Free Markets, Not Free Electric Vehicles
By Steve La Fleur and Todd Wynn
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Summary:The first alternative fuel vehicle to hit the market arrived without government subsidies. Within a decade, the gas-powered automobile dominated the market. While the emergence of automobiles took place more than a century ago, it is an excellent analogy to the current development of the electric car. (more…)
“Undesignated” Lands Can Meet Unforeseen Needs
Metro, along with Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties, is nearing the end of a complicated planning process to designate urban and rural reserves for the next fifty years. But how do counties who have been struggling with identifying areas for growth and preservation over the next fifty years make an educated decision? (more…)
Cascade Economist Travels the Country Discussing Health Care Reform
Portland economic consultant and Cascade adjunct scholar Eric Fruits, Ph.D. joined other health care policy reform experts last week traveling the country to explain how state-based reforms like the Oregon Health Plan have failed and why current national reform efforts are doomed to also fail.
Watch Dr. Fruits interview in Arkansas here:
Cascade remembers Rose Director Friedman
Rose Director Friedman, wife of the late Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, passed away yesterday at the age of 98. While Milton was better known, Rose was a great economist in her own right, and a tireless champion of individual liberty. (more…)
School Doors Open for Lower-Income Hoosier Children
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This summer Indiana became the most recent state to enact a state tax credit scholarship program for lower-income families to send their children to the schools of their choice. Providing a 50% tax credit for donations to student tuition scholarship organizations, the legislation promises to be a lifeline for lower-income children in the Hoosier state. (more…)
Economic Freedom for Rural Oregon
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Summary: Cascade Policy Institute announces the establishment of the Rural Oregon Freedom Project. Cascade will work with rural communities and the state legislature to remove barriers inhibiting rural economic opportunity and to advance balanced and creative approaches to rural community issues. (more…)
What’s the Big IDEA?Picking Winners and Losers in Education
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Summary: A recent U.S. Supreme Court case requiring a school district to reimburse parents of a disabled child for education expenses widens the gap between the legal rights of disabled children and non-disabled children. In contrast, education tax credits or vouchers could provide every child with an education that meets his or her individual needs. (more…)
Not a Carbon-Free Breeze
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Why are Governor Ted Kulongoski and the Oregon Legislature spending millions of dollars pursuing what could prove to be carbon-emitting energy? While Oregon’s commercialization of wind power may appear to be carbon-free, it can bring a hidden carbon footprint.
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Money Won’t Fix Schools
Oregon’s public schools are failing Oregon students. That became even clearer on August 4, when The Oregonian reported new data showing that despite increased funding since 2000, 71 public schools in Oregon are failing, according to federal No Child Left Behind standards. Every time Oregon’s public schools come up short, there is a renewed chorus for more funding. But the history of public education funding suggests no amount of money can fix public schools. (more…)
Two Job-Killer bills threaten to destroy 100 TIMES more jobs than Oregon’s so-called “stimulus package” will create
CORRECTION of media release dated June 24, 2009
The state recently announced that its $176 million “stimulus package” has created or saved 3,236 jobs in the first three months, spending about eight percent of the money to date. But an Associated Press analysis now finds that those jobs only provided an average of 35 hours of work apiece. When converted to full-time jobs over a year, the number of jobs shrinks to just 54. Once all the funds are spent, assuming the same rate of job creation, the AP analysis finds that it will have created or saved the equivalent of just 688 full-time jobs for one year.
What the state still hasn’t told citizens is that Oregon risks losing one hundred times as many jobs if two “anti-stimulus” tax bills take effect. (more…)
The Troubled Ambassador
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The city of Portland is perhaps the finest ambassador for the Environmental Protection Agency. Nestled in the idyllic Willamette Valley, the Rose City is the shining environmental vanguard, the poster child for sustainable growth and clean energy.
So when the EPA asks Portland to take precautionary measures to guarantee safe drinking water, it’s odd that the city refuses to comply. (more…)
Wind Farms Can’t Take the Heat
Temperatures soared in Oregon last week and, with the extreme temperatures, energy use soared as well. A recent Oregonian article pointed out a serious issue of how relying on wind energy affects electricity grid stability in the Pacific Northwest especially during times of extreme hot or cold temperatures. But the reliability of the grid and the ability of utilities to meet demand are being constrained by government policy. Oregon utilities are overinvesting in unreliable and inconsistent power sources like wind farms in order to meet renewable portfolio standards, and this overreliance could lead to brownouts and blackouts in the future. (more…)