The Portland Development Commission has put 70 urban renewal projects on hold due to the recent Oregon Supreme Court decision in Shilo Inn v. Multnomah County. Amidst the collective hand wringing over the loss of funds, few are discussing the public financing sleight of hand that has been exposed thanks to Shilo.

The court determined that some property taxes dedicated to urban renewal projects were . . . Read more!

Dozens of Oregonians are killed every year by fuel economy standards on new cars. The situation may soon get even worse.

The federal government’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards impose average mile per gallon (mpg) requirements on every automaker’s yearly output of new cars. The current standard is . . . Read more!

Much noise was raised about protecting the Oregon Health Plan from budget cuts in the recent special legislative session. A more constructive ruckus would have started with the question: how can we get more affordable private health insurance, and thereby reduce the need for the OHP?

Randall J. Pozdena, Ph.D., noted in a November 2000 Cascade report, “Oregon is one of 16 states identified by the U.S. General Accounting Office as having . . . Read more!

The Oregonian’s four-part story about Oregon’s slowly collapsing highway bridges points to a fundamental problem: we raise lots of revenue through transportation taxes, but there is no requirement that those funds be spent on maintenance.

Between 1986 and 1999, revenues collected from state gas taxes . . . Read more!