Cascade CounterPoint

Full Text: This time they’re coming for your home. Earlier this month, Oregon’s Secretary of State released an audit of Oregon’s mortgage interest tax deduction. According to the audit, the tax deduction is “regressive and inequitable.”

This audit is unusual in that it calls into question policy decisions made by the legislature. In particular, it claims that the deduction has no “clear purpose.” Incredibly, the audit recommends that the legislature come up with a clear purpose and direct a state agency to make sure the tax deduction is meeting that clear purpose.

It is well known that one clear purpose for the mortgage interest deduction is to foster homeownership. For many first-time homeowners, the tax deduction is the primary reason they can even afford to become homeowners.

More importantly, these homeowners enter into 30-year loans based on the expectation that the interest on those loans would be tax deductible. Yanking that deduction away could increase many homeowners’ tax bills by thousands of dollars.

Even more outrageous is the Secretary of State giving what amounts to marching orders to the legislature. Every session the legislature passes scads of laws that have no “clear purpose.” Yet, this audit seeks to upend one measure of the tax code that benefits a majority of Oregon voters.

I hope the Secretary of State’s audit falls on deaf ears, but I fear it may be the opening shot in the state’s assault on homeowners.

Full Text: According to a new survey from the Oregon Values and Beliefs Center, 71% of Oregonians are either somewhat or very concerned about hospitals having enough beds to take care of all patients requiring care.

These fears aren’t unfounded—even as the pandemic comes to an end. Oregon has the fewest number of hospital beds per capita in the nation, leaving its health care system vulnerable to being overwhelmed during future emergencies.

Hospital capacity in Oregon has been stifled for decades by the state’s certificate-of-need laws. Under these laws, hospitals who wish to expand capacity must demonstrate that there is a “need” for more health care services in their region. During this process, though, competing hospitals nearby are allowed to petition the Oregon Health Authority and ask for this expansion to be stopped, all in the name of protecting their own profits.

This cronyism has consequences, even outside of public emergencies. For instance, the resulting lack of competition among hospitals keeps prices for health care artificially high. One study estimated that per capita health care spending in Oregon is $220 more per year due to the state’s certificate-of-need laws.

As COVID-19 fades from the minds of Oregonians, the flaws the pandemic exposed in Oregon’s health care system shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s time for the Oregon Health Authority to review its stance on certificate-of-need and push our elected officials to repeal these harmful laws.

Over the past five years, Portland and Multnomah County have spent more than $280 million addressing homelessness. Even so, the crisis is worse today than ever before, and it's clear that a different approach is needed. In an interview with Greg Frick of HFO-TV, Cascade Policy Institute's VP of Research Dr. Eric Fruits proposes practical solutions to homelessness that can help those in need and create cleaner, safer communities where businesses and individuals can flourish.

Listen to Part 1 - Portland's Homelessness Crisis: The History of Homelessness in Portland

HFO is a Portland, Oregon-based commercial real estate brokerage firm. HFO's proprietary channel, HFO-TV, offers industry insights in a unique, convenient, and engaging format. Cascade Policy Institute would like to thank HFO for allowing it to republish this recording. More information on HFO-TV can be found at https://www.hfore.com/videos.aspx.

Homelessness is the biggest issue facing Portland—and the state of Oregon—today. Tarps, tents, and heaps of garbage are a common sight in nearly every neighborhood of the city. But how did the crisis get so bad? In an interview with Greg Frick of HFO-TV, Cascade Policy Institute's VP of Research Dr. Eric Fruits outlines the history of homelessness in Portland from the end of World War II to the present day. The conversation covers past efforts to address the homelessness crisis and explores why more recent efforts have failed to produce results.

Listen to Part 2 - Portland's Homelessness Crisis: Straightforward Solutions to a Complex Problem 

HFO is a Portland, Oregon-based commercial real estate brokerage firm. HFO's proprietary channel, HFO-TV, offers industry insights in a unique, convenient, and engaging format. Cascade Policy Institute would like to thank HFO for allowing it to republish this recording. More information on HFO-TV can be found at https://www.hfore.com/videos.aspx. 

Full Text: Just five months ago, Portland City Council announced that the city was going to have an unexpected $62 million surplus. Earlier that year, the mayor was begging people to come back downtown to shop in stores and eat in restaurants.

Fast forward to today, and Portland has revealed that, somehow, the city’s transportation budget is underwater by more than $12 million dollars. To fill that gap, the city council voted unanimously to raise a giant middle finger to all the downtown shoppers, diners, and workers. The new ordinance raises the price of parking by 40 cents an hour and imposes a 20-cent so-called “equity and mobility transaction fee.” Only a government monopoly would respond to a decrease in demand by raising its price.

Pre-pandemic, surveys showed that the cost and inconvenience of downtown parking was one of the main reasons people shied away from the Portland city center. Washington Square, Bridgeport Village, and Clackamas Town Center provide plenty of free parking—and security patrols.

Now, in Portland you are going to pay more for the privilege of returning to your car only to find the windows have been smashed.

