A service of the Taxpayer Association of Oregon Foundation.
By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation, If you’re wondering how Oregon’s drug users get the money to buy all that fentanyl, Willamette Week has an answer: the Bottle Bill. According to the article, it takes only 50 cans to get enough bottle deposit money to buy a daily dose of fentanyl. “Canners” root through garbage…
By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation Again the Hillsboro Hops baseball team is asking the State Legislature, this February for an immediate $20 million (on top of $18 million already from lodging taxes) or it will be forced to leave Oregon. National league baseball standards demand the Hillsboro team update their ballpark which will cost…
By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation, An audit indicates the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department erred nearly 30 percent of the time while distributing $426 million in emergency rental assistance during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office audit of 61 payments indicates the agency’s staff, in 17 of those cases, failed…
By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation Wow! Oregon home-grown and much praised coffee company, Dutch Bros., is moving 40% of its support staff to Arizona. They say it because that is where the growth is. True. Oregon is shrinking in population. Arizona is in the top 5 population growth states. Oregon is in the top…
By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation, A prominent researcher at Oregon Health & Science University accused by several women of secretly photographing them in a required class received a $46,000 President’s Recognition Award bonus as he left his job. Dr. Daniel Marks, a pediatric endocrinologist who worked 26 years at OHSU as senior associate dean…
By Bob Clark, Economist Guest submission for Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation, The above chart is of per person real after-tax income by selected state (after-tax income adjusted by the state’s relative cost of living). It is compiled from U.S Bureau of Economics, a department of the Federal government, data (released on December 14,…
By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation, Doxo reports that Portland makes the top 12 utility cost cities. This now puts utility costs among the nation’s highest along with taxes, fees, gas prices, cost of living and housing costs. The U.S. average bill is $351. Oregon utility bills exceeded the U.S. national average at $363 per…
By Jason Williams Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation, Veronica Guerin is a superb 2003 true-life story featuring Kate Blanchett as she plays the Irish journalist who took on the drug lords and was murdered for it. In the 1990’s, drugs and crime were experiencing a surge in Ireland. Newspapers were reluctant to report on it.…
By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation, Oregon voters who approved Measure 10 decriminalizing drugs thought addicts who received a $100 ticket would call a hotline to have the fee waived—and receive treatment needed to beat their addiction. But that didn’t happen. Between implementation of the law in February 2021 and September 2023, law enforcement officers…
By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation The real estate potential of the Portland metro area continues to linger in the bottom half of a list of 80 American cities surveyed and reviewed in the Urban Land Institute’s 2024 Emerging Trends in Real Estate report, according to the Portland Business Journal. The report ranks Portland at…