Issues
Why Lane Co. Has Cavities and Micronesia Has a Dentist
Ed. Note: This is the first of a three part series
Dr. Cedric Ross Hayden, D.D.S had a dream. He wanted to outfit a mobile dental clinic, staff it with volunteer dentists and hygienists, move it around rural areas in Lane Co. and offer regular, free dental care to low income Oregonians.
Here’s how it would work: Dr. Hayden would drive the clinic to a small town. He’d park it there long enough to meet local dental needs. Then he’d take it to nearby rural towns, parking it for a week or so. His goal was to visit these towns three times a year, providing regular dental treatment.
Was Dr. Hayden asking anyone to pay for his clinic? No. He and brother Matthew had already funded it with $200,000 out of their own pockets. Sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it?
As ESPN sportscaster Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast, my friend.” Because his dream would turn to dust.
What went wrong? Why would small burgs in Lane Co. not welcome him and his mobile dental care facility with open arms? And why does Micronesia have the dental care that Lane County didn’t want? Find out in the next issue of Lane Solutions as we focus on one town’s “Thanks but no thanks.”
Bill to Make it Illegal to Cut Hours to Avoid Paying Health Benefits to Get Hearing
– By Steve Benham, KATU: Feb 10, 2014
SALEM, Ore. – Concerns about colleges and universities cutting faculty hours to avoid paying health benefits under the new federal health care law has prompted state Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, to introduce legislation to make the practice for all Oregon employers illegal.
Senate Bill 1543 is scheduled to get a hearing before the Senate Health Care and Human Services committee today at 3:00 p.m.
Dembrow, who has taught English at the Cascade campus of Portland Community College for years, told KATU last week he’s heard “through the grapevine” and has read news reports that some community colleges “have been advised to reduce their teachers’ hours” in order to get out of paying health benefits to some employees.
Under the new health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as “Obamacare”), companies that employ 50 or more employees are required to provide their workers with health insurance if they work an average of 30 hours or more a week…
Our Response & Your Comments
We’ll ignore the delicious irony of colleges, probably the single biggest institutional fans of ObamaCare, slashing professors’ hours to get out of paying for…ObamaCare!
Our larger point is that laws like these are the steroids that drive government hyper-growth. Here’s why…
First they pass ObamaCare, which is 2200 pages of dizzying complexities, dazzling contradictions and unintended consequences. Now you need more laws to clean up the complexities, contradictions and, most of all, unintended consequences. Thus emerges from the swamp Dembrow’s bill.
Then the new law demands more government to make it work. How do you prove in court that
State U cut Prof. Propellerhead’s hours to avoid paying his ObamaCare bill? Hire psychiatrists to muck about in his brain? Plus you need investigators to hunt down evidence. They need lawyers, offices and assistants. Plus you need new laws to empower the investigators and lawers. And the beat goes on and on – as government matasaticizes at your expense.
Oregon prisons, social services in need of millions of dollars as lawmakers adjust budgets
…When the Oregon Legislature convenes Monday, two large state agencies will be asking for tens of millions of dollars.
Lawmakers will revisit the 2013-15 budget to address collective bargaining costs, a record $40 million wildfire season and revenue forecasts that fell $70 million short of earlier projections…
Corrections officials say they need about $90 million, and Human Services officials say they need about $100 million to fill their gaps, though some money is expected from other sources…
The Oregonian, January 28, 2014
Our Response and Your Comments
Here are three rules to remember when you’re reading about government “needing” more money:
Government (at every level – city, county, state, federal) always needs more money;
Government can never do with less money;
You can always do with less money because of Rule #1.
As Ronald Reagan opined: “Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”
Eugene senator to discuss wage gap
A report detailing the differences between poor and wealthy Oregonians is set to be released by Sen. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene, during a forum at the Eugene Public Library 6 p.m. Monday (Jan. 27).
Edwards authored a bill that passed during the 2013 Legislative Session calling for the Pay Inequality in Oregon study. According to a press release, Edwards plans to talk about ways to solve the “wage gap”…
Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian and Oregon Council on Civil Rights Chair Sunny Petit are slated to join Edward.
Salem Statesman Journal
January 23, 2014
Our Response & Your Comments
Here are some questions we’d like to pose to Sen. Edwards:
When the Census Bureau measures income it excludes payments such as Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and the Earned Income Tax Credit (that’s where the Govt. gives money to people who don’t pay taxes). What would the “wage gap” be if those were included?
People move up and down the income ladder. A college grad may start by earning $25,000, hit a career peak at $150,000, then retire and live off a part time job, pensions and Social Security. What’s wrong with that?
Could part of the “wage gap” be explained by the fact that a person’s income can move infinitely up but can only go down to $0?
If I’m earning what my skills and experience warrant, what do I care what Bill Gates makes?
Conservative age-based funds in college savings plans serve up surprise losses
- Brent Hunsberger, [email protected]
January 14, 2014
Eric Hutchinson has been saving for his daughter’s college education for a dozen years. But in April, the Tigard resident decided to take advantage of the Oregon College Savings Plan‘s tax break.
