Cascade CounterPoint

Joe Rogan, the outspoken commenter, comedian, and host, announced on a recent episode of his popular podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” that he would be moving to Texas in search of less homelessness, less taxes, and a little bit more freedom.

Rogan will be bringing his business that recently signed a 100-million-dollar deal with Spotify, too. The move to the Lone Star state will save Rogan and his company over $13 million in taxes and provide more economic growth for the state that is the perennial winner of the Governor’s Cup for economic growth and job creation.

Unlike California, Texas has no income tax and frequently poaches businesses from the West Coast, such as Tesla, Charles Schwab, and McKesson.

Oregon, whose top income tax rate is slightly under California’s at 10 percent, should note the multiple businesses fleeing California for Texas and follow Texas’s tax policy lead instead of California’s.

Amid a pandemic, now more than ever is the time for economic development and job creation to flood Oregon, allowing Oregonians to succeed. The implementation of free-market solutions such as lower-income taxes will alleviate local business owners from the damage that COVID has done while allowing more Oregonians to rejoin the workforce.

Once again, Oregon’s legislature has succumbed to shortsighted politics. Effective June 30, House Bill 4213 prohibits landlords from evicting tenants due to nonpayment until next April, regardless of their circumstances.

Of course, there could be many reasons tenants might not pay their rent. One of the most pressing is Oregon’s lockdown policy, which effectively prohibited many businesses and entire industries from operating, and their employees from supporting themselves. While these conditions may warrant legislative action, people who have continued to earn an income may simply choose to delay their rent payments.

By being so broadly applied, this legislation will harm landlords, particularly small private owners who still must pay utilities and property taxes on their units. But property owners won’t be alone in suffering. This moratorium will make it even harder for people to find apartments for rent, because only the most secure tenants would be considered during a time when anyone can simply put off their payments. In addition, the end of the moratorium likely will bring more debt, eviction, and ultimately homelessness to an already stretched system.

Legislators should understand that seemingly simplistic quick fixes can cause long-run damage. This legislation will push Oregon from having a health crisis to an even deeper housing crisis. Laws should be made with specificity, not reactionary haste.

Learn more at cascadepolicy.org or by emailing [email protected].

Last week, the United States officially surpassed 4 million documented coronavirus cases. With only a few weeks before students return to school, parents in Oregon are scrambling to find—or create—a safe and effective learning environment for their children.

Of the options available, some parents believe they have found the best solution for their family with micro-schools.

Micro-schools are small groups of children that learn at home. The parents of children in micro-schools pool their resources to hire a teacher, or instead become teachers themselves by obtaining teaching materials through homeschooling programs.

However, some families cannot afford a private teacher’s salary, even if they pool their funds with other parents. Parents who can’t or won’t send their children to public schools deserve to get their kids’ share of state instruction funds.

It’s a matter of equity. If public schools can’t safely and effectively provide education, the funds should flow to families so they can find a solution that works for them and their children. Putting schooling funds directly into the family’s hands allows for maximum flexibility when the local government school is unable to provide an option that parents feel comfortable with.

Parents know what options are best for their children, and Oregon lawmakers should allow all families, not just wealthy ones, to have the same access to those options.

Learn more at cascadepolicy.org or by emailing [email protected].

TriMet’s weekly system boardings were down 68% in May compared to last year due to the Coronavirus, and ridership will likely stay down since the CDC is recommending that people avoid transit altogether. But it’s not just the pandemic; ridership has been dropping for years.

TriMet’s revenues have increased by 171 percent since 2000, while the agency’s ridership (number of originating rides) has increased by only 18 percent. However, ridership peaked in 2012 and has since dropped by 7 percent between 2012 and 2019.

The negative trend for ridership is primarily due to a drop in light rail utilization. Since the peak in 2012, bus ridership has decreased by 2% while light rail has decreased by 12% (a difference of just under one million for bus and 4.2 million for light rail).

Since 2000, TriMet has constructed four new light rail lines: the Red Line (2001), Yellow Line (2004), Green Line (2009), and Orange Line (2015). However, the costly increase in light rail capacity has not corresponded with a similar increase in ridership.

TriMet seems to have learned the wrong lesson from this underperformance. The agency is proposing a $2.6-2.8 billion light rail line from Downtown Portland to the Bridgeport Village mall, nearly $1 billion of which TriMet expects will be paid for by Metro’s Get Moving 2020 transportation measure.

The Southwest Corridor project is the wrong investment for our region. Portland Metro area voters should vote “no” on Metro’s transportation measure this fall.

Learn more at nomorefailedrail.com or cascadepolicy.org. 

Listen to Cascade's Policy Analyst, Vlad Yurlov, advise in a July 16th testimony against Metro's Get Moving 2020 measure, which will now be referred to the voters on the November ballot. 

