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Metro promised voters affordable housing. Instead, its 2018 housing bond has produced some of the least affordable subsidized units in Oregon history. Why? Metro insisted on funding almost exclusively three to six story buildings—projects that require elevators, oversized common areas, and far more concrete and steel than low rise construction. Those choices alone drove costs up by 50 percent per livable square foot. One project in Hollywood, an 11-story tower, cost nearly double that. Metro also limited development to nonprofit builders. That sounds frugal, but it isn’t. Nonprofits typically take about 12 percent in developer fees, then they hire the same for profit contractors who build market rate housing. Studies show that nonprofit led projects cost about 20 percent more per square foot than for profit ones. The result? Metro’s subsidized units average $490,000 per apartment—for just 700 square feet. That’s roughly $700 per square foot, two to three times the cost of building a single-family home. And the damage doesn’t stop there. These projects pull scarce construction labor away from market housing, driving prices up for everyone else. Meanwhile, property taxes used to repay the bond make homeownership even harder for working families. Metro says it’s solving an affordability crisis. In reality, its density first policies helped create it—and its housing program is making it worse. We can’t afford Metro’s affordable housing. Read the report at cascadepolicy.org. I’m Naomi Inman.

Hunting, fishing, farming, and ranching have been a way of life in Oregon for thousands of years — from Native American stewardship to the 35,000 farms and ranches operating here today. But a small group of initiative petitioners is now gathering signatures for IP28, a measure that would criminalize that way of life — and the economic activity it supports — solely in Oregon. Hunting is legal in all 50 states. IP28 would make Oregon the first state in the nation to outlaw hunting, fishing, and ranching by redefining these long-standing practices as “animal cruelty.” Under their so called “PEACE Act,” even removing invasive species would be banned. The impact on four million Oregonians — their livelihoods, traditions, and economic stability — seems irrelevant to this coalition. Consider the economic fallout. Oregon’s 34 million acres of public land open to hunting and fishing would no longer generate revenue. Add up licensing dollars, recreation spending, related jobs, commercial fishing profits, and livestock exports, and the loss exceeds $4 billion a year. That’s not just a rural problem — those shockwaves would hit every corner of the state. At its core, IP28 is driven by a moral rights philosophy that claims killing animals is inherently wrong — that human and animal life are morally equivalent. Its petitioners call themselves “species egalitarians.” But in the real world, human beings are of inestimable worth. And farming, ranching, fishing, and animal husbandry are the bedrock of civilizations, economies, and ecosystems. These are the liberties that sustain a free and flourishing society — and like all important freedoms, they must be fought for and defended. Tell your friends the truth about IP28. For Cascade Policy Institute, I’m Naomi Inman.

PPS briefly revisited its Racial Educational Equity Policy — and once again, the contradictions are hard to ignore. As Cascade president John Charles noted in his letter to the board, the District’s Equity Funding Policy has been in place for more than ten years, yet PPS has never shown whether it improves student achievement. Despite that, the Board continues to insist on “equal outcomes” for all students — a goal no school district can deliver because the premise itself is flawed. Parents know this. Teachers know this. You can offer equal opportunities, but you cannot guarantee identical results. PPS controls instruction, not the untold variables that shape achievement. Declaring achievement gaps “unacceptable” simply guarantees that staff will always be branded as failures for an impossible metric. Even more troubling, the policy treats unequal outcomes as proof of discrimination — without providing evidence. When asked for documentation of systemic bias, PPS produced nothing beyond generic national reports from activist groups. Meanwhile, the District faces a federal civil rights lawsuit and still hasn’t evaluated its own equity programs. And the policy goes further, claiming adults — not students — are responsible for all disparities. That erases student agency and ignores factors like family structure, effort, strong teaching, and disciplined classrooms. When a policy can’t be implemented, measured, or defended, it should be repealed or rewritten. For Cascade Policy Institute, I'm Naomi Inman. www.cascadepolicy.org

