I thought it was a million here and there adds up to real money. Sign of the times.

Not being snarky or trying to inject you know what into every thread, but is it accurate that we could have done better if city planners had stayed a while longer in D.C.?

On the numbers, have to add my fav quote on the sub.

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. -Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988)

Now if our illustrious leaders can find a way to parlay this stimulus into long term jobs, we might be on to something. With the exception of teachers, who by the way are not self supporting jobs, all of the jobs required by the stimulus will end at the conclusion of the projects.

I really hope we can find a way to spur "real" job growth here as well.

@Dave

I don't think the purpose of the stimulus is to bail out reckless state spending, but to STIMULATE economic activity with the hope of pulling ourselves out of the hole we are in.

If I were a state or local politician, I would be expediting any and every project I had on the slate for regulatory and environmental approval.

I couldn't understand the concept of this stimulus thing, what its purpose and whom will benefit it more. As far as i could see and understand this, stimulus will be the milking cow of the "dirty" politician. Well, that just my opinion.

"This seems crazy to me. Why lay off teachers, state workers and local government workers while building or renovating infrastructure? "

Because sometimes political leaders try to build kingdoms instead of serve taxpayers. As an example, in Portland BDS probably has 1/3 the work in permits it did 2 years ago, however, they have not laid off one employee.

This usually results in taking even longer to get a permit approved since workers will stretch the available work to look busy.

Every infrastructure project will be a "long term project". Unless the workers hired to renovate schools are all hired at once and work on every school at the same time, this will stretch out for years. Same goes for roads, electrical grid, rail, "greening" of buildings etc. Start with the most needed projects and prioritize the rest. The logistics to get men, women and materials to the projects mean more white collar jobs like project managers, auditors, shipping clerks, IT workers etc. beside the transportation worker moving the materials.

This will also mean buying new construction equipment (Caterpillar needs some love) which injects $$ into the manufacturing economy. I would hope there would be some "buy American" and prevailing wages language in any bill passed.

There is also a movement to reactivate the Civilain Conservation Corp, endorsed by my organization Veterans For Peace at our 2007 convention.

Its real simple. Worker "A" gets paid (from the stimulus package) and buys lunch at the local chat and chew next to the construction site. They in turn pay their staff and suppliers. The staff can then pay the bills and buy some new needed items. The suppliers can keep their employees working and maybe give them a raise and then they can keep paying the bills and buy stuff or the supplier can invest in upgrading their facility which gives worker "B" a job where he can then have lunch at another chat and chew. Repeat and replace that lunch spot with any business catering to workers "A" and "B" and the money is injected into the economy in a pure capitalistic way. Demand (I've got money and want to spend it) and supply ("Want fries with that?").

Its not rocket science.

Oh, economic stimulus. I thought it was going to be another thread about the men's room in Portland City Hall.

"-- $68 million to expand and modernize mass transit systems"

How much of that will go toward the expected $75 Million federal match for the eastside streetcar?

While these [noted above] are all worthy , it is important to also dream big. There is an exhibit of Artworks depicting a Park-Roofed Columbia Crossing Bridge at the NW Lucky Lab Brewpub [activity rm] in nw Portland on nw Quimby above 19th. The Park Roof will protect drivers/bikers/walkers from rough weather [reducing accidents/saving lives] The Plantlife will absorb all rain driven pollution runoff [saving a fortune in treatment facilities] , and absorb CO2 24/7/365. Swing by and have a great beer , and then call your politicians and tell them you want a world-class Green Gateway to the Northwest!

There may be funding for more public toilets like the "Loo" in downtown Portland.

Not a bad idea, that way, instead of fooling around on the job with teens in the City Hall bathroom - city officials could take it 'off-site' for a little more privacy.

Our small town of just over a thousand people has neither water nor sewer systems. The cost for doing both of those is about $35 million. That $65.5 million for building and upgrading water and sewer systems won't cover much. The infrastructure part of Obama's stimulus plan needs to be MUCH larger if it's going to have any impact.

We don't need a stimulus package from the feds. All this will do is drive up our national debt and require greater debt service payments for the next generation.

What we need is long-term, sustainable jobs. Not jobs that will last for 30, 60, 90 days. Some might be longer, but a majority of jobs created will be temporary since they'll be attached to infrastructure projects.

The only way to pay off the debt will be higher inflation in the next few years, and a rise in taxes. That's what the government has done after major recessions. History will only repeat itself.

Until our government helps to promote the entrepreneurial spirit of individuals and enact policies that creates more jobs for the middle class; and until the housing inventory is reduced and banks get foreclosures and fixes their toxic balance sheets, nothing will change.

