A service of the Taxpayer Association of Oregon Foundation.
by Guest Opinion The Oregon Legislative Assembly is planning to convene a special session on February 4, 2008 for purposes of “testing” annual legislative sessions. Yet it is far from clear whether the Legislative Assembly has constitutional authority to convene a special session for this purpose. Article IV, Section 10 of the Oregon Constitution specifically…
by Jason Williams Gov. Kulongoski’s 20% budget increase is going to leave Oregon with a $1.3 billion dollar deficit according to preliminary budget analysis. That means the next legislature may have to pass $1.3 billion in new taxes to keep up. Contributing to the problem is the timing of when Kulongoski’s programs go into effect.…
By Dave Mowry “Oregon is taking cultural competency to a level never seen before.” Felice Goodenough (sp) from the NY Times on NPR, “Justice Talking Debates”. “What Oregon is doing in cultural competency is unique. Oregon is way ahead of the curve.” Northwest Regional Education Research Laboratory. The Oregon Department of Education received a $600,000…
by Jay Bozievich As Lane County contemplates how to increase revenue to support public safety and Portland discusses how to fund education, it is time to discuss how to achieve fiscal sustainability for our public agencies here in Oregon. Missing from these discussions is the root cause of the current instability, the overheated growth in…
by Dave Mowry I read with a wry smile the article in The Oregonian lamenting that more people were not running for the Oregon Legislature. The Oregonian blames this on low pay and long hours and those certainly are factors. But I go farther. I blame The Oregonian itself for it’s mean spirited portrayal of…
by Jason Williams The Supreme Court victory has been a special moment for 93-year old widow and chief petitioner Dorothy English. She has fought with the county for 30 years to win back the property rights they stole from her when she bought it. Dorothy English bought her land 50 years ago with extra land…
by Britt Storkson Have you looked at your phone bill lately? Taxes on my phone service now are running at about 24%. After a multi-year battle with our local electric power utility to get illegally installed power lines on my property removed I did some checking into the power utility itself. The power company Wasco…
Tuesday, January 10. 2006 by Wayne Brady Several months ago, I had an idea that I thought would make the Education Service Districts (ESDs) more efficient. Under current law, the ESDs receive a fixed percentage of the state school fund and the school districts receive the balance. The ESDs then provide services to the school…
Wednesday, January 4. 2006 In my last post I described how Oregon’s high minimum wage was causing high unemployment for teenagers and young adults. Now I want to talk about how Oregon’s other minimum wage law negatively impact Oregon. Specifically the Prevailing Wage Laws for public contracting known as the “Little Davis-Bacon Act“.These laws require…
By Jason Williams Thursday, December 29. 2005 The year began and ended with political incivility in Oregon by liberals. The political year started with President Bush’s inaugural speech where shouting protesters in the audience did everything possible to stop his speech. The protesters were from Eugene and were able to get great, up-close seat tickets…