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Progressives advance a “mend it, don’t end it” approach to Oregon’s kicker
This is the year when progressives in Oregon stopped trying to abolish the state’s tax kicker and began to figure out how to live with it. Their ideas chart a path that could resolve the decades-long conflict over Oregon’s most loved and hated tax policy. Progressives at the Oregon Center for Public Policy have argued […]
State economists conclude Oregon just enjoyed a blockbuster decade
Good news is hard to accept at times, as when economists tell us that Oregon has just enjoyed one of its best decades ever – growing jobs, boosting wages, narrowing income inequality and diminishing poverty at rates not seen in most of our lifetimes. Wait, what? Yes, that’s what the data shows for Oregon’s economy […]
Even the best new plans to reduce homelessness will take years to show results
In a new year, with new leadership, there’s a new plan a week to address Oregon’s chronic homelessness problems. Gov. Tina Kotek declared a homelessness state of emergency in most areas of the state on her first full day in office. Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson followed with a new Multnomah Housing Now program, […]
Why limit tax credit auctions to exclusive few?
This is the time of year when solicitations for charitable giving arrive with appeals not just to the better angels of our nature but to our more mundane aversion to paying taxes. Our tax system is explicitly designed to subsidize charitable giving. So, as in the iconic holiday movie, It’s a Wonderful Life: When we […]
Oregon’s gun safety initiative will challenge the state’s Democratic leadership
It will now be up to the Democratic leadership in Salem to determine the fate of Oregon’s gun safety initiative, Measure 114 – a measure that was strongly supported by voters in Democratic precincts and just as strongly rejected by voters in the rest of the state. Measure 114 was never a major issue for […]
Let’s not give up on democracy but agree on how to make it better
This column is part of a project called Democracy Day, in which newsrooms across the country are shining a light on threats to democracy. We have long celebrated states as laboratories of democracy. But many states have begun to apply their experiments to the workings of democracy itself – reassessing who should be able to […]
Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan corrects only one problem of unsustainable college debt
President Biden’s decision to forgive up to $20,000 in unpaid college loans has reignited debate over the responsibilities of taxpayers, students and their families to sustain a “learn now, pay later” system that has become for many a path to indentured obligation rather than a portal to expanded opportunity. It has also exposed yet another […]
First debate delivers telling first impressions of candidates for Oregon governor
Candidates for governor are in a league of their own. Debates matter in these contests. Heads turn when the power hitters come to bat. And, unlike in the primaries, these are not events when the voters who show up are all wearing team caps. So, it’s the unaffiliated voters, now more numerous than ever in […]
The rising tide of inflation threatens to swamp Oregon’s public budgets
Gas prices and grocery bills have headlined the immediate effects of rising inflation on household budgets. But inflation has downstream effects that will swamp public budgets as well, eroding the capacity of state and local revenues to sustain support for vital services. In Oregon and neighboring states, consumer prices rose 8.8% year over year in […]
Will Oregonians support a more aggressive approach to reduce gun violence?
Oregon’s latest citizen-led effort to keep guns out of dangerous hands has become a go-to campaign in the wake of the rapid-fire slaughters of innocents in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. Hundreds of Oregonians have reportedly taken to the streets with clipboards in hand to qualify Initiative Petition 17, titled the Reduction of Gun […]
Reforming Portland city government is now an all-or-nothing gamble
“I am large, I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman, Song of Myself Portland’s Charter Commission finalized its expansive reform effort this week with an epic-length ballot measure that contains multitudes. How it plays with Portlanders is now the question. In a single measure, Portland voters in November will be asked to diminish the role of […]
Most voters in Oregon will not be heard in primary, but their votes will resonate in November
The fate of the Democratic and Republican candidates who prevail in Oregon’s primary election for governor this week will rest not with their own parties’ voters, but with the growing number of Oregonians who have abandoned or declined to join their ranks. So too for the major party candidates who will advance to the general […]