Issues
What Sacrifices are They Willing to Make?
– Jeff Wright, The Register-Guard
In an unprecedented letter, all 16 Lane County public school district superintendents on Thursday asked Lane County legislators to reject the “woefully inadequate” K-12 school funding budget proposed for the state’s 2015-17 biennium.
The letter was released on the same day that the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee approved a $7.3 billion spending plan in a party-line vote. The two-year budget proposal would be a 9 percent increase in state aid for schools.
The Lane County superintendents’ letter contends that schools in Oregon “need at least $7.5 billion to add full-day kindergarten and remain stable with current programs and class sizes…
We Respond & Your Comments
OK, Mr. & Mrs. Superintendents, we hear your desperate cry for a 9% increase on top of the $1 billion increase you got last year.
And to the many teachers who echo your deep concern we respond “We feel your pain.”
Now we have just one question for these dedicated educators who would have us sacrifice more of our earnings “for the children”: How much of your PERS benefits are you willing to sacrifice “for the children”?
We eagerly await your response.
Oregon lawmakers consider state-run retirement plan to boost residents’ savings
– Jonathan J. Cooper, Associated Press
SALEM, Ore. — Democratic lawmakers are promoting legislation that would automatically enroll thousands of Oregon workers in retirement savings accounts, a move that proponents said Monday would help ensure nobody is forced to work until they die or to spend their retirement years in poverty.
House and Senate bills would create a state-run retirement plan. Workers who don’t have access to a retirement account from their employer would automatically be enrolled, unless they opt out, and a percentage of their earnings would be withheld from each paycheck…
“I’m proud to sponsor these bills with my colleagues because they’ll give Oregonians the means and the opportunity to take control of their retirement and the chance to retire comfortably and with dignity,” said Rep. Tobias Read, D-Beaverton…
We Respond & Your Comments
You gotta love this…the brainiacs who blew $200 million of your bucks on the Columbia River Crossing (and didn’t even build the much needed bridge) and $300 million on Cover Oregon (and never covered a single person) now want to manage…your retirement nest egg!
Here’s how we see this working out:
- Oregon legislators decide to take10% of your salary to seed “Oregon Retires Happy”;
- They tell us, “You can’t retire on this 10%”;
- Then they say, “Greedy employers have to kick in another 10% to make this fair”;
- Despite promising not to, they loot Oregon Retires Happy to pay for pre-kindergarten “for the children”;
- In 5 years they tell us there’s an unfunded Oregon Retires Happy liability of $3 billion;
- To cover the unfunded liability they raise income taxes “on the rich” by 5 percent. But it’s only “temporary”;
- You retire. Oregon Retires Happy can only pay you half what they promised.
- You die unhappy 20 years later and the “temporary tax” has been raised to 10%.
So go ahead – trust them with your retirement account. What could possibly go wrong?
Buzzed birds slur their songs, researchers find
– Amina Khan, printed in Eugene Register Guard, L.A. Times
You know how that guy at the karaoke bar singing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” sounds a little off after he’s had a few drinks? The same goes for buzzed birds, according to a team led by researchers from Oregon Health & Science University.
For a study published in PLOS ONE [Public Library of Science One] , scientists found that when they got some unsuspecting zebra finches drunk, the birds slurred their songs. The findings could help scientists study the neural processes underlying birdsong – and shed light on human speech.
While many scientists want to understand alcohol’s effects on such a complex system as speech, it’s difficult to perform the necessary studies on humans, which is why many researchers turn to birds…
For this paper, researchers gave white grape juice to one group of birds, and gave a mixture of the juice and ethanol to another group. They found a number of effects on different aspects of birdsong – particularly on amplitude and entropy…
We Respond & Your Comments
This “study” would usually have been fodder for a “Golden Fleece Award.” But it’s so utterly ridiculous that we decided to give it the spotlight it deserves. Herewith some questions and comments:
- Who gives a rat’s patootee about the “neural processes underlying birdsong”?
- If you want to “shed light” on human speech, here’s a radical idea – Study human speech!
- You need a study to “to understand alcohol’s effects on…speech?” We can tell you (and we won’t even require a grant application): If you drink too much you sound like an idiot. There – that was simple.
We don’t know how many taxpayer dollars OHSU scorched on this nonsense, but if it was ten it was nine too many.
Now, excuse us. This kind of (insert your favorite term here) makes us want to get our speech slurred.
Free community college: Coming soon to Oregon?
– Canton Winer, college.usatoday.com
Oregon lawmakers are currently exploring a proposal that could make community college free to the state’s residents.
If implemented, the proposal would cost Oregon between $10 million and $250 million annually…
Our Response & Your Comments
First, nothing is free. Somebody pays for it. Second, any “proposal” that costs between $10 million and 25 times that amount isn’t one bit serious. But who ever said the crowd in Salem was serious about anything except grabbing more of your money to give it away to people who’d return the favor with their votes?
