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Do your children attend a private school or a charter school? Do you home school them? Would you like to make such a choice if you could afford it?
Our recent poll found that 87 percent of Oregonians would like more school choices for their children. If you’re one of them, now you can tell everyone . . . Read more!
Testimony of John A. Charles, Jr.
President & CEO
Regarding Management of the Elliott State Forest
January 26, 2009
The Oregon Constitution requires that Common School Trust Lands be managed for maximum revenue over the long term in order to support K-12 schools. In 1992 Oregon Attorney General Charles Crookham reviewed this mandate and wrote, “Non-economic factors maybe considered only if they do not adversely affect the potential financial contribution to the Common School Fund.” . . . Read more!
Roads should be funded primarily by user fees. However, it is not necessary to collect pure user fees for every mile traveled in the state. Adequate funds could be raised if the most heavily traveled highways were self-financed through user fees, and the remainder of the road network continued to rely on fuel taxes and local revenue sources.
Proposal
I. Convert all or part of the State Highway System to a turnpike using standard electronic tolling technology (transponders and overhead gantries). The SHW system represents only 13% of all roads, but accounts for 60% of VMT. . . . Read more!
January 22, 2009
Testimony before the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee on Senate Bill 79, Requiring Energy Performance Certificates and Increased Building Efficiency Codes
Todd Wynn
Climate Change and Energy Policy Analyst, Cascade Policy Institute . . . Read more!
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In a 2007 national seminar, Cascade Policy Institute’s Wheels to Wealth program promoted the idea of allowing jitneys to replace low-ridership public buses. A form of mass transit, a jitney is a car or van which is not required to run on a fixed route and schedule. Cascade followed this proposal with a publication on jitneys, which was widely circulated within TriMet but then quickly rejected by the transit agency.
Now West CAP, a community action agency in Wisconsin, is taking up the jitney idea. . . . Read more!
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Once again, Oregon has been cut off from Washington, due to flooding in Centralia that closed I-5 by January 8. The loss of commerce for each day the highway remains closed is estimated to be in excess of $4 million. In the December 2007 flood, property damage alone in that area exceeded $1 billion. . . . Read more!
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Summary
The Unemployment Compensation Extension Act (H.R. 6867) expands unemployment benefits to up to 59 weeks in Oregon. Unfortunately, paying workers not to work longer helps neither the economy nor workers, who . . . Read more!
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Summary
Metro wants to spend over 200 million dollars building a Convention Center hotel in Portland, a project that cannot possibly be financially sound over the lifetime of the hotel. Metro and the City of Portland should reject this proposal. . . . Read more!
© 2009 Cascade Policy Institute