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on Philosophy of Taxes & Spending
The problem with our current tax system isn’t necessarily the amount we pay but the disparity between how much investors, the self employed and wage earners pay. As a wage earner why should I pay 40 percent of my income in taxes when an investor pays 15 to 20 percent? And the self employed pay for a lot of personal expenses with before tax dollars, how many boat trailers do you see at the lake being towed by Joe the plumbers truck, is he using after tax dollars for his gas? I doubt it. I am about to retire and start my own business soon, I can hardly wait to be a small business owner.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on Candidate Conversation: Chris Dudley
Did I just hear Chris Dudley say you can’t restrict your boarders? Seriously? So I guess we just open up the US to anyone and everyone that wants in? The world is rapidly overpopulating itself to the point of starvation. Republicans want cheap labor and Democrats want cheap votes, time to make the hard choice and stop all immigration to save our own population.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on State Elections
I agree with you on most of the platform points you listed but not all and right there is the problem with the two party system and voting the party line. 9. Immigration, they are here illegally, kick them out! 10. Illegal alien babies, they are here illegally, kick them and their babies out! I just don’t understand why my liberal brothers are so bleeding hart liberal. We don’t need any more people in this country, we should be promoting a complete halt to all immigration and promoting zero domestic population growth, it’s the responsible, environmental, reduced carbon footprint thing to do.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on State Elections
Can you site the source of your claim that Oregon is one of the highest taxed places to live in America? Because all the sources that I have seen disprove this frequently repeated incorrect factoid.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on State Elections
What we would get with annual legislative sessions is more grandstanding, more electioneering, more extreme bills presented for the express purpose of forcing their opposition to vote against and using those votes for electioneering purposes. We wouldn’t get any more productive work out of them.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on State Elections
Same old dogma from the right. When Ted Ferrioli says things like create shovel ready sites, cut red tape, streamline the permit process, cut environmental regulations what he means is privatize the profits and socialize the costs. For example a major barrier to shovel ready sites is transportation infrastructure. What Ted Ferrioli and other right wingers like him want is to pass the costs of building transportation infrastructure on to the taxpayers. Business should pay it’s own way. Taxpayers are tired of paying for their impacts including subsidizing their infrastructure needs and cleaning up their pollution.
posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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on Cold Cases Heating Up
As I recall back in the late 60s or early 70s in Central Oregon someone attacked and killed either one or two women with an axe or hatchet. They were camping and were attacked in the night and the case was never solved. Anyone heard of that?
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on Metro Prez Heads to NYC
The problem with the bus system in Portland is that it runs on the same street system as all other vehicles. Eugene has some limited dedicated streets just for the green line I think it’s called. Portland needs to do two things, dedicate more space for busses and quit stopping every 2 blocks to pick people up, can’t people walk 4 blocks?
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on Metro Prez Heads to NYC
David Bragdon is absolutely correct about his characterization of Portland’s lack of commitment to transportation. Oregonians in general and Portlanders included still think they can live on remote hobby farms and large lot suburbs and drive cars into the city to work. That model is over, it’s time to take urban form seriously and transition to mass transit and increased density. We shouldn’t reward irresponsible people that want to live in Washington and work in Portland by building a 5 billion dollar facility for single occupant vehicles. Invest in transit, invest in Portland, invest in Oregon, let Washington continue to sprawl and reap the appropriate rewards.
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on Having Fun in the Forest
Hope some of you horse riders that helped the elitist extremists ban OHV form the forest are reading this, you are next, and I’m going to be on the side of the elitist extremists this time just to get even.
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on Having Fun in the Forest
I once contributed to Oregon Wild also, I don’t anymore for exactly the reason you mentioned, please quit contributing today.
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on Having Fun in the Forest
Utah is pro OHV and has thousands of miles of OHV trails, although I was born in Oregon and used to love the state between the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, PETA, ONRC and numerous other special interest exclusionary groups I am seriously considering moving to another state.
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on Having Fun in the Forest
Oregon land use laws do not allow OHV parks on private lands.
