Oregon needs a flat tax, not sales tax By Jason Williams Also featured in Brainstorm Magazine May 2005 The tax reform Oregon needs is to flatten our income tax into a flat tax.  Reduce, simplify and streamline is the answer to our state’s tax woes.  An ideal state flat tax would tax all income levels…

READ MORE

Facts, history, truth missing in stadium debates

By Steve Schopp In a newspaper story last year about Portland’s effort to lure major league baseball, there was some interesting points to be found about those cities trying to lure the Expos baseball team. Different positives and negatives were featured in writing about these cities. The city, Charlotte North Carolina, had a negative check…

READ MORE

People should be trusted to use own free will

By Jay Bozievich From the presidential race down to the Oregon ballot measures, many choices in this election boil down to trust: Do you trust people to use their own free will? How you answer that question will determine how you vote. President Bush’s proposals on reforms to rescue Social Security from bankruptcy hinge on…

READ MORE

Join the Team and Play The Game

By Hon. Thomas Wilde, Our legislature was established for one primary purpose, to establish a balanced budget. All else is superfluous, from a constitutional perspective. However, in that exclusive club better known as the legislature, there is a “team” mentality. Many a fine legislator is pulled into the mistaken belief that those on the “team”…

READ MORE

82.5% OF 10th GRADERS FAIL STATE MATH TEST

By Rob Kremer, Oregon Education Coalition The Dramatic Drop in Scores from Last Year Illustrates Flaws in Oregon’s Assessment System Nearly eight out of ten sophomores at Oregon high schools failed to meet the state standard in this winter’s tenth grade math problem-solving assessment. “This further illustrates the serious validity and reliability problems that plague…

READ MORE

Health Care Reform

By Rep. Ron Maurer The hysteria whipped up by liberal “universalist” politicos is utterly amazing. It underlies the reality that they cannot, they do not, and they will not debate healthcare reform on the merits of the arguments. A first-order assumption in their argument is that universal healthcare is the desired goal. This premise belies…

READ MORE

Universal Health Care Examined

By Larry Huss Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has introduced his version of universal healthcare.  Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has introduced her modified version of universal healthcare backing up, at least initially, from her widely repudiated version proposed during the Clinton years.  Both suffer from two significant defects – first, they put the government in…

READ MORE