Oregon needs a moonshot, or two
The Oregon legislature will be back in session next week – same as it ever was. With the crushing of Betsy Johnson's bid to become governor, it's never been clearer that this is a one-party state and will remain so for many decades, if not forever. And the party in question has enacted into law some pretty bad ideas in recent years. Outlawing single-family zoning, endlessly hassling landlords and employers of all sizes, mollycoddling criminals to no end – the list of the "achievements" is long.
Then there's what they can't get done: gun control, a functioning criminal justice system, and of course, cleaning up the inhumane mess that's on the streets of the cities, especially Portland.
What Oregon really needs right now, the bobbleheads in the legislature will never get around to. The roots of most of the state's woes at the moment are mental illness and drug trafficking. We need a moonshot on each of those fronts. Thousands more mental health treatment beds, thousands more mental health workers, and yes, more places to institutionalize the people who pose the greatest dangers to themselves or others. And we need a war on drugs – not a war on the users necessarily, although Measure 110 was a terrible mistake, but a war on the dealers. Way more, and more aggressive, narcotics cops. More prison beds for the traffickers. Much tougher sentences.
I'm not getting my hopes up. Those two moonshots would require hundreds of millions of dollars that would have to be steered away from bike bridges and the "equity" industry. They would take tough love and a commitment to individual responsibility. Oh, and judges with some serious spine. Coming out of Salem, Oregon, that would be a rarity.
So we're stuck, folks. And don't tell me how we can get things done with ballot measures. Here in Portland, we voted in a new police review system ages ago. Statewide, we voted in strict gun control laws a couple of months ago. And where are they? These clear expressions of the will of the public have been promptly hauled off to court where they could be, and have been, stifled. It seems the police union and some judge out in Greater Idaho have a lot more power than the voters.
No, if we're ever going to get out of the mess we're in, the state legislature is going to have to play a leading role. But the folks we send down there just don't seem up to the task.
ReplyDeleteI don’t like guns
But
I don’t think we could vote away basic rights
I totally agree with you on the need for mental healthcare and narcotics enforcement. I’d add a third thing the legislature really needs to do: fix the broken tax system that is weighing down this state. Our income tax is way too high, especially in Portland, which likes to shoot itself in the foot at every opportunity. It needs to be lowered and a sales tax needs to make up the difference. Also, our property tax system is broken - it overcharges a lot of people and undercharges others. Our tax problems are going to continue to affect our economic growth potential. It’s not a surprise that we are now one of the states losing population.
ReplyDeleteTwo things this state will NEVER allow:
Delete1. Self-service gas.
2. A sales tax.
If you think taxes are the problem here, you're looking in the wrong places.
Bean. That was 1965. Wake up.
DeleteKnock yourself out with both of those initiatives, friend. If either make it to 40% on the ballot, I will buy you lunch.
DeleteWildly uncompetitive Oregon state income and capital gain tax structure has driven just about every public company away while privately held wealth increasingly relocates in advance of liquidity events. As damaging as crime, homelessness and overall Portland disfunction is, it only directly effects a certain percentage of Oregonians. Our tax system effects EVERY wage earner so it has everyday impact on the vast majority of residents. Coupled with neighboring Washington state having arguably one of the most beneficial tax structures in the country, our punishing system bleeds wealth creation and prosperity at every income level. A simple exercise…….would you rather pay the current approximately blended Oregon tax rate of 8% on $50,000 of income ( $4,000 ) or a Washington 8% sales tax on say $10,000 of sales tax eligible expenses ( $800 ). Not complicated….
ReplyDelete"...one of the most beneficial tax structures in the country..."
DeleteWashington Republicans would vehemently disagree with that statement.
Comparing only two pieces of a much more complicated tax puzzle (and as innacurately as a "simple exercise" can often be) to achieve an asserted 5:1 ratio between OR and WA is quite the feat! Does WA really only bring in 20% of what OR does? Nope, per capita state and local taxes per person are higher in WA than OR. So much for that premise . . .
DeleteWhy is cleaning up the streets and letting people retain more of their hard-earned income not a really big couple of virtue signals? Dudes in girls bathrooms. free drugs, and participation trophies seems quite a bit less of a virtue...
ReplyDeleteAmazing that, after 40 years of losing a drug war at the federal level, you are pushing for a state-level drug war.
ReplyDeleteYou could spend the entire state budget on fighting a war on drugs and not make a dent because the demand stays the same and the potential for profit goes up the harder you fight it.
Anything is better than nothing. Nothing is what we do now. Actually, less than nothing. We give out hypodermic needles and provide shoot-up locations. "Harm reduction." In a pig's eye.
Delete"Anything is better than nothing.". That's not necessarily so. Az bad as it is, it can always get worse. Getting tough on the dealers might improve things, but it might also just make things more violent as demand stays the same but the heightened risk of doing business increases the lucre of it.
DeleteTo really combat something like this you need the police, the community, and the city all working together to achieve a common purpose. I just can't see it happening in Portland near term. It'll either stay the same or get worse until we hit a real rock bottom, and all the cutesy is gone, and the people who have enough to be able to not care all leave for a cooler scene. And judging by the housing market, I think there's a whole lot more pain and suffering to go before we are at rock bottom, but we are turning the corner.
"Getting tough on the dealers might improve things..." Correct.
DeleteAccording to the Wiki, Tom McCall passed forty years ago yesterday. He was only 69. The state badly needs a similar figure around whom to rally. That person, to me, would have been Sam Blackman. Dude could have served two terms in Salem. slid right into Gatsby's seat and gone down alongside McCall, Morse, and Hatfield as one of Oregon's greats. Sam was that good.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. We need a moonshot. Like you, I've no idea who can pull us out of this.
Do you want to be an angry person? Come live in the Pearl District. Here you get to see the failures of the progressive policies on a first-hand basis. Your home equity will plummet because of tents and drugged-out lunatics and mayhem. Your income taxes and capital gains taxes and property taxes go way up. Every one of the progressive policies makes things worse. Jack, you are right. We needed a moonshot. But Tina said yesterday our problem is housing. Not drugs, not mental illness, but housing. Portland is circling the drain, on its way to becoming San Francisco. The far left is just as destructive as the far right. But in the Oregonian you only read about Trump and the far right. While Portland dies. If you have assets or income, run.
ReplyDeleteLot more kickbacks with housing...
DeleteBoy, ain't that the truth. Plus, lots of juicy overhead for the "nonprofit" bureaucrats. A "CEO" for each building.
DeleteReal estate developers and their lobbyists first! Er, whoops. "Housing" first!
ReplyDelete