Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho' • Hacker News Board

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#501

Post by jameshart » Fri, May 21, 2021, 12:56 AM UTC

samatman wrote: post #328

joshka wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>American Values ... normal rural Americans are outnumbered in Oregon What sort of logic supports that American values are those held by a minority of Americans. What possible values suggest they are the normal ones? > 3. Low Tax The counties involved have median household incomes of 30-35K, making their tax burden $600-1100 total, a far cry from the average quoted, which is skewed right strongly by outliers (1%), wh…

> What sort of logic supports that American values are those held by a minority of Americans. What possible values suggest they are the normal ones? America has been here for a long time. It's fair to say that values which are of long standing, still held by a significant fraction of the population, and them disproportionately descended from ancestors who have been American for many generations, are more American val…

> values which are of long standing, still held by a significant fraction of the population, and them disproportionately descended from ancestors who have been American for many generations, are more American values than ones which fail one or more of these criteria

So, in an Oregon context, this would mean the values of the Chinook peoples?

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#502

Post by PeterisP » Fri, May 21, 2021, 12:59 AM UTC

icedistilled wrote: post #329

bsder wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why Oregon would object unless there is some industry out there that is paying megabucks in taxes. Dumping a bunch of people sucking down more money than they pay seems like a win for Oregon. Idaho, on the other hand, might object. That would be comedy gold. "We secede." "Congratulations! Good luck finding somebody who wants you, though."

It sets a bad precedent. Any county can just vote to break off into another state due to political reasons or to form their own state? Either one party will use that to their advantage and disallow the other party from doing the same, or every state will devolve into fragments. Why stop at counties? Why can't zip codes choose the grouping that best represents them too?

Well, the precedent would not be binding in any way - the precedent is that everyone (Oregon,Idaho,Congress) must agree, so any of them can veto for any arbitrary reason, and Oregon agreeing on these particular counties going to Idaho does not mean they would or should accept any other cases just because they vote so.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#503

Post by a3n » Fri, May 21, 2021, 1:00 AM UTC

cronix wrote: post #496

bobthepanda wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s also the question of whether or not Idaho would actually want to take them.

I've read that they are interested. It would extend Idaho to the Pacific Ocean and give them a seaport in Coos Bay, if certain adjoining counties in the proposal join.

Idaho has a "seaport" already, in Lewiston (across the border from Clarkston WA). You get there by way of the Columbia River and locks. I often haul giant rolls of paper in my semi from the papermill in Lewiston.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#504

Post by Ccecil » Fri, May 21, 2021, 1:00 AM UTC

astrognomy wrote: post #311

notJim wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is that being driven by people moving from rural Oregon? I am skeptical.

Your right to be skeptical as it's not the case. It's being driven by individuals within Idaho moving to more urban parts of Idaho. Locals say it's all "Californians," but that is just short hand for folks out of state but surveys and data from ITD (Idaho Transportation Department, i.e. DMV) show it's urbanization at work. Granted there are folks moving to Idaho from outside of the state but they are the minority cau…

In our case (Cd'A) the majority coming in are not from Idaho moving to more urban areas...they are from out of state.

Not sure I would trust the DMV stats during the covid times too since I see a lot of unregistered/expired tags right now.

Most people from the rural areas here cannot afford a house in Coeur d'Alene...it is primarily people coming from other markets where a $600k house is considered a steal.

edit: I have lived in Cd'A for over 40 years...and this year is a very new thing.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#505

Post by yesBoot » Fri, May 21, 2021, 1:01 AM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #495

yesBoot wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not matter. They have no power in our system to simply upend norms as they choose. They can pack up and move themselves if they don’t like it. The onus is not on everyone else to cater to them. It’s to abide laws as they are written within our constitutional system of elections and statutes overseeing them. I’m not saying that’s ideal. I’m saying that’s how it works. Down votes do nothing to make it any less…

If these people are such a drag, such a bunch of troublemakers and take in more taxes than they pay why shouldn't Oregon be showing them the door?

Why should the rest of Oregon change to satisfy voters of a non-binding resolution?

They can get a Uhaul and go.

Why bother putting real costs on the state to appease people with freedom of agency already?