Portland Public Schools threw itself a party last week to celebrate breaking ground on the new $460 million dollar Jefferson High School. And The Oregonian dutifully repeated the talking point that the building would be “all electric powered.” Sounds impressive… until you look at the details. Because PPS quietly admitted—right before the ceremony—that the school won’t be all electric. Science labs still need natural gas for Bunsen burners. State law still requires diesel backup generators. And the other two high school rebuilds, Cleveland and Ida B. Wells, are in the same boat. So the “all electric” label is more marketing than engineering. But even if PPS could pull it off, it wouldn’t change emissions. More than half the natural gas used in Oregon is burned to make electricity. So removing gas lines from the school just means the same gas gets burned somewhere else. Meanwhile, wind and solar provided only about eleven percent of Oregon’s electricity last year. Fossil fuels provided at least thirty eight percent. The grid isn’t magic. What is real is the cost. PPS’s own consultant warned that all electric construction would add at least ten million dollars per school. And when Cascade asked the district for documentation on those added costs, PPS gave us nothing. New York’s governor just backed away from its own climate mandate after projecting thousands of dollars in new annual energy costs per family. That’s the future PPS is pretending not to see. It’s not too late for the board to stop chasing slogans and redirect thirty million dollars toward improvements that actually help students. For Cascade Policy Institute, I’m Naomi Inman. Read more at www.cascadepolicy.org

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced her intent this month to opt into the new Federal Scholarship Tax Credit—also known as the Education Freedom Tax Credit. That makes her the 30th governor to signal support, and the second Democrat to do so, after Jared Polis of Colorado. Congress created this tax credit last year as the first federal program designed to expand K–12 educational choice nationwide. Beginning in 2027 all taxpayers can take up to $1,700 in federal tax credits for donations to qualified scholarship granting organizations. The U.S. Treasury and Department of Education estimate the program could generate $24 billion in new education funding every year. That’s enough to fund private school tuition for tens of thousands of students—or tutoring for hundreds of thousands more. But here’s the catch: children only benefit if their governor opts in. And Oregon’s Governor Kotek, has declined. Last summer she said that she did not intend to participate. More recently, saying that she’s waiting for final federal regulations. Whether Oregon opts in or not, Oregonians can still take the tax credit by donating to scholarship nonprofits in other states. If Oregon stays out, however, those dollars will support students elsewhere, not here at home. Opting in won’t cost Oregon’s budget a dime and it doesn’t impact public school funding. It simply allows Oregonians to direct private charitable dollars towards scholarships for Oregon’s kids. Thirty states have already said yes. Oregon should, too. For Cascade Policy Institute, I’m Naomi Inman. Learn more at www.cascadepolicy.org

It’s election time! And the Oregonian editorial board sent a bouquet of sorts to our friends at “No Tax Oregon” when they recommended a “no” vote on Measure 120—Oregon’s $4 billion transportation tax. “The O” urged voters to “drive a stake through the heart of this cursed transportation package.” Which was music to the ears of a quarter-million volunteers who signed the “No Gas Tax” petition in a historic 38 days. The real story here is that Oregon voters get to vote at all on the tax hike—thanks to a pioneering form of democracy dubbed the “Oregon System”—giving voters the right to challenge Salem’s laws and put them on a statewide ballot. In the recent short session, however, lawmakers didn’t exactly celebrate that tradition. Instead, the Governor and union-backed legislators showed their disdain for these volunteers by moving the vote to May and suppressing their voice in the voters’ pamphlet. Those tactics only energized voters, raised the measure’s profile, and ensured its defeat. Lawmakers also managed to spark a new petition drive by passing a claw back of over $300 million in federal tax cuts for small business owners. That bill triggered the reflexive muscle of the same Oregon voters, who must again collect 100,000 signatures by June first. Defeating Measure 120 isn’t just a policy victory. It’s a win for the Oregon System. Read more at www.cascadepolicy.org

Metro is rolling out new strategies and transit plans in what looks more and more like a war on cars — and Cascade is calling out the baseless evidence they’ve leaned on for thirty five years. At an April council meeting, Cascade President John Charles delivered pointed testimony against two major actions designed to prioritize transit while punishing people who rely on their cars. At that meeting, Metro approved its Transportation Demand Management Strategy and pushed forward the gridlocking 82nd Avenue Transit Project — a plan that would dedicate miles of existing car lanes to buses only. Charles reminded councilors that Metro has been trying to engineer travel behavior since the early nineties, yet reductions in vehicle miles traveled have never materialized. Metro’s own performance measures show the 30 year goals weren’t met, so instead of rethinking the strategy, they stretched the timeline to 45 years and kept building plans on the same fantasy metrics. As Charles emphasized, driving isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity. It’s central to employment, wage growth, childcare, and basic mobility. Yet Metro keeps doubling down on failed strategies that make driving harder and daily life more expensive. After decades of missed targets, the region deserves transportation investments grounded in reality, not wishful thinking — investments that actually improve mobility and economic opportunity for real people. For Cascade Policy Institute, I’m Naomi Inman. Read the full story at Cascade Questions Evidence Behind Metro’s War on Cars - Cascade Policy Institute