This recession will not be stimulated by a government bailout. Instead, we need to rely on the entrepreneurial spirit and ingenuity of Americans. Our government needs to put more of a focus on recapatalizing banks and promoting production/manufacturing jobs which are the backbone to any healthy economy. Less gov't regulation on businesses and tax breaks might be a start.

Of course, how dare I suggest such a thing on this blog.

Oh, and Kari, all the points you made sound good on the surface. But none of those policies create long-term, well-paying jobs. What good does it do to spend money to fix things when people don't have jobs?

I heard from Dr. Bill Watkins, an economist from the University of California Santa Barbara today. His prediction is that the recession started in September, not last December. In fact, GDP and other growth factors were up in the first 3Q's of 2008. He believes the real recession is starting now and won't end until late 2010.

Now, even he admits any prediction at this point is truly a best guess. But the fact remains that unemployment will continue to rise, people will lose jobs and their homes, and any type of recovery is 12-18 months away at best, and 24-36 months at worst.

All of those projects you listed are worthwhile, but we need long-term, sustainable, family-wage jobs. Those projects won't offer those. Short-term, maybe. But we don't need a band-aid fix.

The President has been warning us that we're all going to have to "tighten our belts." It seems to me that bloated and evidently unsustainable state budgets are as good a place as any to start.

Getting rid of the "kicker" isn't a bad either, either.

Bad idea, even.

Jason: "Less gov't regulation on businesses and tax breaks might be a start."

Right. Cause that's worked so well in the past.

To be fair, I don't see discouraging large employers from relocating to Oregon through high taxes as being a particularly intuitive way of creating jobs and bolstering the economy.

If the business of business is business, then communities that want to attract employers have to create favorable conditions. Sometimes this works out (see: Google's server farm in the Dalles) and other times it doesn't (see: Hynix).

The simple fact is that corporations have a lot of choices about where to locate operations, and despite Oregon's nice scenery and tasty micro-brews, this state isn't necessarily at the top of everyone's list.

Reducing profits with high taxes is a great way to make them look elsewhere. You might say "good riddance," but that doesn't really solve the problem of budget shortfalls. Targeting the kulaks with onerous tax burdens might help to alleviate the problem in the short run, but in the long term that source funding will dry up.

Likewise, massive government spending programs may or may not have short term benefits for spurring the economy, but they're totally unsustainable in the long run. At some point, it starts to resemble a multi-generational Ponzi scheme on a scale that Bernie Madoff could only dream of, where debt is borrowed from future generations to pay off today's projects. Eventually, that money will run out.

Fulminating about "greed" probably feels good on a visceral level, but it doesn't put people to work or create wealth.

The numbers from the Oregonian bring up lots of questions, like the one Torridjoe raises: Why does Oregon get such a small percentage of the bailout dollars? A cynic would say that the Washington DC politicians don't need to buy any more votes in Oregon.

The real question is this - If you give $445 newly printed dollars to each Oregonian, will that offset the inflation based loss of buying power that the dollar printing creates?

This is more of the same from our politicians no matter what stripe. Both Dems and Repubs buy the favor of the taxpayers with short term solutions and let the long term problems go unanswered.

We sure sell out cheap.

Let's see, $210 million to fix school facilities and make them energy efficient.....if we have 2000 schools in the state (there are about 1500 with libraries so I am guessing at the 2000 number), that's $100,000 per school. That will do a roof repair or two.

$747 million to help balance the state budget. Why is it the Fed's job to bail out a state that can't balance its own budget? That is just enabling it to continue doing what has created the budget deficit. Long term, someone has to decrease spending or increase taxes until the two match.

I don't think the public has much stomach for increased taxes when they see how money is wasted (Steve's note above is instructive - no layoffs in building inspection departments even though the number of permits has dropped dramatically).

Since neither Congress nor our state legislature have the guts to cut costs as they should and maybe raise some taxes as they probably should, they have taken the sissy way out. Print lots of money and they create the taxation through inflation. Borrow money today's dollars (one year T-Bills at 1% interest) and pay them back in a year with 90¢ dollars. Everyone pays for the inflation, especially those on fixed incomes.

Wish I had a solution but the only thing I can think of is to replace every congressman and every senator in Washington. We had the chance a couple of months ago and we sent 90% of them back. I guess we get what we deserve.

Did i write this? I'm usually such an optimist.

Let's put an end to this fallacy that Oregon has a bad business environment. The Tax Foundation ranks Oregon #9 best in the country for its 2009 State Business Tax Climate Index

When a business wants to set up in a city, it looks for 4 things; tax climate, quality of employees,quality of life and affordability. The biggest factor against Portland, and OR in general, is housing prices. We need to get them under control and make it so young families can afford to live here.

