Issues
“Huge betrayal”: Kate Brown angers veterans with cuts despite Measure 96
Oregon veterans are taking Gov. Kate Brown to task for proposing millions of dollars less for services than voters might have assumed when they passed Measure 96 in November.
Measure 96 was the most popular measure on the fall ballot, winning 84 percent to 16 percent. It sets aside 1.5 percent of Oregon Lottery funds for services such as education, housing, health care and helping veterans better access their benefits. That’s expected to hit more than $18 million over the next two years.
Brown’s budget, revealed last week, includes that funding as directed. But at the same time, it would spend $10 million less from the general fund than it does in the current budget…
Rep. Julie Parrish, R-West Linn, who was a leading advocate for Measure 96, called the governor’s budget proposal “a slap in the face to Oregon voters.”…
We Respond & Your Comments
If Guv Kate, or for that matter, any other politician wants to know why citizens’ trust in and approval of government is as low as it is, all they have to do is read the 141 words above
Or they could just read this summary:
- Citizens of Oregon gathered enough signatures to put Measure 86 on the ballot;
- 86% of voters approved it;
- The governor they elected responded: Go fry ice. I don’t care what you want.
When Kate’s running again and bleating that “Oregon’s brave veterans are my top priority”, she thinks Oregonians will forget what she did to them in 2016. Will we let them?
Cascade Report Finds Long-Term Negative Impacts on Youth from Oregon’s New Minimum Wage Policy
By Cascade Policy Institute
Cascade Policy Institute released a report today that has foreboding implications for young people in our state. The report was commissioned after passage of SB 1532 earlier this year, which phases in large increases in Oregon’s minimum wage…
[The report] analyzes… impacts of minimum wage regulation. It focuses on youth aged 16 to 24 because they are most likely to be affected by minimum wage increases as new entrants into the labor force…
“This report confirms ominous long-term negative consequences of minimum wage increases…” said Steve Buckstein, Cascade’s founder and Senior Policy Analyst.
Key findings..:
- Increases in the minimum wage significantly depress youth employment and labor force participation…
- Collectively for all youth, what wage increases occur are more than offset by condemnation of a large share of youth to a zero wage; namely, to unemployment…
- Even a one-time increase in the minimum wage persistently continues to depress the share of youth who are employed…
We Respond & Your Comments
Why is it so hard for “Progressives” to understand that:
- When you increase the cost of anything (e.g. labor) you decrease demand;
- When you force employers to pay inexperienced kids what they pay experienced adults, adults get the jobs;
- A job at low wages is better than no job.
How is it “Progressive” to do something that hurts the kids you say you love?
Oregon Health Authority Salaries Show Sharp Rise Under Saxton
By Chris Gray, The Lund Report
The state agency has hired 862 more employees since 2013 and increased salaries on upper management by 18 percent, helping to drive a 29 percent overall increase in payroll.
…even as it forecasts a hole of $1.1 billion for the 2017-2019 biennium…
We Respond & Your Comments
Only in government can employees increase dramatically and salaries rise sharply even as you project a big drop in revenue.
But then only in government can you legally pick someone’s pocket, label it his “far share,” call it a “contribution,” and when you spend it tell the guy whose pocket you emptied that it was an “investment.”
Gov. Brown proposes budget with series of cuts, tax and fee hikes
By Taylor W. Anderson, The [Bend] Bulletin
SALEM — Gov. Kate Brown today released her proposed budget that bridges a $1.8 billion budget deficit through a series of tax hikes and by asking lawmakers to give state agencies about $1 billion less than what they say they need to meet rising costs.
Still, the proposal would lead to state spending that at $20.6 billion would be about 9 percent above what lawmakers agreed to spend in the current, two-year budget that ends July 1, 2017…
We Respond & Your Comments
Make no mistake – Guv Kate. is outraged at these “cuts.” “The budget includes significant cuts at a level I find absolutely unacceptable,” she declared in a presser.
Of course they’re “unacceptable.” That’s because government can never do with less money. You can. We can. But government? Puleeeze. We don’t suppose she saved a morsel of righteous outrage over the 9 percent increase in spending.
