3 face-their-failure liberal moments this weekend

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

Three issues came up this week that clearly show the failure of liberal laws.

1. Portland Police return to schools after being booted-out.  In 2020, Portland liberal city politicians de-funded police by $12 million, cut 100 positions and kicked out police from serving as security in Portland Public Schools.  A crime wave ensued.  There have been so much violence and escalating threats at school functions, that Portland Police have been asked to return to provide security for school sports.   The liberal experiment failed.   A record number of Portlanders were killed last year.   One school got so violent they had to shut it down for a week.   Some Portland schools saw a 30% enrollment drop.

2. Housing advocates, in one voice, fault government bureaucracy.  Check out this Oregonian quote

“…the Oregon Senate Committee on Housing and Development invited a slew of service providers, developers and other housing industry professionals to share their ideas on how to ramp up development.The speakers, all from different areas of the industry, had one common thread: to fix the housing crisis, Oregon needs to break some rules. Ernesto Fonseca, the chief executive of housing nonprofit Hacienda CDC, said the state was able to keep Oregonians housed during the pandemic emergency by sidestepping regulations that would have otherwise held the state back.“If we don’t take the same approach for housing and forgo many of these regulations that are keeping us behind, we’ll never catch up,” he said.”

The article quotes a success story in the City of Bend where one building project required the City to dedicate a City staffer for a job where for the sole purpose was to  help the builder rush through the byzantine permit process.  As noted, “The city designated a staff member to speed up permits and inspections. And through an emergency declaration approved by the Legislature, the company did not have to hold a customary public comment or appeals process.”   It took the benefit of an existing EMERGENCY ORDER in order to help move this building permit along.

The government has to conjure employees to help ordinary people get through the government morass. What a shinning example of utter failure of our modern bureaucratic blob.

3. The Oregonian decries the devastating cost of fees. Yes, The Oregonian Editorial Board, rightly and starkly said it loudly when they decried the high cost of fees on public records. Here is a quote:

“Our news organization would certainly benefit from not having to pay thousands of dollars a year for records that help us hold agencies accountable at every level of government….this bill is critically important – not so much for companies like ours, which can and do cover those costs – but for smaller organizations that lack the resources to do so.As we know from the recent shutdown of the Medford Mail Tribune, local news organizations here and nationally are struggling to stay afloat amid prolonged industry-wide upheaval.”

Wow. The Oregonian said it perfect. They can’t afford escalating fees while similar media can’t even afford to stay afloat.

Now you know how taxpayers feel!

We can’t afford to pay nearly $100,000 in various fees to build a new home.

Bi-Mart pharmacy chain couldn’t afford the CAT tax fees, and now that pharmacy chain is gone.

If the Medford Mail Tribune can’t afford to stay afloat, then you know how hard it is for small businesses to stay afloat.   Yet, Gov. Brown enacted a 17% small business tax on them during the pandemic.

We can’t afford the nation’s top 10 highest gas tax — and now the politicians want to toll us on top of the gas tax.

There you go.  Three liberal policy fails, all from a single newspaper, all from the same weekend.

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