Are you standing in line longer to pay your parking tickets? Or to go through the metal detectors? Is it more difficult to find a court person to answer questions? If your answer is yes, blame free trade treaties.
On Monday, Aimee Green of the Oregonian newspaper reported that budget cuts were slowing Oregon’s courts. Of course that wasn’t true, and Ms. Green knew this. Free trade has slowed down the courts by shipping much of the tax base overseas, thereby forcing budget cuts on the courts of Oregon.
“By May 1, court administors expect expect to eliminate the equivalent of 95 full time employees statewide.” That means there will be fewer employees who will take your money for your parking tickets at the counter, to answer questions, to get files from the archives, “to enter warrants into the computer system and to staff courtrooms that hear criminal and civil cases.”
These newest cutbacks mean 296 jobs will have been cut since 2009.
The Oregoninan never reports the truth in these matters simply because it is the voice of the one percent in Oregon. The purpose of the newspaper is to help its corporate masters redistribute income and wealth from the 99 percent to the one percent by misleading the vast majority of Oregonians. And that is precisely what Aimee Green has done.