Herewith some predictions about the coming months:
- You’ll hear liberals bleating about “investing” in this or that program;
- You’ll learn that most every program must be fully funded because it’s “For the children;”
- You’ll hear increasingly hysterical calls for evil corporations and greedy rich Oregonians to pay “Their fair share.”
And did we mention that Kate wants to bond out another half billion bucks? $300 million would go for home loans to people banks won’t lend to. Haven’t we seen this movie before?
Take The CEO Pay Fight Local
By Sarah Anderson, Contributor, usnews.com
Public outrage over sky-high CEO pay runs across the political spectrum…
Frustrated with Washington inaction, some activists are taking the CEO pay fight local…
These efforts are most advanced in Portland, Oregon, where the city council is holding a hearing on Oct. 26 to consider what would be the nation’s first-ever surtax on corporations with wide gaps between their CEO and worker pay. Firms that do business in Portland would owe a 10 percent surtax on the city’s existing business tax if they pay their CEOs more than 100 times what their workers receive [i.e. their workforce median wage]…
We Respond & Your Comments
We’ll skip over the fact that it’s none of Portland city councilors’ business who pays what to whom. This is just another example of bumbling busybody bureaucrats distorting another market.
But we do want to make two points:
- What incentives are these numbskulls, who can’t even keep Portland sidewalks clear of seemingly comatose bodies, creating? First – they’re incenting companies not to locate in Portland. How brilliant is that? Second, they’re incenting companies to get rid of lower income workers in order to raise their median wage number. That’ll really help “the little guy” their hearts bleed for.
- Why do we never hear these income inequality crusaders bleat about progressives like Meryl Streep snagging $825,000 per TV episode or Robert De Nero pulling down $750,000 per show?
Liberal income inequality outrage seems highly selective and limited to CEO’s – who actually create something.
The path forward after Measure 97’s defeat (Opinion)
Chuck Sheketoff, oregonlive.com
…The measure’s defeat could not come at a worse time, as Oregon stares at a $1.4 billion shortfall for the upcoming budget period.
While corporations as a group are getting away with paying little in income taxes, we have no way of knowing which corporations are the worst tax avoiders, and which tax loopholes they use to pay nothing — or next to nothing — in taxes. Right now, that information is not public…
The other top priority in the 2017 session is for lawmakers to muster the will to raise new revenue…
Even opponents of Measure 97, such as former Gov. John Kitzhaber, acknowledge that “corporate Oregon can afford to contribute quite a bit more to support” schools and other key public services….
Ultimately, it is up to lawmakers to move forward with a plan that indeed asks large corporations to pay “quite a bit more.” …
Chuck Sheketoff is executive director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-anthem-obamacare-20161103-story.html
We Respond & Your Comments
Dear Mr. Sheketoff:
We have a few questions based on your guest editorial:
- If corporate tax information “is not public”, how on Earth do you and disgraced Ex Guv Kitz know that they’re “getting away with paying little in income taxes,” or that they “can afford to contribute quite a bit more…”? The short answer is: You don’t.
- Are you aware that “new revenue” will go straight to PERS benefits? How does that help little Johnny and Suzie learn to read better?
- Since when are moneys confiscated under threat of imprisonment labeled “contributed”?
We eagerly await your response.
Cordially,
The Editors, Lane Solutions
Editorial: PERS should stop fighting transparency
The Public Employees Retirement System shouldn’t be fighting to keep the public blind to what it is doing. But it did.
It spent $1,627 on lawyers to defend charging a reporter $112 for some records. And it lost.
Gordon Friedman of the Statesman Journal in Salem requested travel receipts of PERS board members. That’s the kind of thing that the public should have access to for free…
PERS told Friedman that he must pay to see the records. Friedman asked the Department of Justice to order PERS to release the documents for free, arguing that it was in the public interest.
The DOJ sided with Friedman and ordered the release…
We Respond & Your Comments
PERS is a horror show. Consider:
- It has over $21 Billion in unfunded liabilities;
- It’s going to cost $885 million more next year;
- “Contributions” from state and local governments will increase by 4% of payroll in 2017. And 2018. And 2019.
- It’s paying 23,000 retirees more than they made when they were working.