He put $5,000 in the plan’s Age-Band 16 portfolio for 16-year-olds, which will automatically adjust his investment into more conservative holdings as his daughter Noelle gets older.
So, he was a bit surprised when he looked at the account balance just after New Year’s and found it held $4,980. Hadn’t it gained anything from the year’s run-up in stocks?
Our Response & Your Comments
How could your lose money in a year when virtually every stock market index shot through the stratosphere?
It’s simple – Trust it to the government.
To be fair, government college savings programs lost money because they are understandably conservative and become more so as students approach college age, so they skew towards bonds.
But there are a few simple truths here.
First, when you trust your money to the government you lose control over it, so you can’t start out conservative in Jan. and in March say “Stocks are the place to be, so I’m switching to them.”
Second, government programs are top down, rigid, one-size-fits all programs. And if they don’t fit you, it’s just too darn bad. Think ObamaCare, Cover Oregon, etc.
The final lesson: Nobody watches your money like you watch your money. Carve this into your dining room table and never forget it. Especially when dealing with the government.
‘We look like fools:’ A history of Cover Oregon’s failure
By Dusty Lane, KATU.com Staff Jan 10, 2014
PORTLAND, Ore.
KATU’s Investigators spent weeks digging through thousands of pages of audits conducted by Maximus, the company the state hired to provide quality-control assessments of the project beginning in its early days….
November 2011
…there are already red flags about the scope of the project – namely Oracle’s future support for the aging software the state has decided on…
June 2012
Maximus notes that staff members are quitting faster than they can be hired…
July 2012
The IT team has gone through multiple iterations of the software, and there are serious worries about security…
September 2012
…Maximus portrays a project that’s dangerously close to out of control…
November 2012
With less than a year to go until the deadline, the progress that’s been made is insignificant in comparison with what’s left to be done…
January 2013
Security issues are getting worse…
February 2013
Cover Oregon begins to change its message, suggesting the task was impossible to begin with…
March–May 2013
There’s been a misallocation of $16 million…
September 2013
With two weeks to go, (Cover Oregon head) Rocky King delivers a Power Point presentation that contains eight astounding words: “Bottom Line: We Are On Track to Launch.”
Our Response & Your Comments
Yes, we do look like fools. But we suggest a slight change of title to “All You Clowns Look Like Fools.” And liars. And finger pointers. And whiners. We could go on, but you get the point. And any of our readers who actually needed health insurance could add more colorful adjectives.
Cover Oregon has indelibly stamped itself as the prototypical government program: expensive, beaurocratic without anyone really being in charge, over budget, non functioning, and nobody’s to blame except the company (Oracle) that took advantage of the poor “public servants” who cooked the program up and then cocked it up beyond all recognition.
Maybe it’s appropriate that it’s Gov. “Hands off” Kitz’s signature program.
Remember that old bumper sticker – “If you think health care’s expensive now, just wait til it’s free”? Well, folks, you’re now seeing it in real life!
Next to Boeing’s wish list, Oregon’s Intel deal is a bargain
It may well be true, as some critics note, that Oregon didn’t get anything new last week for extending the 30-year “tax certainty” originally granted to Nike to Intel as well. Even Intel agreed that the $500 million in new investment in its Hillsboro location, and the 500 jobs attached, were on track to happen anyway…
… as Gov. John Kitzhaber told The Oregonian editorial board, it’s not costing Oregon anything, either. Oregon’s “single sales factor” tax formula, which taxes companies based only on their sales in Oregon rather than their worldwide receipts, has been law here since 1991…
Boeing, although it had received an $8.7 billion tax break pledge from the Washington state legislature to build the 777X airliner there, bridled at the local machinists’ union voting against reopening an eight-year contract in the middle of its term. So the airliner giant announced that it was opening the bidding to other states, and offered a list of incentives that might attract the megaproject to someplace such as Alabama or Missouri…
But the big-money-required auction Boeing has set out to conduct does reflect the style, not to say the desperation, of current state efforts to land a major job project. It’s a process of smokestack-chasing on steroids, and the stakes can rise to dizzying levels – in this case, 30,000-foot levels…
The Oregonian, December 13, 2014
Our Response & Your Comments
Lane Solutions neither endorses nor opposes tax breaks for corporations locating in Oregon. We just want to clarify the issue.
Luring companies to Oregon means buying them with a mixture of incentives – intangible and tangible. Intangibles include skilled workers and a good transportation system. Tangibles are usually tax relief.
The questions are the same as for a person buying a house: “Do I want it?” “What am I willing to give up for it? “What deal can I get before someone pays what the seller is asking?” “What if it’s not what I thought I was buying?”
Governments ask the same questions: “Is this a fit for Oregon?” “How much revenue can we concede and eventually recoup it via taxes?” “Does Alabama want it?” “What if we don’t get the promised jobs?” The last is crucial.
