Issues
U.S. Senate race getting louder
– The Register-Guard
The volume is about to be cranked up in Oregon’s already negative U.S. Senate race.
Both Democratic incumbent Sen. Jeff Merkley and his Republican challenger Monica Wehby released new campaign television ads this week, while Freedom Partners — a group tied to businessmen and influential conservative political donors Charles and David Koch — released an ad of its own through its super PAC Thursday…
Freedom Partners’ involvement in the race has become a key talking point for Merkley’s campaign…
Asked why his campaign is focusing so heavily on Freedom Partners’ involvement in the race, Merkley responded: “It’s out-of-state billionaires coming to Oregon with a specific agenda. … It’s a unique event in Oregon history to have these folks come in and try to seize the airwaves and try and buy a seat in the U.S. Senate.”…
– Saul Hubbard
http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/32110949-75/senate-candidates-crank-up-the-volume.html.csp
Our Response & Your Comments
Way to go, Jeffey – You tell those out-of-staters to keep their filthy money out of our Senate campaigns! You tell them you won’t take one doggone cent from a non-Oregonian trying to “buy a seat in the U.S. Senate!”
You wouldn’t, would you? What’s that, Jeffey – you might? In fact – you did.
According to Merkley’s Federal Election Commission filing for just two days in May in his last campaign he received donations from organizations or individuals in VA, NC, CO, and twice each from NY & DC.
And did we mention that Washington, DC-based League of Conservation Voters reported tossing Jeff $83,625 of non-Oregon bucks?
Say it ain’t so, Jeffey. Say it ain’t so.
EDITORIAL – Prioritizing financial aid
Higher ed commission recommends big increase
– Eugene Register Guard
…Gov. John Kitzhaber told the [Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission] to prepare a proposal for spending an additional $147 million on higher education, beyond the amount that would be needed to sustain the status quo in the 2015-17 biennium…
The commission recommended that $66 million, the biggest single portion of the $147 million, be allocated to student financial aid. An allocation of that size would increase current resources for state financial aid by 60 percent…
Our Response & Your Comments
Flash to Guv Kitz: Here’s an ironclad rule of economics: If you want more of something, subsidize it. It works for anything – including tuition.
Let’s be clear: We’re all for helping poor kids go to college. What we’re not for is the massive increases in government subsidies for tuition that have, according to former Secretary of Education William Bennett, “enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase.”
Between 1997 and 2008 total student aid (in constant dollars) rose 84%, helping to push tuition and fees at public four year colleges & universities up 50% in constant dollars.
So we have a vicious cycle: government subsidies make tuition more expensive, which causes politicians to toss in more government subsidies, which makes tuition even more expensive, which causes politicians…(you get the picture).
What have we gotten for all this money? From 1997 to 2008 the six year graduation rate rose 7% – which is less than the 10% population increase. What have college kids and parents gotten? Gigantic bills. How about the politicians who goosed tuition up for these kids and parents? They’ve gotten what they most crave: votes.
http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/32030874-78/prioritizing-financial-aid.html.csp
EDITORIAL – Face up to pending retirement crisis
State plan could help Oregonians build savings to supplement Social Security
– The Oregonian
A convergence of economic and demographic factors…threatens the United States with a retirement crisis…
…According to the Employee Benefits Research Institute, 36 percent of Americans have saved $1,000 or less for retirement…
In 2011, 31 percent of private-sector workers participated in a defined-contribution retirement plan….
That leaves about two-thirds with no workplace-based pension or retirement savings plan…
[Oregon Treasurer Ted] Wheeler asked the state Legislature to address the retirement crisis last year, and it responded by creating a Task Force on Oregon Retirement Savings…
The task force’s draft report…recommends creating a workplace savings plan that would be available to anyone employed in Oregon… Money to fund savings accounts would be automatically deducted from workers’ paychecks unless they chose to opt out… The savings accounts would be pooled and professionally invested by private fund managers, overseen by a state board…
We Respond & Your Comments
And now – from those wizards who blew $175 million of your dollars planning the Columbia Crossing bridge, light rail and highway complex and have nothing to show for it and then tossed another $248 million after it to build the Cover Oregon health insurance exchange, which featured a website that couldn’t sign up a single individual…
Comes a program to manage your retirement nest egg! Who could resist this offer? Where do we sign up? What could possibly go wrong?
