Featured Stories
Featured Stories
Eric Fruits, Ph.D.
Research Thursday, Metro Council will be receiving from staff an annual report on Metro’s Parks and Nature program. Cascade Policy Institute urges the Council reject the Annual Report and demand a revised report that includes details of the program’s skyrocketing administrative costs. In addition, the Council should replace the current members of the Oversight Committee with individuals who have the time, energy, and expertise to provide adequate oversight to the nearly billion dollar Parks and Nature program and Council should provide the new Oversight Committee with the information and staff support necessary for them monitor the Parks and Nature program.
REJECT THE PARKS & NATURE ANNUAL REPORT
In the last fiscal year, Metro spent $42 million on its Parks and Nature program. Yet the annual report provided to Metro Council is only four pages and runs less than 1,400 words with high-res photos making up about one-third of the report. What little information is presented raises more questions than it answers, in particular: Continue reading
Abortion survivor Gianna Jessen
The anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court abortion decision, Roe v. Wade, is upon us again. And here we are, 61 million abortions later.
Some of the most powerful spokespersons against Roe are those who survived an attempted abortion. At least 300 Americans alive today are in that category. Here we will highlight three such survivors.
A couple of months ago, I heard a dramatic talk from Gianna Jessen of Tennessee. Born in 1977, Gianna survived a saline abortion, and her story has been told in a Focus on the Family book, Gianna: Aborted, and Lived to Tell about It.
Gianna has even run two marathons, despite the cerebral palsy caused by the abortion-attempt. It took her several hours longer than the average runner to complete the 26.2 miles. But she made it. Twice.
Some say she lacks a “quality of life,” but she asks (as I recall), “Who are you to judge my ‘quality of life’?” Thanks to the faithfulness of the Lord, she has a high “quality of life,” thank you very much.
Another survivor is Melissa Ohden of Missouri. I had the privilege to interview her for Christian TV recently. As a child she knew she had been adopted. But not until she was 14 did she learn the back story. Continue reading
Frank Salvato
“Here, McConnell is trying to prevent the witness from ever testifying, and the public from ever finding out what they have to say…this will be the first impeachment trial in American history in which the Senate did not allow the House to present its case with witnesses and documents.” – House Democrats Impeachment Managers statement, January 21, 2020
After a Progressive Democrat-led House impeachment process that included secret, behind-closed-door meetings that excluded any Republican; that refused to allow Republicans to call witnesses of their choice; that censored Republican lines of questioning; and that Democrat leadership stated upon its codifying vote was “proof positive” and “airtight”, now Progressive-Democrats say they need an opportunity to “make their case”?
The time for “making the case” was during the phase of the process when the case was required to be made. That phase was the House impeachment phase.
The impeachment process draws from the idea of our legal system but it is a political vehicle that only draws loosely from that model. Just as the House is not mandated to present evidence of a specific compilation of impeachable conduct (i.e. they can be vague, as in the case presented against Trump), the Senate is not mandated to apply specific procedural rules or due-process standards during an impeachment trial (i.e. they do not have to satisfy a call for witnesses given that the evidentiary phase of the process was supposed to be satisfied in the House). Continue reading
One of the most common complaints is, “I don’t like my job.” The person complaining may not like their boss or their hours. Their complaint may be about the pay or the office politics. Such complaining is not new. The Bible is filled with such incidents. I’ll point out two that took place shortly after the Jewish people were delivered from bondage in Egypt, about 1500 BC. At the time, Moses was God’s leader of these freed slaves.
Shortly after they left Egypt, God designated a small group to be priests and another group to be assistants to the priests. One of those assistants, Korah, wasn’t satisfied with his job, so he organized a protest. He gathered 250 community leaders and they took their demands to Moses. Numbers 16:3 records their accusations, “You [Moses] have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?” In today’s language Korah’s complaint would sound like this: “Hey, who made you boss? We’re just as good as you are. What makes you think you’re so special to be in charge?” Continue reading
“All the sportswriters were mad at me that night because they wanted to get to Hank after the game and I closed the clubhouse to everyone but the team and families . . . I stood on a table and said what I thought about Hank, which was that he was the best ballplayer I ever saw in my life.” – [manager] Eddie Mathews
“THE UNDERGROUND IS EVERYWHERE” was a slogan of our 1960s hippies, who were but a mirror image of Russia’s 1860s Nihilists (whose males wore their hair long and the females had short hair (and they had alternative life-styles that shocked the traditionalists). I was at the University of Wisconsin during the days of the “revolution” and posted my own slogans in the Badger Herald – such as “The Underwood is everywhere.” On a manual Underwood I had been attempting to write a futuristic novel about a Red Sox-Atlanta World Series – plus the return of our braves from “foreign entanglements” and “police actions.” It didn’t get finished yet, but who knew that we would be able to post our stuff on the World Wide Web with computers for free (ain’t free enterprise amazing?). In the meantime, I’ve used up about eight of my nine lives, through a series of miracles that I should detail sometime, and I’ve lived to write another day, adding to my 800-some columns. Continue reading
The 2019 Oregon Legislature established a new tax affecting all firms that do business in Oregon. While it is called by its misnomer the “Corporate Activity Tax,” the CAT actually applies to most types of organizational entities such as partnerships, individuals, limited liability companies, and trusts that have commercial activity generated in Oregon in the regular course of their trade or business. It is a tax paid annually for the privilege of doing business in Oregon. Initial expectations are that it will raise about $1 billion in new revenue annually. These funds are to be set aside for exclusive use for education and school purposes.
