Education and Ability Are Not the Same

When we moved to Oregon in 1985, it didn’t take long for the local citizenry to tell us that Oregon had one of the highest “degreed” populations in the United States. (For those of you forced to endure a teachers union led education in the Portland Public Schools, “degreed” meant those holding baccalaureate degrees and post-graduate degrees) For some reason they were happy to point out that there were so many “degreed” people that much of the workforce cleaning rooms, washing dishes and manning the candy and kite shops along the coast held masters degrees and/or were working on their thesis for a doctoral degree. And they noted that at that time Oregon’s primary and secondary educational scores were among the highest in the nation.

So what happened between then and now? Oregon’s educational achievement scores are among the lowest in the nation despite ranking among the highest in the nation for funding education on a per student basis. Oregon’s economy is shedding good paying jobs in droves either by closures or the outward migration of business. Oregon’s state government is a hot mess where increasing taxes pay a growing government workforce that delivers inferior services on a general basis resulting in annual demands for tax increases without accountability.

It’s pretty simple. All of the “degreed” people grew up and are now in control of state and local government throughout Oregon, although primarily concentrated in the corridor along I-5 between Portland and Eugene and encompassing Salem, the state capitol. It obvious that most of those degrees were in gender studies, social engineering, and political science. Few, if any, of those degrees were economics, business administration or accounting. (I say that with a bit of caution because the faculty of many of our colleges have evolved into confusing economics with social engineering. – much like Rep Alexandria Ocasio Cortes and her economics degree from Boston University.) Having never been educated in the business world, they have little understanding or consideration of what is needed to generate a job, manage a business, or fiscal prudence.* None of this is new to those who have suffered the decline of Oregon over the last forty years.

The most disheartening part of this history is that not once when confronted by an annual short fall between existing revenue sources and the demand list for the beneficiaries of Oregon’s welfare state has anyone seriously considered reducing expenditures to meet current revenues. It is always the same – raise taxes without accountability. And it will remain the same because Oregon’s ruling party – the Democrat Party – has seized upon the notion that they can raise taxes on a relatively small part of the economic sector who are out voted by the recipients of government largesse at every turn. Convincing people to vote for a tax increase that will not fall directly on them is easy.

What those in power have failed to consider is that the first thing wealth provides is mobility which means at a point when the burden of government becomes too great for any one individual they can simply avoid that burden by moving to another state. That is what is happening today at an increasing rate. People are exiting the state and with them they are taking their wealth, often their businesses and the taxes that they were forced to pay. And all of that is accelerated by the continuing decline in the quality of life in Oregon – particularly the Portland metro area.

As an example of economic insanity, let’s take just the state’s inheritance tax. There are only two states west of the Mississippi River that have an inheritance/estate tax – Washington and Oregon. Even the goofballs running California have not succumbed to taxing that for which the taxes have already been paid once. In fact, there are only seventeen states in the nation that have some form of an inheritance/estate tax. To put it in a more practical consideration, every retirement and/or estate planner not in the employ of Oregon state government has one piece of advice – don’t die in Oregon. There are twenty-two other states west of the Mississippi that do not have an inheritance/estate tax and all of them welcome your relocation. However, there is little appetite for reform in the ruling class in Oregon – God forbid state government should ever reduce taxes . As a result, there is a citizens’ petition circulating to eliminate the inheritance/estate tax in Oregon. The public employee unions and the Democrats are resisting it. Even those who see the outward migration danger in continuing this tax are unwilling to do anything substantively about it. Instead they are contemplating raising the level at which the tax begins – one million dollars – to something higher but recovering any lost revenue by increasing the tax rate on all of those above it. Really? Can anyone be that stupid. The wealthiest people have the greatest incentive to leave Oregon. Increasing the tax rate on them just heightens the impetus to leave. Obviously none of these morons have ever heard of regression analysis to determine at what level will a price (tax) change the behavior of the customer (taxpayer).

It what happens when those with a gender study degree are left in charge of anything requiring a basic understanding of economics.

Good luck Oregonians. And as Tom Bodet has said, “We’ll keep a light on for you.”

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* Fiscal prudence means insuring that expenditures are for the health, safety and general welfare of all of the population and that those expenditures are actually made in pursuit of those goals.