http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/32044981-78/face-up-to-pending-retirement-crisis.html.csp
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
Portland social-investment policy would be wrong recipe: Editorial
– Oregonian Editorial Board
In the classic 1970s commercial, two kids sit at a table with a bowl of cereal that’s “supposed to be good for you,” but they’re afraid to taste it. Finally, they arrive at a solution. “Let’s get Mikey. He will eat it. He eats everything.” Mikey, of course, likes the new cereal.
When it comes to progressive policy experiments, Portland plays the role of Mikey. Today’s good-for-you dish is socially responsible investing. And Commissioner Steve Novick, the council’s designated Mikey, has declared that the new policy tastes good…
First, let us say that there’s nothing wrong with socially responsible investing…if you’re socially conservative you can avoid companies that sell tobacco or alcohol…Similarly, progressives can avoid companies that sell fossil fuels…What tastes good to you might come at the cost of lower investment returns, but it’s your choice to make.
However, since the city gets its money mostly from taxpayers, it would be applying a social-investing screen to other people’s money.
Our Response & Your Comments
We’re all in with the Oregonian on this issue. It’s simple: Do what you want with your own money. Stick it all in stocks & bonds of companies that save the Spotted Owl if that’s your cup of tea.
But when you’re investing money that taxpayers have earned and you’ve confiscated, your sole obligation is to return to the people whose money you grabbed the highest legal return without taking inordinate risk – because IT’S NOT YOUR MONEY.
Got that, Commissioner Novick and other Oregon elected officials? We suggest that you carve it into your desktops so you don’t forget it.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/08/portland_social-investment_pol.html
When $200 Million Just Isn’t Enough
Guv Kitz and his merry crew tossed something way north of $200 million of your bucks down the Cover Oregon sumphole that failed to directly sign up even one Beaver State resident.
But that wasn’t enough. The Guv claimed he “cleaned house” as only Salem can – by blowing more money! That’s right – he chased the $200 plus million with a $68,000 payoff to sweep chief operating officer Triz delaRosa out the door. Oh, and did we mention that he paid her salary through May – months after anyone not living on the Planet Zook knew that Cover Oregon was a disaster?
Critics want these subsidized flights to this eastern Oregon town canceled
– Steve Dunn, KATU.com, July 10, 2014
PORTLAND, Ore. – A daily flight from Portland International Airport to an eastern Oregon town has critics calling for its immediate landing.
That flight is aboard SeaPort Airlines. It uses a nine passenger single engine Cessna to fly passengers from Portland to Pendleton and back again…
…the federal government thinks that the flight is vital. In fact, it’s part of a federal subsidy called Essential Air Service. Every time the plane lands or takes off from Pendleton, SeaPort Airlines gets $849 from the feds. The plane will make 2,162 flights for a total subsidy of more than $1.8 million…
SeaPort is a small airliner serving rural communities all over the country. Many of its routes are paid for by the Essential Air Service program…
The federal government spends over $200 million a year on Essential Air Service. You pay for it through taxes when you buy a seat on a commercial airliner…
Our Response & Your Comments
We always thought that ”Vital” and “Essential” meant “can’t do without it.” Sort of like food and shelter.
So if Oregonians can’t do without this puddle jumper flight to Pendleton wouldn’t they find a way to pay for it (sort of like they do for food and shelter)? And if they figured it was “essential” enough to pay what it actually cost, wouldn’t some airline jump at it as a way to make money?
Maybe the next question should be “Is it ‘essential’ enough to taxpayers that they think it’s worth $1.8 million?”
http://www.katu.com/politics/youpaidforit/Critics-want-these-subsidized-flights-to-this-small-town-canceled-266704721.html
California Court Strikes Down Teacher Tenure
– Townhall.com
Five teacher hiring and firing laws bit the dust in California this week. In a major blow to teachers unions, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu’s ruling struck down teacher tenure, while freeing districts from spending hundreds of thousands to fire teachers and from having to fire newly-hired teachers first during layoffs…
…The data could not be clearer that the union-controlled public education monopoly disproportionately harms black and Latino students. But legal pushback on the issue puts the Democratic Party in a tight spot. Party leaders can continue ignoring or thwarting reform efforts… Or, they can jump on board the fight for equality, and alienate the teachers unions…
In his ruling Judge Treu described the evidence that California’s teacher hiring and firing laws harm poor and minority students “compelling.”
