That problem is never going to truly get resolved, because the people that took their money north of the river are never going back to the Oregon side, and that pisses Portland/Oregon off.
Lots of Vancouverites work in Oregon. If you want to know the difference between Oregon and Washington then look at the 4 lane I-5 choke points in Portland versus the 12 lane I-5 going into Seattle. Or drive from Seattle to Yakima versus Portland to Bend. Once upon a time Washington had dems who built things. Oregon never had either Republicans or Dems who did.
The talent that moved out of Portland are taking remote jobs over having to go back into Portland.
There is a lot of blue collar that works in Portland, but again, there is a city right across the river that will gladly take whatever business.
Oregon needs Washington talent. Not the other way around. Oregon/Portland thought that they had all this leverage that they didn't have.
Fuck both states, but still.
Try attracting business to Spokane when 12 miles away is unfettered freedom and virtually no homeless.
Kootenai County, ID is booming. Downtown Spokane has a 28% vacancy rate. But muh State Income Tax!
Fuck Jay Inslee.
Fuck fuck Bob Ferguson. Largest budget in state history and still no fucking North-South Freeway.
Yep. With technology people want to have their family setup and work without having to deal with urban decay.
I know one person that has been forced back into Portland, and he took the risk on his own to make a career of out working for Blizzard, when Microsoft comes along and buys them and obviously wants to offload all their shit to Azure.
Portland is dead to new business. Only real entrepreneur in the state is Phil and he is now 87. In the late 90s a young 40ish former controller for Microsoft moved to West Linn and became one of the wealthiest guys in the area. Started a bank. Seattle has hundreds of those guys, plus Amazon and lots of others. Jody Allen is trying to sell the Trailblazers and there is no local interest with any money that can buy them. Probably even money that someone in Seattle will make the deal. Just like Paul Allen back in the day. Without Paul no Trailblazers.
This is what you are.
A flyover state that is hoping that Washington and California guys take enough interest to preserve your quook culture.
Portland sucked my cock for years as well as other UW alums and now that's obviously gone.
Lots of Californian's are moving to Bend and turning it blue. Even Snow moved there and he voted for the dementia patient.
I know a lot of people that grew up in Oregon and work really hard to this day.
They don't want the Californians. They'd rather take me.
Also, leftists fleeing their liberal utopia in the bay to bring its glory north.
Did the state's population double since 2013? No. HH wrong again.
Over the past ten years, Washington state's budget has seen significant growth. In 2013, when Jay Inslee became governor, the state's annual operating budget was approximately $38.4 billion. By 2025, the state is now spending almost twice as much annually, with a budget of around $75.5 billion.
https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/washington-state-wants-to-increase-bureaucrats-salaries-by-13-billion-despite-claims-the-state-is-facing-a-budget-shortfall
He doesn't have a move other than vague, indirect potshots. He'll move onto another thread to espouse some inane legal position as a gotcha
H in every thread
I’m hearing that increasing gas taxes do….something
Nobody is denying that real spending has increased. Still, you've got a state that has grown by about a third during the 21st Century and cumulative inflation over that time. The state has added popular capital improvements that you also have to operate and maintain. Mandates, particularly in education, which were severely underfunded for quite a while. Etc.
If Washingtonians aspired to make the state like Arkansas, Mississippi, or Louisiana, they'd vote accordingly. They haven't shown that they aspire to that.
Meanwhile, because we've got a retarded tax structure, we're making Race pay more than he should. Still, he remains here.
Gibberish
pithy
The population growth has been pretty stagnant since about 2000. You can go ahead and defend the spending increases on the merits of the spending programs if you want, but it’s a losing argument looking at the high level macro stuff.
If by "stagnant" you mean Washington's growth has vastly exceeded the growth of the US as a whole, then you're right.
State opex spending per citizen has increased by 72% since 2013. Core CPI index has increased 36% during that same period. So including population gains, spending has significantly outpaced inflation.
Laughable argument to justify the spending on inflation and population growth.
Cool stat. Why would that metric require double the spending?
It wouldn't. But you and I both know the nominal increase is not the real increase. I agree there's a real increase, and it's not small.
Say specifically what you are alluding to please.
It was worth it to end homelessness and getting an actual education for the kiddies.
Real spending has not doubled. The nominal spending increase is not the real spending increase. Nor is it the per capita spending increase, for that matter.
But I concede real spending rose by a lot.
So what did we get for our huge gain in real spend? Must have been something good.
More illegals
Here is what is going on in Minnesota with Tampon Tim at the helm. The dazzler is opposed to government waste and fraud but it just isn't a voting issue. In Washington the state got looted during the chicom crud blue state crisis. Minnesota politicians wanted nothing to do with combatting fraud and waste. Just like the US dems went ape shit over the Doge discoveries.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/06/more-fraud-than-we-imagined.php
A few weeks ago, 60 Minutes, to its credit, did a segment with Linda Miller, who spent ten years in the Government Accountability Office and wrote a rulebook on preventing fraud in federal programs. Miller says there is vastly more fraud in federal spending than people realize:
Last year, the Government Accountability Office released a report estimating the federal government loses as much as $521 billion a year to fraud. But Miller and other fraud experts believe the number is higher.Linda Miller: I believe the government is losing between $550 billion and about $750 billion a year. We’re coming up close to the $1 trillion amount– is lost, every year, to fraud.
