Of course, the tax preparation lobby started to pressure for the test program to be abandoned. Which is ridiculous. And some lawmakers listened. Which is more ridiculous.

Really like this quote:

And efficiency is good regardless of who it might hurt; it is especially good if it hurts those who feed off inefficiency.

With amazing 20-20 hindsight, it’s now obvious what the City should have done:

Keep PGE’s rates the same!

Keeping them the same would have let them

• Give rebates to other cities. Here, Gresham & Beaverton, here’s 10% of the electric bills of everyone in your city boundaries. Now be quiet.
• Give money to Portland Public Schools.
• Fund the tram
• Stop people wondering what would happen when well-paid, unionized private sector workers became well-paid, unionized public sector workers. Did anybody expect there to be fewer people? Less pay?

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be anyone out there who’s much interested in trying to solve the problem. We can’t keep spending the way that we have. All the big screen TVs and clothing that we’re buying from overseas is growing their economies as fast as it depletes our resources. It’d be different if we were graduating more scientists and engineers … if we were graduating more people period.

His article is a fine read on a day when the market dropped better than 1% across all indices. Highly recommended.