…Harvard Prof. Raj Chetty testified as well, showing research that a student with a grossly ineffective teacher for even one year loses $50,000 in lifetime earnings compared to a student assigned to an average teacher…
Our Response & Your Comments
While most teachers are dedicated and hardworking, as in any profession there are some who should be ushered out of it. This is why tenure matters.
According to Oregon Revised Statute 342.805(3), a teacher ends his/her probationary period and, in effect, earns tenure after three years providing that he/she “has been retained for the next succeeding school year.”
How hard is it to fire a tenured but incompetent teacher? According to a formerly highly placed Eugene official, very, very hard. In fact, a recent removal took one and one half years. According to Harvard Prof. Chetty (above), that means that for every class of just 20 kids with an incompetent teacher, those kids lose a total of $1,500,000 in lifetime income.
Maybe Eugene’s lucky. According to a former administrator in Salem Keizer Public Schools it takes two years to fire an incompetent teacher there. That’s a whopping $2,000,000 in total lifetime income lost to every class of 20 kids with a bad teacher.
We all know (or at least we’ve been told) that schools never have enough money. The next time they want more, maybe we should tell them to find a way to stop victimizing kids with bad teachers. Then we’ll talk about more money!
Paid sick-time proposal getting thorough look
– Guest Opinion in the Eugene Register Guard by City Councilor Claire Syrett, June 9, 2014
Last year it came to my and Councilor Alan Zelenka’s attention that more than 25,000 employees in Eugene’s private sector are working without access to a single paid sick day from work…
Our response was to co-sponsor a City Council work session to consider an ordinance to create protected earned paid sick time for all workers in Eugene…
Our Response & Your Comments
Your Lane Solutions editors carefully read the proposed paid sick leave ordinance being considered by the Eugene City Council. During a troubled sleep that night they each had the same dream.
In their dream they witnessed an Unnamed City Councilor (“UCC”) from Eugene facing Bob Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, which owns ESPN.
UCC: Bob, you sent Kirk Herbstreit to Eugene to host “College Football Gameday.” You know – you have to keep track of his hours spent here and calculate the sick time he’s accrued.
Mr. Iger: What? We have a contract with Kirk that specifies his paid time off if he’s sick!
UCC: That contract doesn’t work here! You either accrue Kirk’s paid sick time and that of every other Disney employee here and track their hours in Eugene or we’ll haul your *** into court – right here in “TrackTown USA!” Chew on that, Mr. Bigshot!
Mr. Iger: Well, Councilor, since you put it that way you can say goodbye to “College Football Gameday” – or for that matter any ESPN broadcast – ever coming to Eugene again! And by the way, Disney has a lot more lawyers than the City of Eugene. So if you really want to litigate the issue, get ready to write some very big checks.
UCC (to him/herself): Gee, I wish I’d thought of that.
Your editors quickly awoke in a very cold sweat, dreading the consequences of the Eugene Sick Pay Ordinance.
http://registerguard.com/rg/opinion/31689147-78/sick-paid-eugene-working-council.html.csp?sp-tk=FB17DA4A9B3EE692C2E744576BA5D8BAB59C8824C80D09827AEBE700EBA22300EFF64
Benton County studies climate change
– Bennett Hall, Corvallis Gazette-Times
Corvallis — Everybody talks about climate change. Now Benton County is trying to do something about it.
The Benton County Climate Change Adaptation Plan, recently released in draft form, describes potential impacts of a warming climate on Benton County over the next century or so andoutlines possible strategies for dealing with those impacts…
Our Response & Your Comments
“New NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) data show cooling trend for last 10 years” – Arizona Republic, June 11, 2014
Maybe the Benton County brainiacs are just a bit late to the party?
http://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/31838864-75/county-climate-benton-health-plan.html.csp