Oregon should be a place where people can build something.
A stronger economy begins with the freedom to work, create, invest, hire, and turn an idea into opportunity.
Oregon’s prosperity does not come from government. It comes from people.
Entrepreneurs take risks. Small business owners create jobs. Workers build skills and pursue better opportunities. Employers invest in communities. Together, they create the economic growth that supports families and makes everything else possible.
But Oregon increasingly puts government between people and opportunity.
Higher taxes take more from what people earn. Expanding mandates make it more expensive to hire and grow. Complex regulations favor large organizations that can afford lawyers, lobbyists, and compliance departments. Licensing rules can keep people from working. Political leaders pick winners and losers while small businesses and ordinary Oregonians are left to absorb the cost.
The more permission people need from government to work, build, and succeed, the more opportunity belongs to those with the money and influence to navigate the system.
Cascade Policy Institute believes Oregon should move in the opposite direction: less political control, fewer barriers, and more freedom for people to build something of their own.
What Cascade believes
- Economic freedom creates opportunity. People thrive when they are free to work, invest, compete, take risks, and pursue new ideas without unnecessary government interference.
- Small businesses should have a fair chance to succeed. Oregon policy should not give an advantage to large organizations that can absorb costs, navigate complex regulations, or influence political decisions.
- Workers should have choices. No Oregonian should be forced to join or financially support a union as a condition of earning a living.
- Government should remove barriers, not create them. Taxes, mandates, licensing rules, and regulations should be judged by whether their benefits justify the costs they impose on workers, employers, consumers, and new competitors.
- Markets should decide who succeeds. Government should not use subsidies, regulations, or political influence to protect favored industries and organizations from competition.
What better policy looks like
A stronger Oregon economy gives more people the freedom to work, earn, build, compete, and advance.
It means an entrepreneur can turn an idea into a business without first navigating a maze of government barriers. A small employer can spend more time serving customers and creating jobs and less time complying with mandates. Workers can choose where and how they work. New competitors can challenge established interests. Businesses can invest in Oregon with confidence that the rules will not constantly shift beneath them.
Economic freedom matters most to people who do not already have power, wealth, or political connections. A complicated system protects insiders. A free and competitive economy opens the door to everyone else.
Oregon should not make people ask permission to build a better future. It should give them the freedom to create one.
