Gonna have to disagree with you here. I suppose if you think every issue should be decided directly by the voters, then we can just disband the senate and house? That seems a bit extreme and wasn't what you said, obviously. But then if not every issue, why this one? It seems to me highly impractical for a vote, it's a pretty complex bill and far from most people's experience. I'd argue that there are some issues that work well for voting (death penalty, for instance, is something that every voter readily understands) and some that really don't (property tax limitations are an obvious example). barfo
Fake News. The ONLY threat cited is the threat by Brown to deprive GOP Reps of their liberty by using the disgraced, politically-corrupted OSP to circumvent the legally-required vote on what is Oregon's most massive tax increase in thee history of the state. The "threat" to show up and peacefully assemble in protest with signs is not a threat to anyone. The lying OSP has not provided any evidence of any threat and is deliberately interfering with conservative's right to protest by scaring people away from hearing their peaceful message. Brown runs the most corrupt government Oregon has ever had, with literally no ethics oversight at all. https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/15-states-ranked-the-most-corrupt-in-america-for-2017.html/
If you're going to put this headline to your post...you should really bold it at least...I'm not a fan of parts of this bill from what I've read so far but the conduct of the GOP voters walking out is just my tax dollars taking an unpaid vacation on my dime.....they might all be your buddies but they are not conducting themselves as an elected official is required to. For the record...I can't stand Kate Brown and don't think Oregonian govt has been healthy for a long time but that has little to do with this situation....I don't care if they are on your team...you are making weak excuses for bad behavior.
At least this gave my neck of the woods a quiet Sunday morning for the first time in weeks since they're logging 60 acres down the mountain from us...and they are clear cutting by the way, which I didn't think you could do these days in Oregon there are now virtually bird wars in my old growth back acreage since so many lost their nests in such a short time....blue jays are like Vikings...moving in and stealing homes left and right..the bird wars sound like an atonal Shostakovich performance
I’d say this subject deserves a vote for several reasons. First, there’s an issue of fair representation here. There’s a disproportionate impact on rural populations whose concerns are not proportionally given a voice in a legislature dominated by urban representatives from a single party. Second, there’s a huge question as to effectiveness vs cost of trying to deal with a global problem on a state basis. Third, there is a question as to whether legislators are really giving this a fair evaluation or if it’s simply a case of campaign platform policy making. In Oregon, wildfires produce more CO2 emissions than cars. How about aiming to reduce that by increasing funding for cleaning out the forest understory and improving fire response measures? https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.livescience.com/1981-wildfires-release-cars.html
very valid points....harvesting timber is healthy if done with long term planning and selective culling..my most serious concerns are erosion, wind exposure and watershed protection...canopies keep fresh water flowing above ground....clear cutting, the water will tend to go underground....also wildlife needs sustainable foraging land within reasonable parameters...water is the best fire prevention...dry up spring fed streams and fire has just more fuel to spread..my son's best friend who is basically like family just graduated from fire fighting college in Bend....shoutout to him!
But how much is the effect really disproportionate? What's the average distance driven by a rural person vs. someone in the metro area? I don't have any data on that, but we can compare a very rural state, e.g. Wyoming, to an urban/suburban state, e.g. New Jersey. 2014 figures: WY: 16,410 miles/capita; NJ: 8,016; OR 10,234. That suggests that the difference between rural and urban is maybe a factor of 2 in number of miles driven. Now, how much is the tax? if it is $0.25/gallon, and the car gets 25 mpg, then that's a penny per mile. At the rural 16,000 average miles/year, that's $160. Is the difference between an urban person paying $80, and a rural person paying $160, per year, really that big a deal? Maybe it is, it's not my extra $80 after all. And the voters are well-qualified to weigh in on that tradeoff??? You could say that about literally every single piece of legislation. This is a good example of why we shouldn't have voters decide this. Part of the revenue raised in this measure is directed to "improving health and resilience of forests (thinning & prescribed fire)". You (a pretty well informed voter, in my impression) didn't know that, did you? Neither did I, until I looked it up just now. barfo
And here I had to walk 15 miles in the snow to get to school! Those were not going to count against a gas tax! Now I live in the woods and drive a Prius....you guys should pay me! (I do have a 4 wheel drive Xterra that I take to town for milk when I want to look cool though....it's just a conversation piece really that helps with redneck bonding and black ice)
I really really really don't like this trend of equating all Republicans as racists. It's stereotyping and frankly it's pretty bigoted.
Maybe you urbanites are unable to understand the bill, but it's a fairly clear-cut money-grab for a few unprofitable industries that Dem donors have invested heavily in. Anyone with a Real 6th-grade education sees it for what it is. It is required by Oregon law to send any bill to the voters that increases taxes, which this clearly does. I'm happy for you that you are rich but to an average rural Oregonian $160 stolen by Dems means pulling their infected molar themselves with pliers, or telling their son he can't play in Little League this year.
That's one way to look at it. Another would be that it is making polluters pay a portion of the cost of the damage they do. That's actually a plausible argument. Thanks! Must really suck to be a rural Oregonian. Maybe you should open a Pliers-R-Us store, sounds like there is high demand for them. barfo
Yesterday on the news I saw that the governor was ordering police to ‘round up’ Republican senators to force them to vote on a bill they walked out of. its such a dumb and unoriginal thought, and it gets brought up by both sides every time anything political happens. “Could you imagine if they were (insert race/color/gender/sexual orientation here)?” We could imagine a lot of things. Let’s just stick to the subject at hand without pondering hypotheticals.
I actually suffer from hyperbolephobia, a rare condition, which causes me to bail on forum discussions without warning.
Did you see the one asshole senator that was in hiding and when he got word that state police were going to go find the senators and bring them back to do their job and said they better come heavily armed as he has plenty of guns and ammo and would kill anyone trying to bring him in. That idiot needs to be removed immediately.