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#506

Post by halostatue » Fri, May 21, 2021, 1:01 AM UTC

autokad wrote: post #411

light_hue_1 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you should definitely read up on how farming subsidies came about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_policy_of_the_Uni... Food got so stupidly cheap it makes no sense to grow it in the US anymore. So farmers demanded that people in cities pay for their lifestyles out of our taxes. And then they go around being entitled about it. I've had enough of farm welfare queens. Get farmers off of welfare and let…

the government pays farmers (subsidizes) based on a lot of planning. this is done because special aspects about food (go read an economics 101 book - inelastic demand, prefect competition). in short, its meant to stabilize the system such that we don't all starve next year due to surpluses this year. its not because we can just get it cheaper from other countries (sometimes that may be true, but not true on a macro s…

Not so much on the famine bit, except perhaps in the U.S. and Canada.

The unfairness of farm subsidies is that there’s also essentially no _controls_ on the output. The government can’t turn around and mandate particular growing practices, in part because farming companies and larger farmers have gotten used to the subsidies and how they work.

In Canada, at least, subsidies are also tied to production controls and standards.

Don’t get me wrong: I am in _favour_ of most farm subsidies; there is a lot of benefit to it. But the taxpayer should get a bit more control on what’s being spent on. IMO, small farm subsidies should probably increase so that more people have opportunities to work the land if they wish to do so and pay their seasonal workers a living wage so that they don’t have to use undocumented workers. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to see a couple of F35 fighters scrapped in favour of fair farm wage payments.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#507

Post by devmunchies » Fri, May 21, 2021, 1:03 AM UTC

pii wrote: post #108

kingsuper20 wrote: post #97

I do have to wonder if it wouldn't be simpler to just move state functions, as many as are practical, to the county level. Counties are perfectly capable of being 100% in charge of their own schools, roads, police. They largely are, but subject to a great deal of probably unnecessary state control.

I think we might end up with counties mandating the teaching of some pretty abhorrent things if we did that

I agree. I have to move back to the bay area and am scared to death about what they are teaching children there. We'll probably homeschool. I couldn't imagine how much worse it would be if they had their own school system.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#508

Post by throwaway0a5e » Fri, May 21, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

yesBoot wrote: post #505

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these people are such a drag, such a bunch of troublemakers and take in more taxes than they pay why shouldn't Oregon be showing them the door?

Why should the rest of Oregon change to satisfy voters of a non-binding resolution? They can get a Uhaul and go. Why bother putting real costs on the state to appease people with freedom of agency already?

If the arrangement is mutually beneficial to Oregon, the "nobodies" and Idaho is on board then why not? Just to spite the nobodies?

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#509

Post by bobthepanda » Fri, May 21, 2021, 1:05 AM UTC

cronix wrote: post #496

bobthepanda wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s also the question of whether or not Idaho would actually want to take them.

I've read that they are interested. It would extend Idaho to the Pacific Ocean and give them a seaport in Coos Bay, if certain adjoining counties in the proposal join.

That implies that Idaho has the money to build a deepwater port and connecting infrastructure that currently doesn’t exist. And there’s not really any particular benefit since there is free movement of goods in the US; customs fees are not a state level thing to begin with.

Re: Five Oregon counties vote to leave state, create 'Greater Idaho'

#510

Post by swordsmith » Fri, May 21, 2021, 1:06 AM UTC

vineyardmike wrote: post #381

URSpider94 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see the data, but from the data I have seen, the data conflict with the popular (populist) narrative. A lot of people in America seem to believe that the hardworking "real Americans" in the middle of the country are subsidizing the poorly-run coastal liberal enclaves. In reality, the money almost always flows in the other direction; taxpayers in cities are subsidizing the rural-dwellers. This has noth…

I drove through a few of the counties (eg. baker) mentioned in the article to visit a dog breeder, and the breeder had (nearly) her own highway exit. Complete with 2 overpasses. Must cost millions to build and maintain. Her house was the only one visible for as far as you could see from that exit. All i could think about was how much better her life was for that exit and how all her total tax income forever could nev…

> and the breeder had (nearly) her own highway exit

This is the key assumption on which your statements are based on. How do you know the state built it for her, rather than, she built her house next to the highway exit? I find it hard to believe that the state would build a highway exit specifically for a few normal individuals.