Third, we’ve explained in past issues how subsidizing education leads to schools increasing tuition and fees to absorb the newfound money.
Finally, if you want to see even bigger increases in tuition just make it free. Then you’ll have educators who want more money from legislators who can grab it out of your paycheck. It’s called “third party payment” – and the first two parties (educators and legislators) have absolutely no interest in controlling how much they take from the third, which happens, dear readers, to be you.
So, if you think tuition is high now – just wait ‘til it’s “free.”
Cover Oregon turnaround bill at $600,000 and rising
– The Associated Press
PORTLAND — As he wraps up his work, a corporate turnaround expert initially hired for $100,000 to fix Oregon’s troubled health care insurance exchange has billed the state for nearly $600,000 under an expanded contract, a newspaper reported…
[Clyde] Hamstreet was hired after the state agency launched a website that couldn’t come close to fulfilling the promise of seamless online sign-ups for health insurance…
…He hasn’t yet submitted an invoice for August, The Oregonian reported on Thursday…
“We didn’t do this job to make a lot of money off the state,” Hamstreet said…
…The Cover Oregon board hired Aaron Patnode, a former Kaiser executive who said Hamstreet and his executives did exceptional work on tasks that included:…
Boosting morale and communication.
Our Response and Your Comments
Cover Oregon – it’s like when you put your hand under your table in a cheap diner and stick five fingers deep into a wad of well chewed bubble gum. You just can’t get rid of it.
This magnificent creation of the Beaver State government burned through $248 million, which paid for, among other things: a website that didn’t work; a bunch of goofy folk songs that made Oregon look like a state of stoned karaoke crooners at a cheap Holiday Inn; and $650,000 in bonuses to retain the brainiacs who created the stupid website and folk songs.
But that just wasn’t enough, was it? Now they’ve tossed another $600,000 of taxpayer dollars after a consultant who, for $100,000, was supposed to, among other things, boost morale and communications.
We’re sure that this clever fellow boosted his morale. How did he do with yours? After all, you paid for it. As for “communications,” we suggest that you send some very clear messages the next time you vote.
Novick poll: Tax the rich to repair streets
– Portland Tribune, written by Jim Redden
Commissioner Steve Novick has finally found a street fee that most Portlanders support — one that only the rich pay.
Novick and Mayor Charlie Hales have struggled for months to find a new source of revenue for funding street maintenance and safety improvement projects. They started by proposing a transportation user fee that assessed a flat monthly fee on households and a fee based on vehicle trips on nonresidential properties. Outraged reactions from residents, business owners and nonprofit organizations forced them to pull their proposal back for more work, however.
Now Novick has released a new poll that shows 60 percent of Portlanders supporting taxing those who earn more than $125,000 to pay for maintenance and safety projects…
That’s the highest level of support of any new revenue source measured by the poll…
Significantly, the majority of those who responded to the poll would not pay anything under the funding proposal they support…
Our Response & Your Comments
Yeah, that’s the ticket! Just tax the rich! They don’t pay their “Fair Share” anyway. Right?
Let’s see…According to the IRS, in 2011 the top 1% paid just over 35% of all Federal income taxes. Did they make that share of all earnings? No – their share of all Adjusted Gross Income was just under 19%.
How about the top 50%? They paid 97% of all income taxes paid.
And the bottom 50%? They paid about 3% of all Federal income taxes.
How’s that for “Fair”?
Now re-read the last paragraph (above). Like most people who want to “tax the rich”, Portlanders are just itching to raise taxes that somebody else will pay as long as the goodies the taxes buy go to them.
http://portlandtribune.com/pt/9-news/227788-90656-novick-poll-tax-the-rich-to-repair-streets
COLAs coming early for state employees this year
– Salem Statesman Journal, June 22, 2014 State employees are getting their cost of living (COLA) increases early this year, thanks to lower health insurance premiums and a clause in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 75 contract. The state has agreed to extend the clause to all state workers…which means paychecks will increase 2 percent, likely starting in September rather than December. The Public Employees Benefits Board voted Tuesday to adopt a new set of insurance premiums for 2015. Those premiums cost less than they did in 2014… That might seem odd to anyone not familiar with how labor contracts are negotiated…
Our Response & Your Comments
What’s That You Say?
