Month: February 2006

Finally, something we can all agree on. Pro-government and anti-tax activists alike are climbing all over each other to say “Hell No” to the Trail Blazers’ call for a public bailout.

Everyone seems to point to Paul Allen’s wealth as their reason to deny (more…)

The Oregon Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the constitutionality of Measure 37, the property rights initiative approved by the voters in 2004. It requires government to either compensate landowners for reductions of real property fair market value due to certain land use regulations or modify, remove or not apply such regulations.

Most Oregonians understand the importance of protecting (more…)

There may be hope for the Portland City Council yet.

After being thoroughly embarrassed by their own lack of due diligence on the OHSU aerial tram, Councilors are now being a bit more skeptical (more…)

Summary

John Stossel’s recent TV special, “Stupid in America” energized the debate about what’s wrong with our public school system. European kids do better than Americans on standardized tests because they have school choice and we don’t. Teachers unions are a big part of the problem. Oregonians must choose between putting more money into the same school monopolies, or more school choice. (more…)

If you can’t convince legislators to spend more money on the public school system any other way, you can always sue them.

Oregon School Funding Defense Foundation has been formed to do just that. It plans to sue the state of Oregon demanding that it (more…)

One of the biggest challenges for parents is deciding where to live in order to ensure a decent education for their kids. They can guess which neighborhoods have the best public schools, but if they guess wrong, it’s not that easy to just buy another home. This leads to large-scale gaming of the system by parents, who frequently send their kids to live with relatives or rent an apartment near the preferred school while maintaining their “real” home elsewhere.

The Portland school district is cracking down (more…)

Summary

Though efforts to promote biodiesel have focused on subsidies and use mandates, the solution is far more simple: remove the unnecessary and costly Environmental Protection Agency regulations on this clean-burning fuel. (more…)