By Taxpayers Association of Oregon Foundation,
Last week, China showcased its new Artificial Intelligence (AI) program, Deepseek, which so over-performed expectations, results, and costs that it caused a trillion-dollar drop in American tech-related stock value in a 24-hour period.
It caused America’s #1 AI company, Nvidia, to suffer the worst stock value loss in history. If America falls behind in the tech race, it will handicap our economy, our military, our influence, and our quality of life, as we can all expect more wild trillion-dollar economic swings in the future if this continues.
The same month this news broke, it was reported that Oregon’s largest private employer, Intel, shed 3,000 Oregon jobs last year. While Oregon Intel was hurting (for a variety of factors), Oregon politicians were busy raising taxes and fees upon businesses, raising labor costs, and raising the cost of electricity and water. Oregon forecasts annual electric blackouts because we cannot uphold our grid. While Oregon Intel was hurting, liberal activists were in non-stop political boycotts, strikes, rioting, and lawsuits against businesses. Even Tillamook Cheese was hit with a frivolous lawsuit claiming that their Tillamook cheese included milk from cows who live in Oregon but in Tillamook County. Activists tried to disrupt the Boeing office in Portland because they work with Israel. Simply put, liberals treat Oregon businesses like a pinata with little scrutiny or pushback.
This is why, when Intel had plans for building a new plant, they looked to Ohio and Arizona, where the business climate was not a constant war zone and where they both cut taxes in the last 6 years — instead of Oregon raising them by the billions during the same period. It doesn’t matter that Oregon passed SB 4 in 2023 which invested $210 million in the tech sector. If you throw taxpayer cash on a broken system it will not succeed.
This is why Oregon, once a proud tech leader, was left out in the cold when the Federal government passed out $500 million in tech grants.
This tech race is an epic contest that threatens democratic nations, capitalism, and free enterprise principles by diminishing them from the world stage and everyday applications. Remember, Deepseek’s new AI program tightly censors information (you can’t ask questions about Taiwan, for instance) and records personal information far more extensively than average companies.
Oregon should help, not hurt, the tech industry, by making Oregon more business-friendly and more open to prosperity.