It should also be noted that relocation.com ranked Portland #5 for expected in migration this year. People are coming here, lets make some jobs.

Dear mp97303,

I my opinion you have generalized a very complex decision down to four factors. If you have ever moved a business or started one, I think you will have found the decision much more involved than reading lists that rank locations based on some of the factors that might inform your business success. One of the key factors you will find very important is the direction of key factors like those you mention. If, for example, taxes are low now but the trend is upward and the sitting legislature shows an affinity for taxing rather than controlling expenses, you might think twice.

I would argue that Oregon is in the very middle of the pack for business startups and relocations. It scores high on most people's lists for quality of life. For those who want to manufacture and sell nationwide, being on one coast is a negative that is hard to overcome. Being prone to be an early adopter (not as a judgment for against such attitudes but only to illustrate things that businesses consider) of higher water quality standards may be a high negative for a company that uses large amounts of water in their processes.

If our desire is to create jobs by encouraging startups and business relocations, it makes sense to talk with businesses, not to make pronouncements based on pop culture statistics like a State Business Tax Index.

Dear Tom

Some background on my experience; started my first business in '93 in Oregon. Started another in Texas. Started another 5 in Arizona. Moved my newest startup from Phoenix to Beaverton last summer. Moved back to Oregon for the quality of life and skills of the workers here. Oregon's business tax rate of 6.6% is the national average, so it isn't a factor.

As far as being an early adopter of clean water standards, did you for a moment ever think that a business that uses water might benefit from having cleaner water to start with? Less expense getting water to its standard of use.

As far as The Tax Foundation being a purveyor of "pop culture statistics," I would disagree. I would suspect your perceptions will never be swayed by reality. BTW, do you have any FACTS to back up your hypothesis.

I apologize, MP. It was not my intent to imply that you knew nothing just that we can be so misleading with generalizations, it always gets my back up.

My intent with the water example was not to suggest this was a bad thing for Oregon (if in fact it is the case since it was just an example taken from the air). My point was that a large large law firm would not give much weight to such a factor where a large food processor might. I once lived in a county in California that lost a 2000 acre nursery and a 200 acre equipment auction facility both of which decided to move just across the county line to avoid extraordinary off site improvement costs that were being dictated by our county.

I also apologize for labeling the work of the Tax Foundation as "pop culture statistics." I was thinking of folks who send their kids to Pepperdine because U.S. News has named it the top liberal arts college in California or similar. So many of our arguments and decisions seem to be based on news and survey driven statistics that leave out a good number of important factors. Saying that Yuba City California or Minot North Dakota is the #1 worst place to live sells magazines for Newsweek but does a generally poor job of informing me of how I would find doing business in either place.

My overall point was that if we don't engage the business community we will get 'solutions' based from folks who have never been "...swayed by reality."

BTW, started first business in 1973. Four more since. Have moved two manufacturing businesses, the last being here to Oregon in 2004. I have spent literally thousands of hours studying the factors that would predict success for my businesses and the four your mention were among them, but by no means the only keys to the castle.

mp's post shows first hand why you can't argue one factor- like every right wingnut does- and talk about "environment". Does Oregon sound vastly inferior as a business environment compared to Texas in that post? Certainly not. Yeah, Oregon is at the nation average 6.6%, but Texas has 0 corporate income tax. That's almost 7% off your revenues! As MP describes, that "loss" is more than made up by what it bought in terms of better educated workers and quality of life.

Vincent illustrates this point well, in trying to deny it. Dallas v high tax Oregon. Works, like in the case of Google's server farm. Sounds obvious to me; the environment in Dallas is conducive to the life of a machine and the one in Oregon to the life of the workers. And as usual there's a stinking load of rotting fish under the covers if you consider why it really works, i.e., the difference in the cost of electricity between Dallas and Seattle.

I suppose it hadn't occurred to you that I was thinking specifically of cheap BPA power when I used the Google example.

Points for throwing the "right wingnut" straw man, though.

@Tom Vail:

Your apology is accepted and I offer my own right back for the snarky tone of my reply. The four factors I used were actually taken from a business relocation journal I read last year. I have searched high and low on this internet thingy to no avail. Needless to say, each business will have specific criteria that apply only to it, but those four were the ones that applied to all businesses.

@gang green:

Texas's zero corporate tax is a highlight of their chamber of commerce literature, but what they don't tell you is that they have a property tax rate that can eat you alive.