Liquor sales, liquor profits
Privatization proposals raise questions
After voters in Washington state approved an initiative privatizing distilled liquor sales two years ago, it seemed inevitable that Oregonians would soon be presented with a similar proposal. Sure enough, this week the Oregon Grocery Association filed five liquor privatization initiatives, one of which is likely to appear on the ballot next year…
The grocery association’s interest is obvious: It wants a piece of the action. Currently, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission purchases and warehouses virtually all liquor sold in the state, which is then sold through state-chartered liquor stores. The initiatives filed this week would allow stores with more than 10,000 square feet of retail space to sell spirits…
State-chartered liquor stores tend to be small, independently owned businesses. The proposed initiatives would open the liquor market to such giants as Fred Meyer and Safeway, which are backing the proposals…
For consumers, privatization offers the potential advantage of lower prices…
Oregon’s current system has promoted the emergence of a low-volume craft distillery industry, which after privatization would depend on specialty retailers. Privatization would make it more convenient to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels bourbon, but finding a Rogue Valley pear liqueur might be a different story…
The Oregonian, December 18, 2013
Our Response & Your Comments
Lane Solutions neither supports nor opposes this potential ballot measure. But we do have questions which we we’re considering and suggest that you do as well.
- Should Oregon, or any state, be in the liquor business?
- Does Oregon, with its high liquor prices, have fewer problem drinkers than states which have lower liquor prices (e.g. California)?
- Is it the business of government to “protect(ing) small businesses at the expense of big ones?”
- Is it the business of government to protect boutique distillers such as Rogue Valley or should the market decide who survives and who doesn’t?
- How good is government at picking winners and losers?
We welcome your comments on this issue.
Don’t let EUC lapse
The need for federal unemployment benefits persists
What would the Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives do if they were forced to live on unemployment insurance and food stamps for six months? And how would they feel if their food stamp allotments were suddenly reduced and their unemployment checks cut off — three days after Christmas?…
The program, called Emergency Unemployment Compensation, was approved by Congress during the Great Recession to extend state-based unemployment insurance programs by using federal dollars to pay benefits to people looking for jobs. Congress has previously extended the program several times.
Unemployment in the United States was under 6 percent before the recession but the national average remains stuck above 7 percent — lower than the 10 percent peak in 2009 but still troublesome — and there are nearly three unemployed workers for every job opening. A report by the White House Council on Economic Advisers and the U.S. Labor Department, released Thursday, said extending the EUC one year would save 240,000 jobs nationwide, including 3,829 jobs in Oregon…
The Eugene Register Guard, December 9, 2014
Our Response & Leave Your Comments
The RG editors didn’t read or chose to ignore a simple economics lesson from an earlier issue of Lane Solutions.
So as much as we hate to repeat ourselves, we’ll count to ten and try again to communicate basic logic and common sense to them.
Here it is: politicians cannot remove money (“taxes”) from the private sector, take a bite out of it to run their beaurocracy, give what’s left to a group they want to vote for them and create more jobs than they first killed by over taxation and more money than they grabbed from the poor saps who worked for it.
If paying people not to work actually creates more jobs and economic growth why don’t we just pay everyone not to work?
And what do these geniuses think we’d do with the money if they didn’t grab it? Bury it? No – we’d invest it or spend it. In either case it would end up back in the economy in the form of economic growth and job creation.
Why don’t these “public servants” concentrate on something where they’re more likely to stumble on
success? Like an anti-gravity machine or a pill that converts water to gasoline.
Meet the New Tax Reform…Same as the Old Tax Reform
Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, fresh off his early October special legislative session “Grand Bargain” success, says he will now turn his attention to tax reform. He has plenty of company in Oregon’s recent history…
Ask the average Oregonian what “tax reform” means, and they are likely to say it means “more taxes.” And, so far they’d be correct.
Before Governor Kitzhaber has even hinted at specifics of his upcoming tax reform plan, several state legislators are fleshing out their own version of “more taxes” which includes a five percent sales tax coupled with property and income tax reductions. This time, they have in hand a Legislative Revenue Office analysis that says it will create 55,405 new jobs and raise $488 million a year in net tax revenue.
Steve Buckstein, Cascade Policy Review, December 9, 2009
“I’m stunned that we could not only produce more money for education, stabilize our tax code and produce more jobs for our economy,” said Hass, a Beaverton Democrat and a chief architect of the tax reform proposal.” – Mark Hass, Oregon Senator, District 14, quoted in The Oregonian.
Our Response & Leave Your Comments
We’re plenty stunned ourselves! It came as an utter shock to us that the wizards in Salem could remove $488 million from the private sector and it would result in 55,405 new jobs in the same sector you just took the money from.
We have a better idea – How about if 2,500 Lane Solutions readers each sent your humble but grasping editors $2,000? We could create 100 jobs paying “living wages” (whatever that means). But our generous 2,500 readers wouldn’t have the money to create jobs of any kind, would they?
It works exactly the same when the Salem geniuses take your money. The only difference is that we’d have to ask you for it. Government doesn’t. All they have to do is take it.