Oregon is seeing a spike much higher than the rest of the country. 49% for Oregon, 13% for the rest of the rest of the country, according to Jeff Manning Oregon companies attracted $106 million in venture capital during ... first six months of 2010, up 49 percent from the same period of '09. ...

techcrunch.com/2010/.../u-s-venture-capital-fundraising-up-13-percent-in-first-half-of-2010-to-7-5b/

If Oregon's business climate was not good venture capitalists wouldn't be putting money into Oregon; they see a climate for growth/success in the Oregon businesses they are funding. Put another way, the opponents of the tax measures kept saying the measures would ruin our business climate and kill jobs, while the venture capitalists are creating jobs.

Taxes are not a measure of a state's business climate, and the venture capital investments are anecdotal evidence of that.

"The promised workforce increases do nothing for the thousands of tradespeople, forest products employees, and Cessna workers thrown out of work."

Funny, because I could have sworn that even "highly skilled and technically adept workers" need homes built by tradespeople, out of wood produced by forest products employees. Some of them might even like to fly a Cessna.

Or are we now to the point where we can pick and choose, not just family wage jobs, but what kind of family wage jobs we'd like here in Oregon. Wow. Our cup must runneth over much more than I had realized! :-p

"The promised workforce increases do nothing for the thousands of tradespeople, forest products employees, and Cessna workers thrown out of work."

Have you guys given up on trickle-down? Adding 100 jobs to a community -- especially relatively high-paying jobs as these are likely to be -- gives a shot in the arm to the whole local economy. Those G5 employees are going to be spending money on housing, clothes, cars, gas, restaurants, everything.

"Who knows, perhaps without the 2 measures, the investment would have been sooner, at a larger amount with G5 giving up leass autonomy."

This reminds me of Bob Dole's claim during the 1996 presidential campaign that without the Clinton tax increase, the economic boom of the '90s would have been even bigger.

The beauty of claims like that is that it's impossible to disprove them. But in the absence of any evidence it's pointless to make them.

Randy -- I am paid by OCPP, not unions, and I'd welcome the day that I could say unions are our main source of income, but they are not. OCPP is independent of unions.

The DJC article notes that Vancouver has "more vacant space and cheaper rents" but fails to note that when companies move to Vancouver and continue to sell to Oregon customers, like Northwest Pipe and Farwest Steel, they will pay Oregon income taxes on those sales. And if those or other companies are Oregon corporate minimum taxpayers, the B&O tax in Washington will be a bit of sticker shock, as it is higher than Oregon's new corporate minimum tax.

You can try to divert attention from the message of the post, but if Oregon's business climate were so horrible, why would VC entities be putting their money here? They wouldn't. If their money could talk it would say "Oregon is a great place to start and grow a company." No matter what people claim in DJC stories, the VC money speaks volumes about Oregon's business climate.