Cascade CounterPoint

Full Text: A recent poll by the Portland Business Alliance found that 88% of voters believe their quality of life is getting worse. This is up significantly from 2017, when less than half of voters said the same thing. It’s not hard to understand why; all you need to do is step outside. Tents and trash line our sidewalks, shootings are rising, and more cars are being stolen. According to the poll,...

Full Text: January 23-29 is National School Choice Week, a 50-state celebration of opportunity in K-12 education. Every January, tens of thousands of independent events and activities draw attention to the ways school choice brings quality education to millions of students. School Choice Week provides free, practical resources year-round on its website to help families looking for options in their...

Full Text: Earlier this week, the Michigan Democratic Party’s Facebook account landed in some hot water. A post published to the page mocked parents who say they should have a voice in what public schools teach. The post went on to say that public schools teach kids what society “needs them to know.” This was the same argument made 100 years ago when Oregon voters banned all private schools in the...

Full Text: With the start of a new year, power customers will see a new charge on their electricity bills. The Oregon legislature passed HB 2165 at the end of the 2021 session, which requires utilities to collect a monthly charge beginning January 1 for transportation electrification infrastructure. Of the funds collected, at least half must be spent on “underserved communities.” Everyone will pay...

Full Text: Just after dinner on New Year’s Eve, my oldest son got a text from his friend who was hosting a party that night: “Party’s cancelled … car and wallet stolen.” While he was at the gym, someone got past the front desk and into the locker room. The thief cut the lock off the locker, grabbed the contents, and used the car keys to steal the car. After that, he tried to use the stolen credit...

Full Text: As 2021 is wrapping up, it turns out that this year was much like last year. Let’s hope that 2022 is not a three-peat of the last two years. There does seem to be room for hope. We’re now at the point that anyone who wants a COVID vaccine can get one. While it seems that almost everyone is going to get Omicron, it also seems to be much more mild. It’s getting more difficult to justify a...

Full Text: Nearly a year after Oregon’s drug decriminalization experiment began, results point to fewer arrests but little interest in addiction services. In 2020, Oregon voters approved Measure 110 which decriminalizes small amounts of controlled substances, including meth and heroin, and funds drug addiction treatment and recovery services. It came into effect on February 1, 2021. As predicted,...

Full Text: If you guessed that Oregonians think homelessness is the most important problem facing the state, you’d be right. That’s no surprise. What’s surprising is what came in second. It turns out, according to a poll by DHM Research, more than 1-in-6 Oregonians think politicians and government are the biggest problem facing our state. At the beginning of the year, only 2% of Oregonians had suc...

Full Text: It’s been more than six years since Portland declared a homelessness emergency. For many residents, the crisis will only end when the tarps and tents littering sidewalks, greenspaces, and interstate on-ramps are gone and the individuals on the street get the support they need. The region’s elected officials would like to claim they are making a difference. But, even the casual observer...

Full Text: The public school shutdowns have gone too far. Once reserved only for emergencies and dangerous weather, shutdowns at Oregon public schools have become commonplace for disciplinary reasons, adult staffing shortages, and lesson planning. In November, Reynolds Middle School canceled in-person learning for three weeks because of fights and disruptive behavior. After two years of online lea...

Full Text: The quintessential American holiday, Thanksgiving evolved from the Pilgrims’ celebrations to thank God for the harvests that saved Plymouth Colony. What most people didn’t learn in school is that nearly half the Mayflower Pilgrims died of starvation because many refused to work in the fields. Plymouth Colony originally had a socialist economy. Land and crops were held in common. In the...

Full Text: Economist Milton Friedman passed away 15 years ago this week. In celebration of his life, I’d like to recount part of his interview with ultra-liberal talk show host Phil Donahue. Donahue asked, “When you see the greed and the concentration of power, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed’s a good idea to run on?” Quick as a wink, Friedman responded, “Is...

