Thursday, January 11, 2007

Ten Dumbest Things Politicians Did in 2006

By popular demand I've been asked to post The Victoria Taft Show list:

Top Ten Dumbest Things Politicians Did in Oregon in 2006

The Portland City Council voting to make you pay for their campaigns…and making you wait years before YOU can vote on it! In the first campaign using the system…one of the candidates walked off with all the money. Gee who saw that coming? Oh, wait...

Allowed the professional protester portlanders to drive out a legitimate, venerable business from the city they’d operated in for 111 years. Now the Schumachers are leaving. The city has made its choice…when push comes to shove…the protesters win…and the legitimate businesses lose. Every. Time.

The Portland City Council votes to continue the city funding of the Tram…a project that started out with an $12-15 million dollar price tag…has grown to more than $60 million dollars. The city gives away a half a billion dollars in subsidies, giveaways, and debt service---but never adds any of this stuff to the price tag.

The Portland City Council voting 5-0 to pull the troops immediately out of Iraq…using alllllllllll the debunked democratic talking points in so doing; including but not limited to: the president lied…we’re killing only innocents…and we have no stake in Iraq.

The Corvallis City Council approving a cell phone tax. Then the voters cold cocked them back to reality and the cell phone tax was no more.

The Multnomah County Commissioners found money for everything. Except opening the Wapato Jail. Meantime…the county sheriff’s department let out a convicted and sentenced child molester thinking he was the usual get-out-of-jail-early-clients.

The Portland City Council proposing paying poor people to stay or move to Portland.Because of the urban growth boundary, limiting the land on which housing can be built, prices in Portland have jumped, pricing out many poor folks. So because their own planning policies having backfired, we're now resorting to importing poor people just to say we have some. Apparently.

After the James Chassey died in police custody, the blame the cops first Portland City Mayor Tom Potter, made plans to spend city money on a day care shelter for the homeless. People who minister to the homeless told the mayor: Chronic homeless won't use it, mentally ill for whom it ostensibly was planned won't use it because it's too big, so that leaves druggies. Have fun at crazy care.

Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman proposes to use $750K of taxpayer money to build a nightclub for recovering drug addicts. Really.

Governor Kulongoski proposes four new taxes with a 20% increase in state funding.

6 comments:

coboble said...

"The Portland City Council proposing paying poor people to stay or move to Portland..."

You do get the real reason for this don't you?
Think about it. Who will benefit, and who has benefited in the past from various decisions of the Portland Leadership?
Not the poor. However the illusion of such is an interesting way to present the idea.

If they were proposing to allow the poor use (not ownership) of a plot of land to grow themselves food, I would be supporting the proposal.

treechopper said...

I would love to see other businesses run out of town, like those nuts at REI, we should protest that place, its crazy with all that plastic and man made stuff to fill garbage piles in there for sale.

coboble said...

Encouraging companies which employ people, to move out of Portland, could help the real estate drop in value.
But they need to push them far enough away, or make the commute to work enough of a hassle that people actually move.

If the real estate would drop enough, then the poor could afford to live there.

BEAR said...

easy, there, coboble, you'll give homer williams a stroke with that kind of talk.

Victoria Taft said...

Portland real estate is high in large part because of the planned URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARY which has priced the little people out.

coboble said...

So what is the point in paying people to move back then?
If there is enough current demand for the existing property, wouldn't paying people to move there only push prices higher, by creating more demand?
Then what, subsidize even more to account for that?
It all seems to me that the real purpose is to help those who are in the real estate business, and no one else.

The Portland housing bubble is estimated at 40% above value (but who really knows, it is all a guess).