By now, every business in Oregon should have received a generic letter from the Oregon Department of Revenue alerting them to this new tax. This letter is a helpful primer on the CAT, but is not incredibly useful in figuring out the impact on each business’s specific situation. As is usual with all tax law, the devil is in the details.
How did the Corporate Activity Tax come about? In May 2019, the Oregon Legislature passed HB 3427. In this bill, it established the CAT as the primary mechanism to fund the new Fund for Student Success. Then in June 2019, the Legislature passed HB 2164 which provided technical Continue reading
Secretary of State Bev Clarno
Today, Secretary of State Bev Clarno announced that Jeff Morgan has been sworn in as Interim Deputy Secretary of State. Jeff has over 39 years of public service in the State of Oregon and has been with the agency as Director of our Business Services Division since 2004. He has also been nationally recognized as an exemplary manager and public servant.
“Jeff has been a wonderful member of the leadership team as Director of the Business Services Division and I am very pleased that he has agreed to step up to the position of Interim Deputy,” Secretary Clarno said. “I am confident that he will help guide this agency and assist me in managing the important duties of the office.”
Jeff has been happily married to his lovely wife, Patti, for over 44 years. They have 3 children and 2 grandchildren.
Kathryn Hickok, Cascade Policy Institute
January 26-February 1 is National School Choice Week, the world’s largest celebration of parental choice and effective education options for all children. Since 2011, more than 180,000 independent NSCW events and activities have been planned in local communities across the country.
The landscape of options to meet the learning needs of today’s students is more diverse than ever. These options include traditional public schools, charter schools, private and parochial schools, homeschooling, magnet schools, online learning, and more.
Empowering parents to choose among these options can unlock the unique potential of every child. More than half the states in the U.S. now help families to have more flexibility with their children’s education through educational choice programs like privately or publicly funded scholarships, education tax credits, and Education Savings Accounts.
Continue reading
Bryan Fischer
The Supreme Court on Friday said it will consider whether states may punish or replace “faithless” presidential electors who refuse to support the winner of their state’s popular vote, or whether the Constitution forbids dictating how such officials cast their ballots.
Lower courts have split on the question, and folks are fearful a handful of independent-minded members of the electoral college might decide the next president.
It’s certainly possible that in a close presidential race, just a few electoral votes could determine the outcome. There are only 538 electoral votes that are cast, and these are the only votes that actually and ultimately count in a presidential contest. Three electors in Washington were fined by the state government for not voting for Hillary Clinton, who won the state’s popular vote. Continue reading
Rachel Dawson, Policy Analyst, Cascade Policy Institute
Oregon state officials recently celebrated helping the state reach 25,000 registered electric vehicles (EVs) through local incentives and the Clean Vehicle Rebate Program. This celebration, however, is a punch in the gut to the state’s low-income and rural residents whose taxes fund the rebates and incentives used to purchase the EVs by predominantly wealthy and urban Oregon residents.
Programs include two rebate programs through the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, a federal tax credit, and local utility rebates (though local utility rebates generally tend to target businesses and the 2019 Nissan LEAF). For example, a consumer could use between $7,500 and $10,000 taxpayer dollars to purchase a new 2020 Tesla Model 3, which currently sells for $39,999. In fact, 24% of the EVs registered in Oregon are Teslas.
These incentive programs may shave a couple thousand dollars off the consumer cost of EVs and plug-in hybrids, but their prices will likely still be too high for those with lower incomes. Purchasing an EV also isn’t a viable option for many residents living in rural counties due to a lack of EV infrastructure. Continue reading