Oregon’s business and labor organizations and their leaders are not providing the economic leadership Oregon needs. Nothing illustrates this more than their continued advocacy of the Columbia River Crossing (CRC) project, the unimaginative ballooning of some core transportation needs into a gigantic boondoogle of a public works project designed primarily to provide labor jobs
and contractor profits, not to serve public needs.
Business and labor leaders concerned about Oregon economic future should fret more about how to turn the digitalization and globalization transformations to our economic advantage. Not our business and labor leaders. They’re stuck in the past and so consumed with the CRC that responding to the great changes taking place in the global economy are overlooked.
As Jeff Mapes reports in his Oregonian article “Spurred by business and labor, Oregon congressional candidates back Columbia River Crossing Project” (here):
The proposed Columbia River Crossing project is controversial in some quarters, but not among the major candidates running in Oregon's special congressional election.
Businessman Rob Cornilles, the likely Republican nominee, and the three leading Democratic candidates all speak enthusiastically of pushing ahead with the $3 billion project to replace the Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River along with other improvements along the 5-mile corridor.
Critics say the project is too expensive and charge that its financing -- from a mixture of federal funds, tolls and state gas taxes -- is based on pie-in-the-sky projections. But the project retains potent support from a wide variety of business and labor groups that say a new bridge is crucial to easing congestion on I-5. Add to that the prospect of 2,000 construction jobs a year over a decade, and the bridge becomes especially alluring to congressional candidates eager to show how they can help revive the economy.
Leaders concerned about Oregon’s economic future would reduce funding for the CRC and find ways to make Oregon more globally competitive with high speed broadband internet services and with a workforce more capable of selling Oregon’s good and services abroad.
Last I knew, in spite of what Mapes just wrote, the estimated cost of the CRC was $3.6 billion. Here’s a better way to spend that much:
First, cut the cost of the CRC project to below $2 billion. See here for an alternative $1.8 bil lion proposal.
Second, invest $500 million in upgrading high speed broadband in Portland.
Third, provide laptop or tablet (like the iPad) computers to all high school students in Oregon at an estimated ten year cost of $350 million.
Fourth, provide high-speed broadband internet connections for all Oregon high school students for ten years at an estimated cost of $430 million.
Fifth, provide 4-8 weeks summer abroad (especially China) foreign language education programs for 10% of each Oregon high school class statewide for ten years at an estimated cost of $250 million.
Sixth, provide full school year study abroad programs (again, especially China) for 5% of each Oregon high school class statewide for ten years at an estimated cost of $250 million.
Reduced, alternative CRC $2,000,000,000
High-speed broadband in Portland 500,000,000
Laptops/tablets for students 350,000,000
Internet connections for students 430,000,000
High school summer abroad 250,000,000
Full high school year abroad 250,000,000
Total $3,680,000,000
Stop funding the past, invest in the future! And, if we need to get new business and labor leaders to do so, let’s do that too. Otherwise, we’ll just fall further behind economically.
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