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on Having Fun in the Forest
I’m listening to your guest right now, 25 miles of trails amounts to one hour or less of riding, simply worthless.
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on Having Fun in the Forest
Anti OHV zealots don’t want to hear a motorized vehicle in the woods, this is just to high a burden. I participated in the Deschutes National Forest OHV working group. The anti OGV zealots spouted unsubstantiated anecdotes about OHV erosion, cross country travel, and other abuse constantly. The Deschutes National Forest intentionally assembled a working group heavily weighted against OHV users, OHV users had practically no say, it was not a consensus process it was a vote and move on with OHV users significantly outnumbered.
The anti OHV zealots mouthed platitudes about getting along and supporting expansion of existing OHV areas and establishing new OHV areas all the while knowing that the next phase for them was to oppose any and all OHV areas. The largest OHV area in the State is the East Fort Rock OHV area and it is barely big enough to not ride the same trails constantly in a day. OHV areas with one or two hundred miles are simply not worth riding, you can ride 200 miles of trail in two to four hours, then what, ride the same trails again and again?
Meanwhile the mountain bikers are out in the woods creating outlaw trails, expanding legal trail systems and causing more erosion and impact to the forest than OHV users ever could. Why is it OK? Simply because they don’t make noise. The anti OHV zealots were joined by horse users to ban OHVs. Horses cut deep ruts in trails and spread weed seeds wherever they travel. Both these groups cause more damage to forests than OHVs ever could, we were simply singled out by an anti OHV zealot in a top USFS position in Washington DC.
For me it doesn’t matter much anymore, I sold my bikes and gave up the recreational activity, It’s too bad for the next generation though. Less users in the forest means less support for the Forest Service. It might just be time to sell the forests into private hands so we can have a chance to use them again.
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on New Police Leadership
The problem with the Grand Jury system in Oregon is that the defendant doesn’t get to submit any testimony. All the information provided to the Grand Jury is provided by the arresting officer and the DA’s office. The Grand Jury gets a very slanted perspective, that’s why so many cases go to trial and later get plea bargained down. The defendant is willing to plead to something they didn’t do because defending themselves is absurdly expensive. Free David Black!
posted 2 years, 9 months ago
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on New Police Leadership
I just listened to the officer’s response to my comment about being inappropriately questioned and then threatened. I understand what he is saying but none of my experience in this situation was in a high crime area where things are going on as he characterized it. My experiences have all been being pulled over, usually at night, with no probable cause, because they want to try and get a DUII arrest, they ask a bunch or questions to determine if you are drunk then if you are they make you do the test. I have never been arrested or been charged with a DUII or given a ticket for whatever they pulled me over for, usually “you were weaving around”. Again, I don’t have to tell them where I’ve been or where I’m going.
posted 2 years, 9 months ago
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on New Police Leadership
This problem started, sometime in the early 80s I think, when the “experts” decided that mental health patients should be “mainstreamed” which just meant turn them loose on the streets to fend for themselves. We need a mental health hospital for these people.
posted 2 years, 9 months ago
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on New Police Leadership
I think Portland should also take a broad look at policing not just try to figure out what might be wrong with their police force. I live in another Oregon City, my two sons have been pulled over more times in their 7 and 9 years of driving than I have in my entire life. They have both been followed to my house and pulled over right in our driveway. They were never drunk or given a ticket for anything, this is simply young person profiling. It makes young people dislike police. I have also had abusive reaction from police when they ask me where I’m coming from and where I’m going, I don’t have to answer those questions, it’s none of their business and when I politely refuse to answer I have been threatened with arrest by officers. This “you have to respect me just because I’m an officer” is a big part of the problem, respect is earned.
posted 2 years, 9 months ago
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on Primary Conversations: Washington's 3rd
Don’t you mean that they live in Washington to evade Oregon property taxes letting Oregonians pay for infrastructure for their use and then shop in Oregon to evade Washington sales tax letting other Washingtonians pay for their impacts?
posted 2 years, 9 months ago
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