The first Kotek cartoon of 2024

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

As we previously documented, Oregon raised $1.3 billion (mostly from brand new taxes) for affordable housing and homeless shelters and we got 22% more homeless when the rest of America got less than 1% more homeless without raising taxes.

Now Oregon Governor Tina Kotek is proposing to spend $600 million in new tax cash on similar measures in the 2024 February Special Session.

– Governor Tina Kotek wants $65 million for more shelters.  Yet, many of the shelters projects like turning existing hotels into homeless hotels have been a disaster. One hotel was so over-run with vagrants and lawbreakers that the City could no longer make health/safety visits for fear of being attacked.    We also previously shared about the $28 million “living hell” housing project. Only three years old and the Portland Buri building is trash, with dozens of individuals doing drugs openly in common areas, stairs and elevators,  feces on stairs, the new plumbing vandalized and elevators broken. The year 2022 saw police calls for stabbings, shootings or violence an average of every other week.  One resident called the $24 million project a “living hell” to a Willamette Week reporter.

– Governor Tina Kotek wants $30 million for rent assistance.  Yet, rent assistance is being abused.  One of our supporters shared on how people in her apartment complex are refusing to get a job because they wish to get the free rent assistance.   A just released audit by the Secretary of State shows that their office is unable to verify that the State’s $400 million rental assistance program was conducted properly.   Ripe for abuse.

– Governor Kotek wants tens of millions of new tax cash to pay for more affordable housing.  Yet, people cannot afford a home since Governor Kotek has raised billions (yes billions) in new taxes over the past five years (CAT Tax, Health Care Tax, Payroll taxes).  Last year, Kotek signed off on 185 fee increases.  The Oregon gas tax went up 5% in 2024.  Electricity rates for PGE customers is going up 17%.   Then Kotek and politicians block new land from being developed for future houses forcing Oregon to be in a permanent state of low-supply over-priced homes.  Liberal politicians cheered when the METRO government bought 18,000 acres of private land to take off the market.

Once again, we must roll out our famous graphic we created from last year to remind people that Oregon is DOING IT ALL WRONG.

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