Portland Public Schools has a $60 million question on its hands: What happened to the Center for Black Student Excellence voters approved in 2020? That project was written directly into the bond language. Voters were told their money would build a dedicated center focused on Black student achievement. But today, that center has effectively disappeared. In testimony to the Bond Accountability Committee, Cascade President John Charles warned that PPS is attempting a quiet bait and switch. The district has renamed the project the Grice Adair Center for Educational Excellence—a name that never appeared on the ballot—and the original CBSE no longer shows up in the new bond update. The district’s website now redirects CBSE searches to a “Website Under Construction” page, with old documents scrubbed away. Why the sudden erasure? After a civil rights complaint last year, the district rushed to strip the project of its name and racial identity. By February, the U.S. Department of Education had opened a formal investigation. Now, instead of a center for Black student achievement, the public gets a vague “FACE” landing page with no mission, no curriculum, no programming, and no operating budget. Bond measures are not blank checks. Oregon bond law doesn’t allow districts to take money approved for one project and quietly spend it on another. If PPS believes it can’t legally deliver the CBSE it promised voters, it should say so—and ask voters before repurposing the funds. The Bond Accountability Committee should insist the bond funds be used on the CBSE or go back to voters for permission to repurpose the funds. Click HERE for John Charles’ Testimony to the BAC. Click HERE for the 730-word extended commentary.

At last count, more than one and a half million children now benefit from school choice programs across the Unites States. With 75 programs in 34 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, more than half of America’s K-12 students are eligible to participate in an educational choice program if they choose. That number is set to rise. Last week, the Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) program opened its application process. On February 4, the parents of more than 42,000 students applied, breaking Tennessee’s record of 33,000 first-day applications for its school choice program in 2025. When the Texas legislature created TEFA, it was the largest school choice program at the time of its inception in the country. The legislation funded Education Savings Accounts for an initial 90,000 students, with a total of one billion dollars. Each student account will be valued at $10,000 or more, depending on individual circumstances. Funds can be used for private school tuition, tutoring, transportation, special needs therapies, and other education-related expenses. Eighty percent of first-day applicants indicated they intend to use the funds to attend private schools, and 20 percent plan to choose other options. Last year, new educational choice programs launched in seven states: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Tennessee. Now Texas is giving record numbers of children access to learning environments in which they have better opportunities to reach their potential. Oregon education policies should expand options for students here, too, so all children can have an effective, meaningful, and empowering school experience.

In 2011, Portland Public Schools adopted a dual-enrollment policy allowing students in Jefferson High School boundaries to choose from one of three area high schools. Of the twenty-four hundred high schoolers inside its boundaries, about two-thousand have opted for alternatives, leaving Jefferson with only 391 students this year. The Portland school board is pouring enormous amounts of money into Jefferson which receives more operating dollars per student than any other local high school because of its higher percentage of Black students – about 40 percent -- and is about to start building a 1,700-seat school for Jefferson students at a half-billion dollars -- one of the most expensive schools ever built in America. Despite such extravagant spending, Jefferson students have routinely ranked highest in absenteeism and lowest in academic scores among local high schools. Sadly, the district fails to understand the social determinants of academic achievement. In their decades-long effort to close the achievement gap between Black and White students, Board members are focused on bureaucratic solutions such as money, facilities, class size, and racial composition. But academic excellence is primarily driven by human factors beyond the district’s control -- such as family structure, parental oversight, student effort, and peer influence. In the hopes of filling the new Jefferson high school building, Superintendent Armstrong called on the board to end dual enrollment in September 2027. While many families expressed concern about losing school choice, their voice was never heard at the January 13 meeting. The board had already decided -- if families would not choose Jefferson, then the district would conscript them. Chances are this decision will backfire, as enrollment is forecasted to drop fifteen percent by 2035 and ending school choices will accelerate that trend. Parents always have options—whether the district offers them or not. They won’t be held hostage to attend a school that doesn’t meet their student’s needs. Open enrollment policies are growing rapidly nationwide and 23 states now have them. PPS could be part of that movement, and the Board should consider expanding dual enrollment for all students in the district. Not only would this empower more families, it would bring market forces into the district to help schools maintain or increase enrollment. Mike Tomlin, coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers for 19 years, was asked about a star player missing due to a contract dispute. He quipped, “We’re looking for volunteers, not hostages.” Portland Schools are making a $500 million bet that filling Jefferson High with hostages will be a winning strategy. Without school choices, the odds don’t look favorable.

