A service of the Taxpayer Association of Oregon Foundation.
by Andy High Many of you may not know but the Legislature gave school districts taxing authority without requiring a vote of the people. In 2007, the Legislature passed the SB 1036 which allows school districts to charge a construction excise tax. This allows school districts to charge up to $1.00 per sq foot on…
By Britt Storkson Governments today are finding it increasingly difficult to raise taxes without major public outcry and threats to their re-election. Not satisfied with cutting spending to stay within what they receive in taxes governments don’t just go away – they go somewhere else to separate taxpayers from their money. Often that somewhere else…
by Jason Williams Mel Zucker of the Oregon Transportation Institute never believed the hype about a public demand to build a light rail from Hillsboro to Forest Grove and people wanting a train from Beaverton to Wilsonville. Zucker called Tri-Met for the ridership data to see if the thriving metropolis of Forest Grove was truly…
By Larry Huss The Oregon Leadership Forum was held again at the beginning of December. It was the fourth, fifth, sixth time, I’ve lost track because they all look the same and they all follow a predictable agenda – one that is designed never to contradict the popular wisdom of Oregon’s entrenched Democrat governors. When…
By Greg Wasson It is common to lament the big, often out-of-state “abuse” of the initiative process by hearkening back to the days when Oregon initiatives were pure expressions of home-grown populist yearnings, uncontaminated by inter-state commerce. Problem is, those days existed only briefly, if ever. Less than a decade after the initiative’s creation, the…
by Kurt Weber A likely contract between Library Systems & Services, LLC and Jackson County, Oregon would reduce annual operating costs from $8.75 million to $4.3 million. The 15-branch Jackson County Library Systems has been closed since early April, due to the anticipated end of a federal timber payments program. The $4.3 million contract is…
Posted by: Gienie Assink After years of endless debate, The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is revising existing plans to replace the land use allocations and management direction proposed under the Northwest Forest Plan in order to better meet the agency’s dual goals of providing a sustained flow of timber output and providing for habitat…
by Jason Williams The federal minimum wage just went up this month from $5.15 to $5.85. How many people were trapped under this low-wage system? Turns out that only .35% of the 140 million working Americans get paid the minimum wage. Seems like the private sector is doing just fine rising wages without government mandates.…
by Andy High With talk all through out Oregon about how to make home more affordable, governments continue to continue to bring up one bad idea after another but one of the worst is Inclusionary Zoning. Inclusionary Zoning requires the developers who want to develop their land to set aside a certain portion of it…
by Kurt Weber Oregon local government officials take note of Sandy Springs, Georgia. “Indeed, the experiment in Sandy Springs, Ga., has proved that local governments don’t need hundreds of public employees to function. Sandy Springs, a fast-growing town of more than 80,000 residents, has only four public employees who are not involved with public safety.…