Full Text: In a recent November special election, Lincoln County approved a ballot measure that imposes restrictions and bans on short-term rental housing, such as vacation rentals and Airbnbs. In some areas of unincorporated Lincoln County, existing short-term rentals will be phased out over the next five years, and permits for new rentals will no longer be issued. The measure also reduces the oc...

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents have been constantly frustrated by school closures, quarantines, and the quality of their child's remote education. Many have also learned that different education settings may better meet the needs of their child than their assigned public school. In response, support for school choice has surged in Oregon. Listen to Micah Perry discuss new educat...

Full Text: Governor Kate Brown has joined other state and national representatives at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, despite Oregon producing less than 1% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. While the conference has been filled with doom, Oregonians have a reason to look at the glass half full.  Oregon emissions per capita have fallen by 22% between 1990 and 2016, and emission...

Full Text: Next week, the Washington County Commission is expected to vote to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco and vaping products. Because only one in seven Oregonians use tobacco, some may cheer this decision. Others may not care at all because it won’t affect them. But it will affect the community. Without the sale of flavored nicotine products, most Washington County vape shops will shut d...

Full Text: Tired of wearing a mask? You’re not alone. In August, Governor Brown reinstated mask mandates in an effort to prevent Oregon’s hospitals from running out of beds. While the Delta variant is an easy scapegoat for this near catastrophe, the state’s outdated certificate-of-need laws have prevented healthcare providers from expanding capacity for decades. When a healthcare provider in Orego...

Full Text: Just over a year ago the Portland City Council cut millions from the police bureau, eliminating 84 positions. Prior to April 2021, 115 police officers left the bureau to either retire early or work in a different city, leaving 129 vacancies. Those absences are being felt across the Metro area. Portland police responded to 14 shootings over the weekend with one fatality, increasing the n...

Full Text: Oregon elected officials and appointed staff love to claim they base their decisions on the best and most accurate data available. A recent Oregon Department of Transportation study demonstrates that this often isn’t the case. In fact, staff are knowingly using inaccurate data to reach seemingly favorable conclusions. ODOT’s Climate Office Program Manager admitted in an August meeting t...

In Oregon, when the actual tax revenue for a biennium exceeds the forecasted revenue by 2% or more, taxpayers get a rebate, which Oregonians call a “Kicker.” Debate about the Kicker has grown in recent years–with advocates on both sides of the issues taking out markedly different positions.  In this forum hosted by the City Club of Eugene, Dr. Eric Fruits of Cascade Policy Institute and Danie...

Full Text: A few months ago, Oregonians learned they will be getting a Kicker next year. Now, like clockwork, a noisy network of naysayers is clamoring to kick the Kicker to the curb. I say, “No way!” Experience has taught us that our Oregon legislature will spend every dollar it can extract from its citizens and businesses. And, if that’s not enough, it will raise taxes to spend even more. Legisl...

Full Text: At a time when many Portlanders are sleeping on sidewalks, tax dollars shouldn’t be wasted on expensive and unnecessary government redevelopment projects. Earlier this month, commercial real estate firm Continuum Partners p ulled out of its agreement with the City of Portland to redevelop a postal facility downtown, citing the real estate environment and “complexities of the project.” T...

Cascade Policy Institute was recently joined by Wall Street Journal columnist Jason L. Riley for a discussion about his newly published book, MAVERICK: A Biography of Thomas Sowell .  Listen to Cascade's Vice President of Research Dr. Eric Fruits interview Jason Riley about Thomas Sowell's contributions to economic and social thought and about how Sowell's writings remain relevant in the pres...

Full Text: During the past 18 months, parents have taken a hard look at their children’s schools and considered whether or not their students’ educational needs were being met. This experience has led many families to make different education choices this year besides their assigned district public schools. Traditional public schools, public charter schools, magnet schools, online learning, privat...

Full Text: Last week, I attended my first out-of-state conference in nearly two years. This week, Portland City Council is considering an emergency ordinance banning the city and its employees from doing business with the State of Texas. The ordinance is in response to a new Texas law effectively banning abortion in the state. What do these two things have to do with each other? At the conference,...