The Great Tax Debate
Oregon is one of five states that has no sales tax, thus making this topic a biennial favorite when the state budget is in critical condition. State services typically ride the boom/bust cycle with the...
View ArticleOregon School Funding
Oregon schools are funded through two mechanisms: the State School Fund, carved primarily from state personal income tax, and local property taxes from homes, businesses and other properties within a...
View ArticleLand Use vs. Property Rights
Are Oregon's land-use laws a public good or an infringement on personal property rights? A pointed debate from Oregonians in Action and Friends of the Columbia Gorge.
View ArticleThe Oregon Kicker Law
Time to repeal the kicker law? Governor Kulongoski and anti-tax crusader Don McIntire slug it out over Oregon's controversial tax rebate.
View ArticleWolves of the Wallowas
More than sixty years after humans annihilated Oregon’s gray wolves, and fifteen years after the federal government reintroduced them in Idaho, wolves have crossed the border and settled in northeast...
View ArticleThe Governor's Race
The gubernatorial candidates for Oregon face a state with an uncertain economy, a wall of debt, declining revenues and an unemployment rate of 10.6 percent, a full percentage point more than the...
View ArticleWindfall or Windbag?
In February 2006, Governor Kulongoski called for 25 percent of all Oregon’s energy to come from renewable resources by 2025. Since the governor’s Action Plan For Energy, the state has courted and...
View ArticleInfluence and the Health Insurance Exchange
The federal Affordable Care Act frames health insurance exchanges as a transparent and competitive insurance marketplace where individuals and small businesses can get the same health insurance...
View ArticleSound Off: Skyline Forest
The Skyline Forest is a 33,000-acre tree farm west of Bend that was once owned by timber company Crown Pacific. In 2003, Crown Pacific filed for bankruptcy, and its assets went to its creditors....
View ArticleTillamook State Forest
In Oregon, there are six primary state forests. Altogether, these account for 3 percent of forestland in Oregon. The Tillamook State Forest is an 800-square-mile forest eighty miles west of Portland....
View ArticleGuns in Schools
In 2009, police arrested a Western Oregon University student at the student union with a concealed handgun and knife in his pocket. Later, the Newberg School District sought, and failed, to keep guns...
View ArticleClear-cutting
Clear-cutting is a form of logging in which the targeted acres are razed, leaving no standing vegetation. Environmentalists oppose this method as having long-term disruptive effects to forest...
View ArticleSound Off: Suction Mining in Oregon Rivers
Suction mining is essentially the mining of gold from river bottoms using a floating craft and a motorized vacuum to suck sediment from the river floor. Proponents of the practice point to longstanding...
View ArticleState vs Private
((tab=Intro)) A bill before the Oregon Legislature is SB 1559, which would allow grocers in Oregon to sell distilled spirits. The Northwest Grocers say the bill doesn’t go far enough. The Oregon...
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