Cascade CounterPoint

Full-text: A June 2023 RealClear Opinion Research survey of registered voters shows public support for school choice has increased seven points since 2020. Seventy-one percent of voters—up from 64% three years ago—say parents should “have the right to use tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.”

Support for school choice commands a strong majority across political affiliations. Sixty-six percent of Democrats, 80% of Republicans, and 69% of Independents polled said they support this definition of school choice. Seventy percent of Asian, 73% of Black, and 71% of Hispanic voters also said they support it.

It’s clear parents want more choices. This year, five states passed or expanded universal or near-universal school choice laws. Others expanded their state laws to include more students. States that are empowering parents to find the right fit for their children’s educational needs are opening doors of opportunity for generations of students. It’s time Oregon let the “money follow the child” so every student has a chance to succeed.

Full-text: Earlier this year, Oregon lawmakers proposed legislation allowing voters to reconsider their 1980 decision to effectively ban construction of new nuclear power plants in the state. The bills never received a hearing.

That was unfortunate, because state law requires electricity generation in Oregon to be 100% emissions-free by 2040. In order to phase out coal and natural gas, utilities will need other fuels that can provide clean, round-the-clock power; and nuclear is the only technology capable of doing that.

California has attempted to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar, but the effort is failing. During a heatwave in 2020, the state was forced to issue rolling blackouts as the sun went down and solar generation fell offline.

Ontario, Canada has been much more successful. The province completely phased out coal in 2014, and it now produces over 93% of its electricity emissions-free—with 63% of that power coming from nuclear.

The Oregon ballot measure approved in 1980 prohibits new nuclear plants from being built until a federally licensed waste depository becomes available; but after more than 40 years of waiting, the federal government still hasn’t followed through.

If Oregon legislators are really serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, they should place a measure on the ballot in 2024 allowing voters to reconsider the ban enacted 43 years ago.

Full-text: Metro is the regional government of the greater Portland region. It is tasked with managing regional issues like transportation, land use, and public parks. Metro’s Regional Mobility Policy guides the region’s transportation investments toward its goals—directing investments in roads, bridges, bike lanes, light rail, and more. 

One of Metro’s proposed policies for 2023 is the use of congestion pricing, meaning imposing tolls on users of high-traffic roadways. Cascade Policy Institute has long supported the use of toll lanes and congestion pricing to alleviate traffic, but Metro’s plans for implementing these policies leave much to be desired. Metro would use tolling revenues as if they were another form of general funding, financing unrelated projects like transit subsidization instead of reinvesting revenues back into the roadways that generated them. 

Using pricing in this way amounts to just another tax. Clearing up existing roadways by making driving more expensive does nothing to resolve the underlying problem. For pricing to be effective, revenues from busy roadways should be reinvested in additional lanes or alternative routes that allow everyone to get where they need to go quickly and efficiently. 

More taxes are not the solution to congested roads. Metro needs to seriously rethink its approach to pricing if it wants to make meaningful progress in reducing traffic in the greater Portland region. 

Full-text: During the 2023 session, the Oregon Legislature passed Cascade Policy Institute’s bill to ease state-level restrictions on taking the GED. Governor Kotek signed HB 3068 into law August 1.

General Educational Development (GED) tests are standardized exams that measure proficiency in science, mathematics, social studies, and language arts. When passed, the GED provides certification that the test-taker meets high school graduate-level academic skills. Higher scores demonstrate college readiness, and even higher scores can qualify students for college credit.

Oregon previously required that a person be 18 years or older to take the GED. The state permitted people as young as 16 to sit for the GED only in limited circumstances, such as if they already had dropped out of high school, were married or emancipated minors, or were in juvenile detention.

HB 3068 removes these restrictions. Cascade’s bill allows 11th and 12th

With bipartisan sponsorship and support, Cascade Policy Institute’s GED bill will make a meaningful difference to many students looking for a way to move forward more quickly toward college or a career.

Full-text: Metro’s 2023 Regional Transportation Plan calls for expanding many different high-capacity transit lines but includes no mention of reducing the most costly ones.

As of this spring, the WES commuter rail from Beaverton to Wilsonville only sees 450 daily boardings. That is only 225 riders, assuming a round trip. To put that in perspective, the least popular of the five MAX rail lines, the Orange Line, has more than 5,000 daily boardings. Meanwhile, the Blue Line has almost 30,000.

Metro intended WES to be a huge success, predicting between 3,000 to 4,000 daily riders by 2020. At the height of its ridership, WES barely exceeded 2,000 daily boardings and, right before the pandemic, consistently saw fewer than 1,500.

This ghost train is not just a waste of space, but a huge waste of money. Each ride costs taxpayers $103. Multiplied by the daily boardings, WES costs taxpayers more than $46,000 every day it runs.

Eliminating this line would cost money in the near term, but getting rid of a consistent financial drain would save taxpayers millions in the long run. Before expanding public transit, Metro should eradicate underperforming train lines first.