On December 30th, Chief Petitioners plunked down the last pile of signatures on the Secretary of State’s desk. It was a slam dunk for the Oregon System. In a record-breaking 40-ish days, a quarter-million Oregon voters lined up in every county to sign the “Stop the Gas Tax” petition and refer Governor Kotek’s $4.3 billion transportation tax to the November ballot. These voters participated in the “Oregon System,” a form of direct democracy passed in 1902 and giving voters the right to challenge legislation in a veto referendum. Since then, Oregon voters have repealed 42 laws. Oregon Freedom Coalition’s Nick Stark told Cascade there were nearly enough signatures to even qualify for a constitutional referendum. The record-breaking signature drive signaled legislators that Oregon’s voters are up for any challenge—especially the legislative session beginning in February. No sooner had Stark spoken, when Governor Kotek called for lawmakers to “redirect, repeal, and rebuild” the transportation bill, admitting that “thousands of Oregonians across the state have made their point.” As designed, the Oregon System earned the Governor’s attention. So what’s next? The Bill’s Chief Petitioners say a full repeal isn’t the best answer as it would gut the good parts, re-institute tolling, and halt the audit of ODOT. In any case, the Governor and her supermajority are back where they started one year ago, unable to govern and unable to carry out the state’s most basic functions: to maintain roads and bridges—the stuff all of us need and care about. Two things—a lack of imagination in spending solutions and a narrow fixation on collecting more taxes—make up a mindset where nothing can be done unless voters pay more for less—more for gas taxes, more for fees, more for dying transit, and more for fewer roads and fewer lanes for cars. While New York’s socialist mayor touts the “warmth of collectivist action” — taxpayers in Oregon were nearly condemned to the cold gulag of blistering tax increases and service decreases. That is, until a quarter-million voters decided to light a fire, ignited by the spark of individual freedom.

At TriMet’s December board meeting, director Tyler Frisbee lectured attendees on how 82nd Avenue business owners and motorists should embrace TriMet’s takeover of auto lanes for exclusive busways. TriMet refers to these as Business Access Transit or BAT lanes—which is Orwell’s doublespeak for the opposite effect—reducing business access for people in cars. Portland Bureau of Transportation’s alleged “improvement” of 82nd only turns a street made for cars into an avenue for the minority of pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders. 82nd is another flagship for how PBOT intends to “improve” more streets -- by taking away auto lanes to be re-striped as “bus-only” lanes. Traffic modeling shows, of course, this will greatly distress peak-hour travel times by 50 percent and divert motorists to I-205. TriMet’s 72 bus line will be the only beneficiary of this change. A bus that runs every 12 minutes during peak hours, means BAT lanes will be unused most of the time while motorists eye an empty lane, confined to Los Angeles style gridlock. TriMet and PBOT are moving towards a likely February decision on the BAT lanes -- and many business owners have threatened legal action for loss of access to their shops. Director Frisbee, meanwhile, took 10 minutes to make unsubstantiated assertions, to which Cascade’s President, John Charles, has written a response you can read at cascadepolicy.org. Like an evangelist, Tyler Frisbee pleas for Portlanders to repent from their car-centric ways and embrace the narrow vision of PBOT’s Transportation System Plan -- whose tenets are known as “Vision Zero:” Stop designing roads around people in cars to make driving more painful, and convert major roads into avenues for walking, bicycling, and public transit. At the February meeting, the TriMet Board should withdraw this idea and end its war on the majority of people in cars.