Why would Portland do something so stupid? The answer is they’re not stupid. The answer is the city council hates you and they hate the car you drive. They won’t say it to your face, but they shout it through their legislation.

Full Text: Everyone loves getting a raise. Our Oregon state legislators are no exception. Recently, a large group of senators and representatives tried to increase their yearly salary from $33,000 to around $63,000. The proposed pay increase would have made Oregon’s state legislature the highest paid part-time legislature in the United States.

Even though Oregon’s legislature only meets for a fraction of the year, proponents of the raise argue that being a representative is actually a full-time job. Serving in the legislature, though, wasn’t always so demanding.

For most of the state’s history, Oregon had a part-time legislature that met every other year. But, the legislature itself pushed for annual sessions and asked voters to approve the constitutional change back in 2010 without a corresponding pay raise.

If legislators complain that they are clocking too many hours, it’s up to them to bring themselves some work-life balance. They can go back to meeting every other year. They can hold back on submitting so many bills. They can focus only on the big problems facing the state, and reduce the size and scope of the state’s government. Although the proposed pay increase failed to pass out of the legislature this year, it’s likely to resurface again soon. When it does, our representatives should first remember that they can always work less instead of asking for more taxpayer money.

Full Text: People in the Portland area love their parks and they love nature. So much that in 2019, voters approved $475 million in bonds for Metro’s “Parks and Nature” program.

What voters thought they were voting for—and what they were told they would get—was  more public parks for people and the protection of natural areas.

However a recent job posting placed by the regional government revealed a dirty little secret. About 10% of the land purchased by Metro’s Parks and Nature program is being actively farmed or leased to farmers. That’s more than 1,300 acres of parks and nature land that Metro is using for commercial farming.

Metro’s new employee—who will pull in a six-figure salary—is expected to, among other things, “develop new leases, ensure lease compliance, and oversee rent collection.”

The fact that the new employee is responsible for developing new leases suggests that Metro intends to make commercial farming a permanent feature of its so-called “Parks and Nature” program.

I’m willing to bet that no one who voted for Metro’s bond measure thought their tax dollars would be spent to buy land so that the regional government could play it’s own version of Farmville.

Metro needs to sell its farming operations and use the proceeds to provide parks and protect natural areas as the region’s voters were promised.

The Oregon State Legislature could turn the Elliott State Forest into the "Elliott State Research Forest" by passing Senate Bill 1546 during the 2022 legislative session. Many have hailed SB 1546 as a grand compromise between loggers and environmentalists, and the Oregonian editorial board called it a "win" for the state of Oregon. However, few know the full history of the Elliott State Forest and its intended purpose—funding Oregon's schools. Listen to Cascade Policy Institute's President and CEO, John Charles, explain why Senate Bill 1546 is a bad deal for taxpayers, families, and students across the state.

To access the livestream of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Natural Resources on 2/23/2022, click here. 

Full Text: Why does Oregon still have a mask mandate? Oregon is now one of the last states to have a statewide mask mandate for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

If you listen closely to our public health experts, they say they’re focused on hospitalizations. Once the hospitalizations come down, they say then we can throw off our masks.

Way back in August, when Governor Kate Brown re-imposed the mask mandate, she said it was so we wouldn’t overwhelm the state’s hospitals.

Why is Oregon hung up on hospitalizations? It’s simple: we have the fewest number of hospital beds per capita in the country.

That’s not an accident. For decades, Oregon has had laws on the books that are designed to reduce the supply of hospital beds and other health care services. These laws, known as “Certificate of Need,” are explicitly designed to shield health care providers from competition.

With Certificate of Need, existing hospitals can ask the state to halt the construction of new hospitals or the expansion of existing hospitals. All in the name of stifling competition.

While the rest of the country is running around maskless, you can thank Oregon’s Certificate of Need laws for making us the last state in the nation with a mask mandate.

Full Text: Land use regulations in Oregon are adversely impacting the state’s residents and economy. A quick glance at recent news headlines reveals as much.

OPB reports that the Oregon Department of Transportation cannot repair key portions of Highway 101 along the Oregon coast due to a land use regulation that prohibits the fortification of highway infrastructure along the shoreline. Thanks to this regulation, parts of Highway 101 are literally crumbling into the ocean below, creating a public safety hazard.

In Clackamas County, a faith-based addiction recovery facility is being shut down simply because it sits on land zoned for agriculture. According to the Portland Tribune, the facility was intentionally placed in a rural setting to limit access to drugs and alcohol for individuals in the program. To the county, though, this was irrelevant.

Perhaps most alarmingly, The Oregonian revealed that Intel chose to expand its operations in Ohio rather than Oregon due in part to a lack of available land. The state’s largest employer needed 1,000 acres for its new factory, but the biggest parcel zoned for industrial use in the Portland region was only 200 acres.

Excessive regulation is preventing individuals, businesses, and even the government from using land productively. It’s time for elected officials to take action and relax the stringent land use rules that are holding Oregon back.