You didn’t get a cost of living increase this year? Not even an early one that would put more money in your pocket sooner? Maybe if you explained to your boss that you should get an early salary bump because both you and he are paying lower health insurance premiums next year he’d cough up more moolah in your pay envelope this year. But then you don’t work for the exceedingly generous State of Oregon, do you? While this may seem a bit strange, it does help explain why government can never do with less money, but taxpayers always can. http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/politics/state-workers/2014/06/22/colas-coming-early-state-employees-year/11242145/
Cover Oregon giving more than $650K in bonuses
– KGW Staff. June 27, 2014
PORTLAND — Workers at the failed Cover Oregon health care exchange will receive bonuses to keep them on the job as a transition is made to the federal Affordable Care Act…
“Many of the employees who voluntarily left Cover Oregon had key skills that are not easily replaced both in IT and in health care laws and regulations,” [interim CEO Clyde Hamstreet] said in the letter…
The bonuses will total $662,752, according to Cover Oregon spokeswoman Ariane Holm.
There are 161 remaining employees and 38 workers will get bonuses of one to three months of pay… Most all will get at least a bonus of two weeks pay if they stick around until next spring…
Our Response & Your Comments
These employees had “key skills?” You mean the skills required to create a web site that burned through $248 million and couldn’t sign up a single individual? “They are not easily replaced?” Right – Where else could you find people who could blow this much money and accomplish nothing?
Now answer these questions:
1) If you were looking for a job would you want “Cover Oregon” on your resume?
2) If you were hiring, would you want to hire anyone with “Cover Oregon” on his/her resume?
We didn’t think so.
http://www.kgw.com/news/Report-Cover-Oregon-handing-out-650K-in-retention-bonuses-264568371.html
The Government Student Loan Program is a Mess
– Wall Street Journal, April 27, 2014
…A new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York finds that as of the fourth quarter of 2012 only about 40% of student borrowers were paying down their loans…
…A whopping 14% of borrowers who were not officially delinquent had the same balance as the previous quarter and 30% saw their balances increase.
That’s because borrowers who can’t afford to pay down their loans can ask the government for a deferment or forbearance, which freezes their payments while interest continues to accrue. During a deferment, Uncle Sam pays the interest on subsidized loans. To qualify for either option, borrowers merely need to claim an economic hardship or return to school…Student loan debt nearly tripled to $966 billion in 2012 from $364 billion in 2004, but not merely because more students are going to school and taking out bigger loans. The Fed report’s major finding is that government programs intended to prevent defaults are actually causing many borrowers to rack up more debt. (emphasis added)
Our Response & Your Comments
Oregonians facing college also face rising tuition (30% increase between 2009 and 2012). Let’s look at how government’s good intentions are actually causing the problem:
- National leaders start with the premise “Every kid needs to go to college.” No – every kid doesn’t. We all know successful adults who didn’t go to college.
- Building off that flawed premise they set out to make it easier to go to college by dishing out wheelbarrows full of (your) money to directly pay tuition or loan money to students so they can pay for it. College presidents see this avalanche of dollars rolling their way, smile, and raise tuition to absorb it.
- As tuition continues to rise government gives and loans more and more money on increasingly generous terms. And the cycle – funded by us – continues.
So – Who’s making college more expensive? The same geniuses who set out to help kids go to college. Brilliant!
Website: Defining Delinquency Down – WSJ.com
Baltimore poured $300 million into a hotel that has recorded more than $50 million in operating losses.
Wall St. Journal– Steve H. Hanke, Stephen J.K. Walters, March 21, 2014
…[P]roprietors of a sports-themed chain restaurant called the Greene Turtle recently built a rooftop bar…according to the Baltimore Sun, $505,000 of the $890,000 cost came out of taxpayers’ hides as low-interest government loans, much of which will be forgiven if the enterprise meets modest “employees added” targets and stays open five years…
…[A]t the grand opening on Jan. 2 Maryland’s First Lady, Katie O’Malley, presented a governor’s citation to the bar’s proprietors, who happened to be childhood friends…
…In 2006, Martin O’Malley —then Baltimore’s mayor, now the state’s governor and a presidential aspirant—decided that the Baltimore Convention Center needed an adjoining hotel. Private investors disagreed, so City Hall “invested” $300 million to enter the hospitality industry. Since opening its doors in August 2008, the Hilton Baltimore—city-owned but managed by the global hotelier—has recorded more than $50 million in operating losses…
Meanwhile, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation reports that a net of 66,000 residents and $5.5 billion in taxable income fled Maryland in 2000-10.
Our Response & Your Comments
We rarely venture east for our tales of government buffoonery, but here Baltimore provides lessons for every state, county and city.
Banks are pretty darned good judges of who should get credit and who shouldn’t. That’s because they have skin in the game – their own money. Governments are lousy at it (see “Solyndra”). The only skin they have in the game is yours. Moral: If banks won’t make the loan, government shouldn’t.
Governments are made up of politicians. Politicians need to get re-elected or re-appointed. So they need votes. It takes money to get votes. Moral: even the most honest ones are tempted to give rewards to get money.
For every government winner there’s a loser. Winners are too often “childhood friends” (see above), brothers-in-law or golf buddies. Losers? Whoever didn’t get that contract and,
ultimately, you the tax payer.