The kicker is kind of stupid, but maybe just budget an extra billion dollars to fighting wildfires instead of arbitrarily raiding funds? We manage to budget for all our other necessities [coughexcept homeless servicescough].
“That would be very helpful for the state,” Kotek said, arguing that the money would represent a transfer of wealth from urban to rural Oregon – a potential selling point for Republicans. “Most of the folks who are going to be paying that are folks who do not live in fire-prone areas.”
It's insane that she thinks this is going to make it more popular. There's way more urban Oregonians who would be upset by this than there are rural Oregonians who would appreciate it.
Lawmakers have considered slapping 5 cents onto the state’s 10-cent bottle deposit, pulling money from lottery revenues, or redirecting an obscure tax on insurance companies.
Cancel locally unpopular highway widening projects. Tada, fire fighting fully funded.
Golden has argued the state could solve much of its fire funding problem by suspending the entire kicker and putting it in an interest-bearing fund. If that fund earned 5% interest every year, Golden says the $1.64 billion kicker would earn the state $164 million each budget cycle for wildfire spending – a little more than half of the projected need.
IMO this is the only good idea in the whole article. We should be investing 100% of the kicker money into a permanent fund every year, and then using only the dividend as a budget bonus.