Full-text: For decades, Portland Public Schools (PPS) has tried to close the “achievement gap” between white and non-white students. “Race,” they wrote in their 2013 Racial Education Equity Policy, “must cease to be a predictor of student achievement and success.” To do this, they began dedicating 8% of their yearly budget to General Fund Equity. This

After 10 years, it’s still not clear what this has accomplished. The district’s Citizen Budget Review Committee routinely wants to know how specifically PPS uses these mechanisms to meet their equity goals. The answer is more social workers and updated curricula, but these ideas seem no different from non-equity-related programs.

These supposed remedies for the achievement gap also appear disconnected from statistical reality. In middle schools, as General Fund Equity payments increase with the district’s budget, test scores for “historically underserved” students continue to lag about 40% behind white students in English Language Arts (ELA) and math. This is especially true for PPS’s “focus” schools in the inner city. Meanwhile,

Portland Public Schools can celebrate improving graduation rates, but not much else. Instead of following the same old strategy, PPS should get creative. More alternative schools could incentivize students, including non-white students, to improve their academic performance. The result: educational equity, what the district wants.

Full-text: Two years ago, the Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 2021, which requires Oregon’s investor-owned electric utilities to phase out fossil fuels by 2040, producing all electricity from renewables—mostly wind and solar.

But renewables have a problem: Wind and solar are notoriously unreliable. They must always depend on on-demand “dispatchable” resources, which in Oregon means natural gas and hydro. New hydro is nearly impossible to build, and with other dispatchables outlawed, Oregon could find itself without electricity when it’s really needed.

PacifiCorp, one of Oregon’s two investor-owned electric utilities, admits that it likely will be unable to meet customer needs without the invention of new technologies by 2030. Without such technologies, Oregon utilities will have two options: apply for exemptions to HB 2021’s requirements, or buy electricity from other states.

If other states don’t pursue similar policies, Oregon essentially would be paying a premium to shift the blame for its emissions onto its neighbors. It still would be reliant on other states’ on-demand fossil-powered generation, but would get to claim a “100% renewable” grid. If other states do adopt similar requirements, they will face the same reliability issues as Oregon and be unable to offer help.

Oregon shouldn’t be betting its energy future on technology that doesn’t exist, and it shouldn’t be forcing premiums on ratepayers to shift around blame.

Full-text: Last week the elected Auditor for Metro published a report showing that the agency misled voters when it promised that funds raised from the $475 million bond measure approved in 2019 would be used to make Metro’s nature parks more accessible to the public.

It’s nice to see this concern validated by the Auditor, but it’s been obvious for decades that Metro was more interested in acquiring park land than inviting people to use it. Since 1995, Metro has spent over half a billion dollars buying more than 14,000 acres, but less than 12 percent of that acreage is accessible.

Roughly 70% of Metro acquisitions have been outside Metro’s own borders. More than 80% are outside the Portland urban growth boundary.

Even for lands that are easy to reach, few Metro properties have signage, parking lots, or trails.

Over time, Metro has deliberately moved away from the idea that parks are for people. Now the philosophy is that Metro buys land just for its natural properties, and people should be discouraged from visiting.

The Metro Council should shut down any more land acquisitions by staff until access improves for parks they already own.

Full-text: Two weeks ago, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced plans to give a 2.6% tax break to businesses threatening to leave Portland. This is a win for businesses and could encourage some to stay. But it may be too little, too late.

Even after the worst of the pandemic, hundreds of businesses moved their headquarters out of Portland. And it’s not just businesses; people are fleeing, too. In 2022, Portland had a net loss of 8,000 people.

Mayor Wheeler finally learned one basic principle: High taxes discourage economic activity.

According to a study from ECONorthwest, Portland has the second highest marginal tax rate in the U.S. Only New York City is higher. Another study by Ernst & Young shows that Portland business taxes have increased by 32% since 2019.

Removing a 2.6% business tax is a good start, but Portland is far from being “business friendly.” In order for Portland (and more generally, Oregon) to attract more businesses, a substantial decrease in personal and business taxes is necessary.

Full-text: Three states recently expanded education options for K-12 students through school choice laws. States that are empowering families to find the right fit for their children’s educational needs are opening doors of opportunity for generations of students.

In May, Nebraska passed the Opportunity Scholarship Act. The tax credit-funded program provides opportunities for children to attend private schools chosen by their parents. The average scholarship amount is capped at 75% of state per-pupil funding (approximately $9,200).

Oklahoma passed a historic education package including tax credits for families with school-aged children to offset private school tuition or homeschooling costs, pay increases for teachers, and funding for rural and charter schools.

In June, Wisconsin increased the per-pupil funding for its existing school choice programs. Participating families will qualify for up to $9,500 for elementary and middle school tuition and $12,000 for high school. Funding for charter school students and the Special Needs Scholarship Program also increased. This bill expands Wisconsin’s school choice funding by almost $300 million, the largest increase in state history.

This year, Iowa, Utah, Arkansas, Florida, and Indiana passed or expanded universal or near-universal school choice laws, joining West Virginia and Arizona. The school choice states provide Oregon with legislative models we can follow. Oregon needs to give students viable alternatives to zoned district schools