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Podcast: Cascade CounterPoint
Episode: QP: Oregon Legislature Lines Up a Spending Blow-Out
Description: Full-text: While Oregonians are filling out their tax returns, their elected legislators are lining up some blow-out spending.
Last month, the Democratic co-chairs of the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee unveiled a budget “framework” that proposes more than $6 billion in new general fund spending—a 24% increase from the last budget. The biggest increases are in K-12 education and human services, which includes Medicaid.
Even though Oregon public school enrollment has dropped by 30,000 since before the pandemic, the co-chairs are proposing a stunning $1.2 billion increase in school spending. That’s an increase of m...