Learn more about this policy issue at cascadepolicy.org or by emailing [email protected].

On March 16, Governor Kate Brown directed Oregon schools to stop in-person classes to slow the spread of COVID-19. Facing an uncertain future for “brick and mortar” schooling, 300 Oregon students completed the process to transfer to one of Oregon’s 14 online charter schools.

Eleven days after the shutdown of in-person schools, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) prevented additional student transfers to online charter schools. Jeff Kropf, the founder of Oregon Connections Academy, estimated that around 1,600 students were unable to move to his school because of ODE’s decision to freeze further transfers.

ODE’s decision curtailed thousands of students from reaching their full learning potential this past semester. However, policymakers have a rare chance to right these wrongs going forward.

Nine states have reported spikes in COVID-19 this past month, and a similar situation may occur this coming fall. Given the uncertainties about the safety and feasibility of reopening all Oregon schools, lawmakers should allow parents to choose what kind of school in which to enroll their children. The resulting increase in competition among charter, private, and public schools will encourage all education providers to adapt to the current circumstances to provide the best education possible for students.

In addition to increasing the educational opportunities that will be available for students, rolling back unnecessary regulation of charter schools will put more power over education choices into the hands of parents, where it belongs.

Learn more at [email protected] or at cascadepolicy.org.

Listen to Dr. Bill Conerly's May 14th Policy Picnic presentation, "Oregon’s Policy Response to the COVID Pandemic (or What Would Friedrich Hayek Say about Kate Brown’s Shelter-in-Place Order?)"

Dr. Bill Conerly is an Oregon economist with a global reputation. He is a Senior Contributor to Forbes with a Duke University Ph.D. As a consultant, he connects the dots between the economy and business. He is chairman of the board of directors of Cascade Policy Institute.

To learn more about Cascade's policy picnics, subscribe to our email list by emailing [email protected] or visiting our website at cascadepolicy.org.

On June 25th, Metro approved $700,000 in taxpayer money for what is best entitled a nice sentiment: Metro’s Nature in Neighborhoods program. The program hopes to improve water quality and wildlife habitats through grants to local organizations that promote racial and cultural equality.

But the program has a serious flaw: Success is not easily measured, despite the large amount of taxpayer dollars flowing into the grants.

Metro’s approved recipients for 2020 demonstrate the subjectivity of the program. Objectives include bringing “healing to the community and landscape through Traditional Indigenous healing practices” as well as building “youth of color’s relationship around the water and waterways.”

Perhaps an important question is whether our local government should be exploring these objectives with taxpayer dollars, especially during this time of economic instability. Ironically, Metro councilor Craig Dirkensen came close to this question when he asked whether Metro’s grant program was unique. The simple answer was “no.” Similar programs do exist, just not at taxpayers’ expense.

Metro should get out of the grant business and into the park-building business. The Nature in Neighborhoods program is yet another example of how Metro consumes taxpayer dollars without measurable benchmarks for success.

Learn more at [email protected] or at cascadepolicy.org.

Listen to Rachel's June 30th presentation, "Grid Reliability and Resource Adequacy in the Northwest:"

Multiple coal plants will be decommissioned over the next decade, with Oregon's only coal plant closing at the end of 2020. This means that thousands of megawatts of reliable power will be taken off the grid and "brownouts" could occur as soon as this year. Instead of replacing the lost megawatts with equally reliable power, local utilities are planning on purchasing contracts and increasing investments in renewable resources. This could spell trouble for grid reliability, and affordability, in the Northwest.

Learn more about future policy picnics by signing up for our email list on cascadepolicy.org.

On July 1st, the Portland area’s minimum wage will increase from $12.50 per hour to $13.25. This wage increase is part of a multi-year phase-in of Oregon’s three-tiered minimum wage law, passed by the State Legislature in 2016.

Andy Ricker, Michelin star chef and owner of Portland’s Pok Pok restaurant, foresaw the adverse effects of raising the minimum wage in 2016 when he told the Portland Business Journal that three of his restaurants would close partly due to the hikes in the minimum wage.

Four years later, his prophecy came true—and then some—with an Instagram post on June 15th announcing the closure of four of his restaurants based in Oregon. Sadly, Ricker’s former employees will join more than 41 million workers who have filed for unemployment since the coronavirus pandemic started.

Now is not the time to increase the costs of running businesses in Portland. Oregon lawmakers should extend a helping hand to those who are hurting and embrace free-market policies, not price job creators out of the market. Oregon should stop the economic bleeding and roll back regulations that were ill-conceived in the first place. Continuing to add to them when so many businesses are struggling to reopen their doors will only worsen the economic downturn and hurt Oregonians for years to come.

Learn more at [email protected] or cascadepolicy.org.