How will historians depict the year 2020? I have been pondering this for the last few months, perhaps as a way of processing all that’s happened in this tumultuous year.
And it’s no wonder. The events of the last 12 months – a deadly pandemic, a global economic freeze, a racial reckoning – are more than life-altering. They are history-disrupting.
Just as COVID-19 poses greater risk to patients with preexisting conditions, the same may be said of communities. When COVID-19 arrived in the U.S. eight months ago, it found a nation afflicted by a preexisting condition: Economic inequality.
In these traumatic times for our nation, we find hope in the many Americans who have stood up and demanded the end of police violence against Black Americans. The Oregon Center for Public Policy stands in solidarity with Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities who suffer repression at the hands of law enforcement agencies.
Every crisis, no matter the depths of despair, creates a new opportunity. And the most impactful way to seize that opportunity is to change public policy.
Last week, the short legislative session ended without substantive progress on issues of critical importance to Oregon’s working families. Republicans in both legislative chambers left the building to prevent the
When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial to deliver his famed I Have a Dream speech, he called for bold action that would open the “great vaults of opportunity” that America promised for all.
U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer recently issued a report outlining an ambitious plan to tackle the housing crisis in America. While federal action on many of the areas highlighted in the report would be a step in the right direction, the current political landscape makes it hard to see Congress acting with any sense of urgency. Clearly, Oregon cannot let up in responding to a housing crisis that is undermining the ability of Oregonians to make ends meet, let alone get ahead.
Fast food workers demanding the right to form a union. Grocery store workers voting to strike for higher, more equitable wages. Teachers taking to the street to pressure for increased school funding.
The Marlboro Man hung up his spurs and Joe Camel was put out to pasture long ago, but marketing by tobacco companies hasn’t gone away. Not by a long shot. In Oregon alone, Big Tobacco spends some $115 million a year peddling its deadly product, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Barred by law from certain forms of advertising, tobacco companies have also turned to social media to lure young audiences.
Low-income Oregonians will benefit from an increase in the tobacco tax to fund the Oregon Health Plan and tobacco use prevention programs. Tobacco use comes at a steep cost to the health and finances of those who consume it, as well as society at large. While legitimate concerns exist regarding the regressive nature of an excise tax such as the tobacco tax, low-income communities ultimately come out ahead through investments in health and prevention.