Month: January 2009

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 (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.” (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. (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 (more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

Click here to read this Commentary in PDF format

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 (more…)

Click here to read this Commentary in PDF format

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. (more…)

Click here to read this Commentary in PDF format

Summary

Singapore’s Central Provident Fund is based on individual savings and building assets, unlike the American Social Security system. Singapore’s national philosophy, “nothing should be free,” has encouraged free-market strategies and individual responsibility, a good model for American social policy. (more…)

Where do Oregonians send their children to school? Where would they send them if they had the choice?

Right now, 91 percent of Oregon families send their children to a regular public school – usually the one chosen for them based on where they live. But a new public opinion survey reveals that nearly nine out of ten Oregonians would opt out of regular public schools altogether if they could. What schools would they choose? (more…)

– Survey Results Find Strong Support for School Choice Among Democrats, Independents, Republicans –

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Steve Buckstein
Cascade Policy Institute
Tel.: 503-242-0900
Fax: 503-242-3822
E-mail: steven@cascadepolicy.org

Contact: Joe DiLaura, Director of Communications
Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice
Tel.: 317/229-2128 or 317/645-8614
E-mail: joe@friedmanfoundation.org

Nearly nine out of ten Oregon residents would send their children to private, charter, or virtual schools, or educate their children in a home school setting if they had the decision-making authority, according to the results of a public opinion survey released (more…)