In early December, Governor Kotek unveiled “Oregon’s Prosperity Roadmap” and laid out “three broad goals” to grow business, jobs, and the economy. While acknowledging Oregon’s economic decline, her roadmap is only an updated cover for the same GPS coordinates: driving prosperity via state programs. Oregon’s latest “prosperity roadmap” promises growth through new programs and administrative solutions—but decades of similar plans haven’t reversed our decline. Oregon’s governors have been cycling through similar campaigns since Neil Goldschmidt touted “Oregon Shines” in 1989. The problem isn’t the map. It’s the direction. Eighty-five years ago, in 1939, Oregon’s newly elected governor, Charles Sprague, gave his inaugural address on “the economic problem of Oregon.” The Oregon Historical Society features a line from his speech on its courtyard wall, which says: “In the long history of humanity, the most precious spark is that of individual freedom.” In his day, Sprague managed the Oregon Statesman paper at a time when tyrants rose to power, and collectivist states snuffed out the “precious spark” of untold millions. He knew a thing or two about Oregon’s economic challenges on the heels of the Depression, with 15 percent joblessness and dependence on New Deal spending -- rather than private sector growth. His inaugural address emphasized freedom, responsibility, and recovery. His GPS was guided by the notion that individual freedom is the atomic “spark” that ignites human ingenuity to create wealth; and that long-term prosperity flows from free enterprise rather than never-ending public support and centralized control. Oregon needs a new direction and leaders with the will and muscle to remove prosperity-crushing obstacles that prevent us from getting to cruising speed. All roads have off-ramps. Many are ditching Oregon’s obstacle course and taking their sweet rides to cruise into the sunrise of better opportunity. All roads have on-ramps. The on-ramp to lasting prosperity is that “precious spark” of individual freedom. As we debate our economic future, it's important to remember Gov. Sprague's lesson. Oregon’s prosperity roadmap must be guided by individual freedom. Visit www.cascadepolicy.org

How much money does it take to “fully fund” Oregon’s public schools? Last month a Joint Committee of the Oregon legislature released a “Report on the Adequacy of Public Education Appropriations.” Oregon’s Fiscal and Policy Research offices examined the level of funding provided by the Legislature and other sources for public schools. They concluded that public schools today receive the full $13.5 billion recommended by the Education Commission in 2024 to “fully fund schools.” That means the Legislature appropriated $11.3 billion and the Corporate Activities Tax came in at another $2.2 billion. According to the Oregonian’s analysis, advocates for public school funding, like PPS board member Christy Splitt, dismiss the expert report and opines that school funding is “not enough.” She complains the report’s conclusion is the result of a “political narrative.” However, the facts remain that school funding has increased over the years while academic outcomes and the student population have declined. Lawmakers have asked for accountability on how schools are using state dollars, only to see plummeting national scores of about 25-percent proficiency in reading and math for today’s eighth graders. Maybe more money is never enough because money is not the problem – or the solution – to Oregon’s education. At Cascade, we believe options in education would make better use of funding and allow parents a greater say in choosing the school -- public, private or charter -- that meets their child’s learning needs. Read the full commentary at www.cascadepolicy.org

On December 2, Portland Public Schools board voted unanimously to purchase the One North commercial building for $16 million to house the Center for Black Student Excellence, but the building’s purchase price is only the beginning. The building needs another $20 to $25 million in renovations and two to three years of construction. For the next three years PPS will own an expensive, mostly empty shell. While fostering student excellence should be the district’s priority, this plan is fiscally reckless and logistically flawed. In November, Cascade submitted an Analysis to the PPS Facilities Committee enumerating the risks associated with the One North purchase. The Oregonian editorial board repeated some of Cascade’s concerns. Portland Public Schools faces a $50 million budget shortfall, yet they’ve committed to purchasing property with operational deficits for an undefined program. When board members questioned this gap—money that could fund teachers or educational assistants—proponents dismissed concerns. One called it a “drop in the bucket.” Another complained that such questioning “doesn’t feel very fair.” For taxpayers facing cuts, such resistance to basic financial scrutiny is unacceptable. There is a better solution: to integrate the center into Jefferson High School’s construction. This eliminates costly conversions, cuts delays, and saves tens of millions of dollars. The board has a mandate to spend $60 million on Black student excellence. It doesn’t have a mandate to spend it foolishly. Read the full commentary at www.cascadepolicy.org