Last year, the Government Accountability Office released a report estimating the federal government loses as much as $521 billion a year to fraud. But Miller and other fraud experts believe the number is higher.
Linda Miller: I believe the government is losing between $550 billion and about $750 billion a year. We’re coming up close to the $1 trillion amount– is lost, every year, to fraud.
Who commits the large-scale fraud? Much of it is done by foreign actors and organized criminal gangs:
Linda Miller: What we’re really talking about is nation-state actors. We’re talking about organized crime rings. We’re talking about using vast amounts of stolen Americans’ identities to monetize them for, you know, criminal activity.The problem exploded during the pandemic – when the government rushed trillions of dollars into the economy to help struggling Americans.Applications for relief programs moved online, making it easier for people to access aid, but with few safeguards, scammers, hackers and organized crime rings also cashed in.In 2020, Miller was appointed to an independent watchdog committee that tracked how COVID relief money was spent.Linda Miller: We could tell, right away, it was like, “Oh. Well, that’s all gonna get stolen.”Cecilia Vega: You saw it coming?Linda Miller: Oh, yeah. I mean, It was like they threw money in the air and just let people run around and grab it. The most egregious part is that a lot of the people who stole that money were foreign adversarial nation states.Cecilia Vega: So who are they? Who are you talking about?Linda Miller: We’re talking about China. We’re talking about Russia.Cecilia Vega: Impersonating Americans, in a lot of cases?Linda Miller: Yes. Right. *** Last year, the FBI unraveled one of the largest digital fraud cases in U.S. history, in which cyber criminals from around the world used stolen identities to pocket $6 billion in pandemic unemployment funds.
Linda Miller: What we’re really talking about is nation-state actors. We’re talking about organized crime rings. We’re talking about using vast amounts of stolen Americans’ identities to monetize them for, you know, criminal activity.
The problem exploded during the pandemic – when the government rushed trillions of dollars into the economy to help struggling Americans.
Applications for relief programs moved online, making it easier for people to access aid, but with few safeguards, scammers, hackers and organized crime rings also cashed in.
In 2020, Miller was appointed to an independent watchdog committee that tracked how COVID relief money was spent.
Linda Miller: We could tell, right away, it was like, “Oh. Well, that’s all gonna get stolen.”
Cecilia Vega: You saw it coming?
Linda Miller: Oh, yeah. I mean, It was like they threw money in the air and just let people run around and grab it. The most egregious part is that a lot of the people who stole that money were foreign adversarial nation states.
Cecilia Vega: So who are they? Who are you talking about?
Linda Miller: We’re talking about China. We’re talking about Russia.
Cecilia Vega: Impersonating Americans, in a lot of cases?
Linda Miller: Yes. Right. *** Last year, the FBI unraveled one of the largest digital fraud cases in U.S. history, in which cyber criminals from around the world used stolen identities to pocket $6 billion in pandemic unemployment funds.
When a disaster happens, the professional fraudsters swing into action:
Cecilia Vega: What are the hot spots for fraud, right now?Linda Miller: Disaster funding–is a really big issue. When a disaster happens in the country, the fraud actors see where it’s coming. They look at the zip codes. And they begin buying stolen identities, so that they can begin applying for disaster loans, disaster grants, on behalf of stolen identities.
Cecilia Vega: What are the hot spots for fraud, right now?
Linda Miller: Disaster funding–is a really big issue. When a disaster happens in the country, the fraud actors see where it’s coming. They look at the zip codes. And they begin buying stolen identities, so that they can begin applying for disaster loans, disaster grants, on behalf of stolen identities.
Apparently you can buy the identity of pretty much any American for a nominal sum.
Our government has reached a state of impotent ossification where it is doubtful whether it has the will, let alone the capacity, to resist being pillaged by hostile actors and criminal gangs. And, to compound the problem, one of our two major political parties never wants to cut any spending, under any circumstances. The fact that a large percentage of government spending goes to fraudsters is of zero concern.
Minnesota, where I live, is a case in point. Minnesota is probably the most corrupt state in the union. The American Experiment Scandal Tracker stands at over $611 million, just since the beginning of the Tim Walz administration. That isn’t the wasteful spending that the government indulges in every day, that is 27 specific criminal frauds. One of them is Feeding Our Future, in which probably $500 million in federal tax money was stolen from a program administered by the state’s Department of Education (only the $250 million that has been criminally prosecuted to date is included in the Tracker’s total).
In response to this awful record, there is a proposal to create an Office of Inspector General, that would be charged with monitoring state spending and taking legal action in cases of fraud. Polling shows that 72% of Minnesotans support that proposal, but it couldn’t get through our legislature. Why? Because the Democrats wouldn’t vote for it. The brutal reality is that the Democratic Party doesn’t mind fraud, and might even be in favor of it. As long as that remains true, nothing is going to change.
DEI officials, initiatives, and celebrations; fare ambassadors on LINK; and feckless homelessness solutions
On the other hand, at the city level, all those new Seattle taxes (that are not-income in name only) are doing a great job of pushing every high earner out of the city
Newsom gave more unemployment money to prisoners than to unemployed people