Jason: "Less gov't regulation on businesses and tax breaks might be a start."

Right. Cause that's worked so well in the past. (like the city of beaverton trying to tax Nike..)

Cessna moving to Mexico for a 28% tax vs. 44 here?? That was on the radio today. I dont care what your quality of life looks like, that tax rate diff will NOT get major companies here. Period. What is needed is incentive for major companies to locate here. Complete state tax abatement for companies that locate here and also have the headquarters here. Maybe a sliding scale according to Oregon/other locations employee count. We can actually make a very good argument to have zero business taxes here and just make it up with the income and property taxes. But business is evil, cars are evil, CO2 is evil, all growth is sprawl and is evil, and spending in Oregon is out of control. Oregon is a destination only for retired folks, and others that will sacrifice their company profitability for the quality of life (sitting on a freeway). And if you dont really think business climate is an issue, drive out on 82nd avenue to where the businesses stop, that would be the Portand city limit/county line. And a stimulus is not funding school maintenance that was supposed to have been taken care of in the existing funding/budget, that really is a shell game and is fundamentally dishonest on its face.

Cut state spending by 10% across the board, that is called sharing the pain. That will eventually work. Any society dependent on its govt spending for economic success is doomed. Figure it out please.

Only Democrats, minus 12 dems, voted for the Democrat Trillion dollar pork laden stimulus package,,, that provides $726 million for after school snacks.

Well done folks!

I don't care how many bleeding-heart sob stories the Mindless Sheep Media puts out there, this bill is nothing but a giant, out of control, pork-fat dripping monster that will ultimately devour this nation.

It will leave us with an even worse economy, a much higher debt load, a bankrupt treasury, and a life-style destroying tax burden for future generations of Americans, who will have enough trouble paying for SS and entitlement benefits even without having to foot the bill for this hideous vote-buying scheme from Hell.

The government can increase its spending only by reducing private spending equivalently. Whether government finances its added spending by increasing taxes, by borrowing, or by inflating the currency, the added spending will be offset by reduced private spending.

@dddave:"Cessna moving to Mexico for a 28% tax vs. 44 here?? That was on the radio today. I dont care what your quality of life looks like, that tax rate diff will NOT get major companies here. Period."

I am sure that $15 per day average wage in Mexico was NOT a factor at all....

There was an article in the SJ yesterday pointing out that Oregonians are employed at small businesses by a substantially greater margin than the national average. Small business is our strength. That is why I hate it when people look to the Fortune 500 list as some bellwether of our business climate.

Go look at the Inc 5000. That is a list of the fastest growing companies. There are 82 Oregon companies on the list. Only 5 wouldn't qualify as small (>250). They had revenue of $2.35B in 2007 and employed 7859 people. These are the businesses that we should strive for.

I know it is easier for a Governor or Mayor to hold a press conference announcing the arrival of an Intel like business than the expansion of a small business no one has heard of. But the reality is that 67% of Oregon's job growth comes from those unknown companies.

mp's point is so true. We concentrate on the major players because they're easier to think about, but, maybe, we should regard those other companies as a virtual major player, as a matter of course. Call 'em LocalCap, Inc, or whatever. They really function as a capitalized entity of equal scale, except they don't buy seats in the Congress.

If we're going to return this debate to the people, it needs to be about the people. That's the best "hope" I see with Obama.

Check out Earl Blumenauer's comments on the GOP alternative to the stimulus bill that passed the House:

“I’m glad, however, that they’ve offered this alternative because it puts in clear relief what their priorities are - take money away from 95% of the American public and invest in the few who need it the least. Take money away from 4 million students who would have this tax relief. And my favorite, is actually continue to game the alternative minimum tax to purposely push more people into it, with tax gimmicks -rather than work with us in fundamental tax reform that doesn’t subject more people, and give us this biannual charade.”

More money.

I just worry that the hole that started much of this is still being dug. Infrastructure projects seem only to include roads and bridges which encourage continued driving of gas and oil using vehicles. We need to focus on getting people out of their cars and into other forms of transportation. A mere pittance for mass transit is not going to solve the problem of fossil fuel pollution and the other problems created by gas consumption. Surely there are projects other than roads and bridges for some of the money. Perhaps if it weren't so easy to drive down the freeway in a car, people would use other forms of transportation.

<h2>LC is correct. I would add water/sewage "infrastructure" to the list of expensive and unnecessary projects. We are literally flushing clean water down the toilet and then paying for "treatment" when we should be composting our wastes and conserving the water. But these are ideas that are not favored by the corporate-dominated political parties, and thus they are marginalized.</h2>