Issues
Golden Fleece Award – Issue 56
What Do You Get for a $52 Million Street Retrofit? More Traffic!
A Golden Fleece Award with gold braid goes to the wizards in the City of Portland who smoked $52 million of your bucks on a makeover of S.W. Moody. They raised it 14 feet and widened the right of way to 75 feet. This according to the Cascade Policy Institute.
So it should have accommodated more traffic. If you guessed this, the late Johnny Carson would have replied “You are wrong, Diesel Breath!”
What ate up the extra width? Two pedestrian walkways, a two-way bicycle track and a double track for the streetcar, among other things. All to make way for the Portland-Milwaukie light rail line boondoggle.
Get this: The “dominant mode of travel” on Moody? Cars. And since the “retrofit that only a government could love,” the percentage of auto traffic has increased, despite the reduced lane capacity. All we can say is “Brilliant. Simply brilliant.”
Golden Fleece Award – Issue 55
A Big Gulp – Of Your Tax Dollars
We present this week’s Golden Fleece Award to the Salem Oregon State Penitentiary.
Even though this program has been cancelled, they still receive the coveted Golden Fleece just for wasting the money.
Over a two year period the Penitentiary spent a whopping $775,000 on soft drinks for inmates!
We think that the guys who were nuts enough to take your money and pour it down felons’ gullets ought to be further awarded 2 years for stupid and about 50 more for not caring about the dollars they confiscated from you!
Golden Fleece Award – Issue 54
Cover Oregon Scores Again
This week’s Golden Fleece goes to Cover Oregon, which blew your bucks while ignoring a cardinal rule of business: “Don’t advertise a product that’s not available – Nothing irritates a customer more.”
But the Salem Wizards at Cover Oregon spent a hefty $3.2 Million of your hard earned money to create ads for their health insurance exchange – which isn’t available on the Internet.
Sure you can fill out a 19 page paper form that comes with 19 more pages of instructions – if you’re really desperate. But almost all Oregonians seeing the ads will go to the non-functioning website. Brilliant!
We don’t think these bumblers will be sipping champagne at the MENSA New Year’s Eve Bash.
Golden Fleece Award – Issue 53
This week’s Golden Fleece Award, with holly and jingle bells (and maybe the south end of a north bound reindeer) goes to the Oregon Employment Dept. for blowing $6.9 million of your bucks on a software program that didn’t, doesn’t and never will work.
The new software was designed to track hundreds of thousands of unemployment insurance documents from one end of the OED to the other. Notice that we’re refraining from making any jokes about the “other” end of the OED.
Now these guardians of your tax dollars have to spend about another $7 million just to clean up the mess they created, including $340,000 just to get out of the outside contract they awarded in violation of Oregon contracting rules.
Gazing into her crystal ball, OED Director Lisa Nisenfeld wisely predicts, “This is going to be somewhat of a long road.” Really?
And did we mention this is just one of ten screwed up major OED projects that could cost more than $20 million of your bucks to fix?
Golden Fleece – Issue #52
Cover Oregon Website Blows $140 Million and Enrolls No One
Cover Oregon is (will be? Might be?) the exchange where Oregonians go online to shop for affordable health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (aka “ObamaCare”).
So far the Cover Oregon website has:
- Cost upwards of $140 Million of your dollars;
- Enrolled absolutely no one;
- Doesn’t work.
And did we mention that, of 12 state-run exchanges which have reported enrollees, Cover Oregon is (drum roll, please) the absolute worst?
When will it work? Your guess is as good as ours. Or as good as that of the wizards who pull down salaries for building and operating this colossal Golden Fleecing of your tax dollars.
So, for those of you whose private or group plans were cancelled, who need to enroll by Dec. 15 to have insurance by Jan. 1, we suggest that you write to Cover Oregon and get their 19 page application form and be sure your pen is full of ink.
Golden Fleece – Issue #51
Have You Seen My Crab Pot?
If you’ve lost your crab pot there’s help on the way – courtesy, of course, of Washington, D.C.
Thanks to these “public servants,” Oregon will get $700,000 to recover an estimated 4,000 lost crab pots over two years. That’s $175 per pot.
Or you could just go online to John’s Sporting Goods in Everett, Washington and buy a custom made crab pot for $79.50. But then you wouldn’t have the use of 10 boats, planes and a telephone hotline courtesy of Uncle Sugar.
Golden Fleece – Issue #50
It’s Your Money And We Don’t Give a Flip
Rarely do we cross an Oregon border to find a Golden Fleece. Heaven knows that Salem turns out a new fleecing or two most weeks.
But for this 50th issue of Lane Solutions we award a Golden Fleece with a Rancid Bologna Sandwich to the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services – which gives us neither health nor services human or non human.
Here’s why: They created an Affordable Care Act (aka “ObamaCare”) website and blew upwards of $634 Million of your dollars doing it!
And did we mention that it was budgeted at $93 Million?
And did we mention that the site doesn’t work and will require rewriting up to 5 million lines of code?
And from what we hear, insurance through the Affordable Care Act is about as “affordable” as the website!
Golden Fleece – Issue #49
I’m High, I’m Hungry and I Want a Grande Caramel Macchiato
Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) reports that Oregon is one of only three states that allow medical marijuana card holders who get food stamps to deduct the cost of their “Mary Jane” equipment from their income taxes.
Fire up your bong, inhale some good Colombian weed and their reasoning will be crystal clear.
You see, using marijuana increases the appetite. So you need more food. Allowing tax deductions for drug equipment lowers your taxable income, which makes you eligible for the extra food stamps you need because you smoked the pot. Got it?
But what about that Grande Caramel Macchiato you’re craving to wash down the grub you bought with your Oregon Trail Card? Not a problem – just whip out your Trail Card at Starbucks.
Now you’re feeling great, your tummy’s full and you’re ready for the next hit.
Is this a great state or what?
Golden Fleece Award – Issue #48
“Most people looking at this with just common sense would say this smells”
– Rep. Jason Conger, R-Bend
We say this Golden Fleece, awarded to the Oregon Dept. of Energy, smells worse than a soggy sheep! And it cost you an extra $20 million!
A wind farm was at the time eligible for a single $10 million Oregon tax credit. But Caithness Energy, being a lot smarter than your public servants in the ODE, sliced Shepherd Flats wind farm into three separate units and made off with a cool $30 million of your bucks.
ODE geniuses didn’t notice that: the three “units” were adjacent; had a common parent company; and had similar names & a common connection to the grid.
Your State Government – Ever watchful of your tax dollars!
Golden Fleece Award – Issue #47
For Sale: Bathroom With Spectacular View – Just $131,000!
A Bathroom with a View…at Quite a Cost
This week’s Golden Fleece Award is proudly presented to your Federal Government for (literally) flushing $97,000 of your bucks down the toilet.
That’s right. The Feds sent this tidy sum to Oregon to partially pay for a floating toilet.
After raising the entire $131,000 for this double hulled aluminum contraption your Oregon Marine Board planted it smack in the middle of once lovely Timothy Lake, near Mt. Hood, which most people thought was a crappy (sorry) idea because it ruined the view.
In case you’re wondering, the answer is “No – The Oregon Marine Board will not be bringing the potato salad to the Mensa picnic.”