier access to wine and microbrews could once again be limited before this fall.
Recently, the OLCC has begun a process to make the temporary relaxation permanent. These changes would allow increased flexibility in how alcohol can be delivered to customers and increase the hours during which alcohol may be purchased. The changes raise the question of why such burdensome restrictions were imposed in the first place.
When Oregon has to close a door, we can open a window. Let’s keep economic freedom for Oregon businesses and customers at the forefront of Oregon’s rule-making process.
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George Floyd’s tragic death has led to growing calls for changes to antiquated policing systems. The recent protests asking for police reform over these past few weeks have caused many families to question the systemic discrimination that is hardwired into the assignment of students to public schools.
Census data reports U.S. spending per student has nearly tripled since 1960—and that’s after accounting for inflation. Oregon now spends almost $15,000 per student per year. In Portland Public Schools, it’s $27,500 per student. Even so, Oregon ranks near the bottom of the states in graduation rates.
Despite this monumental increase in funding the government’s school system with no positive results to show, most Oregon students are assigned a school based on their street address. This isn’t an accident—it’s written into district policies. Kids from low-income neighborhoods are placed in low-income schools, while wealthy families have the option to move to neighborhoods with better schools.
School choice is social justice. There is nothing fair or equitable about forcing low-income students into failing public schools with few options to choose the school that meets their needs. Even better, let’s fund students, instead of schools. Put the funds in the student’s hands and let them choose the school that fits best.
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School choice has been increasing in popularity with parents for years. Education policies that give parents more options for their kids have been trending positively across most demographics.
Now, a late-April poll conducted by Heart + Mind Strategies reports that a majority of parents are considering changing their children’s future school enrollment. Parents were asked: “Has the impact of coronavirus on your child’s education caused you to consider changing your child’s future schooling?” Among public school parents, 14% said they are considering homeschooling, 20% said they are considering a private school, and 26% said they are considering a different public school.
Education Savings Account programs are an education funding solution that addresses the needs of parents today. ESAs give parents a kind of “money-back guarantee” if they want to opt out of their zoned public schools and choose other options. ESA programs currently operating in five states deposit a portion of the state funding that would be spent for a student in a public school into an account associated with the child’s family. Families can use those funds to pay for tuition or other education expenses.
ESA legislation can be designed to be fiscally neutral, or even net-positive, for school districts while giving parents several thousand dollars per child to spend on the school options of their choice.
COVID-19 will change the way students attend school. Out of this situation can come a chance to improve kids’ options through flexible, personalized delivery of education.
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When it comes to commuting during COVID-19, private vehicles are coming out well ahead of mass transit. The Center for Disease Control has stated that cars are a better option than transit during the crisis and has even suggested that businesses offer their employees incentives to “use forms of transportation that minimize close contact with others,” such as driving alone or biking. TriMet is seeing the effects of this recommendation firsthand. Transit use is estimated to have dropped 68% between February and May of this year as Portlanders chose to either stay at home or opt for other means of transportation.
TriMet is planning for significant revenue losses in coming years due to lost funds from payroll taxes and passenger fares. It may be years before the transit agency sees pre-COVID passenger numbers, which had already been falling since 2012 despite the addition of the Orange line in 2015. Falling ridership and revenues should come as a signal to officials to halt any further investments to the costly light rail system. Instead, Metro and TriMet continue to push for the $3 billion Southwest Corridor light rail project from Downtown Portland to the Bridgeport Village. Businesses and workers are already struggling with lost revenues and wages due to the virus. Our region doesn’t need another boondoggle, it needs relief. Metro residents should vote “no” on Metro’s proposed transportation measure this fall.
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