Welcome to another story of wasteful spending from the Land of Kate.
The Bend Bulletin's recent editorial about how to squander millions in taxpayer dollars here in Oregon on failed projects like Solo Power is close to the mark, but doesn't quite get there. Neither does the Oregonian story about the matter.
Why you ask?
Because they both ignored Kate Brown's obvious failure of leadership. It seems Kate held no one accountable for making this series of bad decisions including recently authorizing $641,000 in state dollars to pay Solo Power's rent, even though their factory was shut down nearly 5 years ago!
And to add insult to injury, unbelievably the greenie bureaucrats at the Oregon Department of Energy asked Kate for permission to give even more money to this failed company which she wisely turned down given that it is an election year you know.
So why would the scandal ridden Oregon Department of Energy even think of asking to throw more good money down the rat hole for this failed project after giving them 13.5 million in tax credits, 10 million in direct financial assistance, millions more in various tax breaks, paying $641,000 in their rent, declaring them in default while not intending to pursue legal action to get our money back?
Because they know that Kate isn't gonna hold any of them accountable for wasting our tax dollars.
Capitol Watch cannot find a single news story of anyone being fired, demoted or reassigned related to the Solo Power debacle. Maybe we missed that somewhere but right now its likely that Kate's failure to hold state employees accountable both during her tenure as Secretary of State and as Governor means that we will continue to comment on more news stories about state government wasteful spending in the Land of Kate.
- Aug 15, 2018
Yes Virginia. Yes it is.
How else do you explain the series of massively expensive information technology failures in Oregon? Or the Cover Oregon debacle? Or the PERS 'Ponzi Scheme destructive impacts?
And on and on and on... The list seems endless.
Oregon's deep state isn't the traditional definition of 'deep state' (military/intelligence and bureaucratic elites) but rather a much more insidious and expansive collusion between arrogant, utopian politicians, inept bureaucrats and crony capitalist companies.
Check out OCWF's Executive Director Rep. Jeff Kropf's (Ret) videos about this subject on the OCWF Facebook page and our twitter feed at OCWF1.
- Jun 25, 2018
Would Ronald Reagan enact an open borders policy if he were President today as a means of filling needed employees because of an aging workforce? Would he again sign legislation for amnesty for Illegal aliens given how poorly that worked out for him the first time? These questions and even more arise from a controversial article in the Oregon Catalyst that advocates for more immigration, legal and illegal and that Reagan would approve.
Reagan regretted his amnesty and the failure of establishing real border security according to Ed Rollins, his long time political advisor, though Reagan's son Michael says he didn't regret the amnesty, but that congress didn't follow through on their part of establishing true border security. Either way it is hard to imagine with the spectacularly obvious failure of our current open borders situation that Reagan would make the same mistake twice.
The article fails to recognize the very real negative impacts of excessive legal and illegal immigration as articulated by KMED radio talk host Bill Meyer in his comments later in the article. Additionally, the cultural damage done to the country (not to mention the costs to taxpayers at all levels of government) has been profound and has not gone unnoticed by voters in Oregon who rejected illegal alien drivers licenses by 67%.
Now we have Governor Kate Brown protecting criminal illegals who commit sex crimes our wives, daughters, mothers (half of incarcerated foreign nationals in Oregon are there because of sex crime convictions) with her executive order and law forbidding any government entity from sharing information with the Feds. If Reagan saw the results of these policies it is hard to imagine that he would be to open borders or sign any new amnesty until the border was truly secured.
The article also fails to acknowledge two other impactful realities of an aging workforce. First, many millions of skilled, discouraged workers who dropped out of the workforce are being enticed back into it because of the booming economy and higher wages/benefits thereby partially filling the worker shortage need according to the falling U6 numbers from BLS. Secondly, the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence is filling the need in ever greater ways, especially with unskilled labor needs as industries adapt to an aging workforce and greater government regulation.
Reagan mistakenly believed that his amnesty and the penalties for employers to employ illegal aliens would stop illegal immigration and unfortunately history has proven him to be wrong. Cheap labor K-street lobbyists and successive willing Congresses found ways to not secure the border and to get around the employer penalties making a mockery of what Reagan believed would happen.
The globalists who took over the Republican party over the last many years don't hold Reagan's limited government philosophy as evidenced by their actions. Ironically, it's our opinion that Trump's return to America first is much closer to Reagan's vision for America than the author of this errant article recognizes.