Our advice to the stars of this nightmare: you get in more trouble trying to cover up the mess you made than you’d have gotten for fessing up to the mess itself. Think Teapot Dome. Think Watergate. Think Monica’s blue dress.
OK, PERS brainiacs – we warned you. Now step up and fix it.
Oregon Promise: About 6,000 students are attending college so far
By Andrew Theen | The Oregonian/OregonLive
One month into fall term, about 6,000 students across the state are taking community college classes through the Oregon Promise...
That headcount is right about what state officials anticipated for the first-year program, which helps defer tuition costs for eligible high school seniors who chose to attend community college…
As Oregon Promise students gear up for first year, some learn attendance isn’t free
..State lawmakers allocated $10 million for the program in 2015, enough to cover the cost of the program for the 2016-17 school year…
The program isn’t guaranteed to continue in perpetuity. The higher education commission is asking for $34 million in the upcoming biennium…
We Respond & Your Comments
We’re not advocating for or against this program for “free community college.” But we do want to make a few points we hope readers will remember when they hear about new government programs:
- Nothing is “Free” – Somebody pays for everything;
- Spending always rises – Oregon Promise costs $10 million this year; for the next 2 years they want $34 million;
- Look for perverse incentives – Here the incentive is to show less income. Google “lower your income to get college aid.” You’ll find loads of websites about how to do it. Some parents will find legal loopholes; some will under report income; some will work less to get more aid for their kids.
Decide for yourself whether this and other taxpayer funded programs are good or bad. But filter your thoughts through the advice above.
Hungry startup uses robots to grab slice of pizza market
The Associated Press, reprinted in The Register Guard
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Did robots help make your pizza?
If you ordered it from Silicon Valley’s Zume Pizza, the answer is yes…
Zume is one of a growing number of food-tech firms seeking to disrupt the restaurant industry with software and robots…
Inside its commercial kitchen in Mountain View, pizza dough travels down a conveyer belt where machines add the sauce, spread it and later carefully slide the uncooked pies into an 800-degree oven.
The startup will soon add robots to prep the dough, add cheese and toppings, take pizzas out of the oven, cut them into slices and box them for delivery…
In Silicon Valley and beyond, tech startups are building robots to help reduce labor costs, speed production and improve safety in the restaurant industry.
San Francisco-based Momentum Machines is building robots to make gourmet hamburgers, and BistroBot, another San Francisco startup, has designed a machine that makes sandwiches while customers watch…
We Respond & Your Comments
We at Lane Solutions have predicted this for years. Economist Dr. Eric Fruits (see Debunking Oregon’s glowing job growth” above) warned us that excessive regulation would “choke off jobs.” Now, in this report from Mountain View, we see living proof of the inevitable results of these minimum wage hikes, mandated sick pay and other job-killing “feel good” policies.
Fortunately, Zume Pizza was able to move displaced employees into other jobs. But reality persists: these robots are performing functions that could have been performed by new hires.
So let’s use our ballots to tell our wannabe Warren Buffets in Salem, who think they know how businesses should be run, that robots are soon coming to pizza parlors near them.
Debunking Oregon’s glowing job growth
Dr. Eric Fruits
Oregon Economist
For much of the past year, economists employed by the State of Oregon have described the state’s employment growth as running at “full throttle.”…
The dictionary, however, says that to throttle means to choke.
More recently, Oregon employment is showing signs of choking. At 5.4 percent, the state’s unemployment is the 15th highest in the U.S. and one-half of a percentage point higher than the national unemployment rate….
Much of the doom, however, is self-imposed by Oregon policies that choke off job opportunities.
In July, Oregon began its march toward steep increases in the state’s minimum wage. The state forecasts 40,000 fewer jobs by 2025 because of the wage hike.
On top of that, Oregon voters will decide whether to pass Measure 97, a $3 billion tax on sales in the state. The state’s Legislative Revenue Office predicts that 38,400 private sector jobs will disappear if the measure passes…
Then, on top of that, Oregon legislators are promising to pass laws making it more difficult for employers to schedule their workers’ shifts…
We Respond & Your Comments
The only thing we’d add is a suggestion that you print this out, put it in your wallet/purse and read it again right before you vote.