Governor Tina Kotek rolled out Oregon’s Prosperity Roadmap this week with the kind of fanfare you’d expect for a moon landing, not a five-page PDF that mostly promises more meetings, more titles, and more “coordination.”
According to the glossy brochure, we’re on the brink of “a decade of extraordinary economic growth” if we just follow her three-point plan:
- Accelerate economic growth
- Create more living-wage jobs
- Retain and grow Oregon businesses
In other words: do better, with feeling.
The problem is that Kotek is unveiling a “roadmap” at the exact moment the dashboard is lit up like a Christmas tree, the check-engine light is flashing, and ODOT is out front hammering “ROUGH ROAD AHEAD” signs into crumbling pavement. (Ground News)
This isn’t a roadmap. It’s a souvenir map they hand you as the bus goes over the cliff.
The Economic Reality: Slamming the Brakes While Calling It “Growth”
Let’s start with the numbers her own roadmap cites and then quietly hopes you don’t read.
The state’s latest economic and revenue forecasts say:
- Oregon has lost more than 18,000 jobs over the last year, while the national economy added millions. (Salem Reporter)
- Our unemployment rate climbed faster than any other state between August 2024 and August 2025. (OPB)
- Forecasts show unemployment staying elevated through 2026, with real GDP growth slowing to around 1% and population growth stuck at 0.5% a year. (oactfo.org)
Kotek’s roadmap, meanwhile, blithely declares that Oregon will grow GDP from 1.7% to 2.2% and magically unlock $4+ billion in new general fund revenue by 2029–31.
So while the actual forecast is warning “slippery when wet, 1% grade, watch for recession,” the Governor is in the front seat shouting, “Don’t worry, we’ll just manifest 2.2%!”
Where Are the Jobs Growing? In Waiting Rooms and Government Offices
Even the state’s own data admits where the growth actually is:
- Health care and social assistance added 11,600 jobs in 12 months, growing 3.8%. (Oregon)
- Government jobs have been steadily climbing since 2020, outpacing private-sector growth. (QualityInfo)
At the same time, Oregon has been bleeding private-sector jobs in manufacturing, construction, financial services, and trade – the kinds of jobs that actually produce things and support families. (Salem Reporter)
Put bluntly: the only real growth sectors in Oregon are hospitals and government payrolls. “Prosperity” in this model looks a lot like more people standing in lines and waiting on hold with state agencies.
Yet Kotek’s roadmap brags that Oregon will move from #23 to Top 10 in CNBC’s workforce rankings and from #39 to Top 10 in overall business rankings.
Reality check: CNBC already dropped Oregon to 39th in business climate, and state-commissioned research shows that 68% of businesses contacted by out-of-state recruiters end up expanding or moving elsewhere, driven by high taxes and regulatory burdens. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
If this is a “prosperity” trend, it’s sure hiding well.
ODOT: The Demo Version of Tina’s Prosperity Plan
If you want to see the Prosperity Roadmap in the wild, you don’t have to wait for 2026. Just look at ODOT.
Under Kotek’s watch and legislative leadership:
- ODOT hit a $350+ million operations and maintenance shortfall for 2025–27. (GovDelivery)
- The agency issued layoff notices to 483 workers – about 10% of its workforce – and cut another 449 vacant positions, the largest state layoff in memory. (Oregon)
- Maintenance stations were slated for closure. Winter road response, snow plowing, and basic pavement work were all on the chopping block. (GovDelivery)
ODOT even titled one of its public updates “Caution – Rough Roads Ahead,” noting that pavement conditions are deteriorating due to years of underinvestment and inflation. (Oregon)
That’s the literal, not metaphorical, version of Oregon’s “roadmap” under Tina Kotek: lay off the people who maintain the roads, announce there’s no money for asphalt, then act shocked when the public starts talking about a transportation “cliff.”
And her fix? Not to rethink priorities, but to ram through one of the biggest transportation tax and fee hikes in state history – then pretend hiking costs on every driver is “prosperity.”
HB 3991: Prosperity by Paying More for Less
The special-session transportation package, HB 3991, is the financial engine lurking under Kotek’s Prosperity Roadmap:
- Gas tax jumps from $0.40 to $0.46 per gallon, effective end of 2025. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
- Vehicle registration fees nearly double for passenger vehicles and more for others. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
- Title fees explode from $77 to $216 for passenger vehicles. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
- The payroll tax for transit doubles from 0.1% to 0.2%, hitting every worker’s paycheck. (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
And that’s just the “compromise” package. Earlier versions floated road-usage charges of hundreds of dollars a year for EVs and even higher gas taxes, on top of new car and used car sales taxes. (The Sun)
Now, Oregonians are circulating a referendum to put those tax hikes on the 2026 ballot and let voters decide whether “prosperity” really means paying more for the same potholes and fewer plow trucks. (Statesman Journal)
In the middle of all this, TriMet is cutting service by at least 10%, warning of its own “fiscal cliff” in 2030, even as payroll taxes for transit go up. (TriMet News)
Pay more, get less, call it “investment.” That’s not a roadmap; that’s a recurring charge.
Business Flight: Oregon as the “Recruiting Farm Team” for Other States
Kotek’s roadmap quietly cites the very studies that prove how badly Oregon has been managed.
Those reports found:
- Out-of-state recruiters are aggressively targeting Oregon firms.
- 24% of surveyed traded-sector businesses have been contacted by recruiters.
- Of those, 68% moved or expanded out of state, taking thousands of potential jobs and billions in private investment with them. (Oregon)
Companies aren’t leaving because they hate trees and rain. They’re leaving because Oregon has:
- High taxes
- A thick, overlapping regulatory mess
- Limited industrial land
- Rising crime and homelessness in key business corridors (Oregon Capital Chronicle)
In response, Kotek’s grand solution is to create… another council and another czar.
The Chief Prosperity Officer: One More Driver, Same Cliff
Here’s where the comedy writes itself.
The “Next Steps” section of the roadmap says Kotek will:
- Create a Chief Prosperity Officer in her office;
- Establish a Governor’s Prosperity Council to advise that person and help “coordinate” economic development.
ODOT is warning of a funding cliff, laying off crews, and downgrading maintenance. Businesses are expanding to Texas and Idaho because our taxes and regulations are choking them out. Families are staring at higher gas taxes, higher fees, higher payroll taxes, and slower job growth.
And the big structural fix is… a new six-figure executive and another committee.
This is like watching the bus go through the guardrail and hearing the Governor shout, “Quick – someone hire a Chief Gravity Officer!”
Putting one more driver behind the wheel doesn’t change the direction if the GPS is still set to “Over the Edge Scenic Route.”
FastTrack… to Where, Exactly?
The roadmap also promises a FastTrack Program to speed up “large projects that have the potential to create jobs and grow Oregon’s GDP,” modeled on federal FAST-41 programs.
That might sound great if Oregon hadn’t just spent years:
- Pushing tolling schemes on I-5 and I-205, then abruptly canceling or “pausing” them when the public revolted. (Oregon)
- Letting core highway and bridge maintenance fall behind while chasing flashy mega-projects that never quite pencil out. (Oregon)
FastTrack in this context looks less like speeding up good projects and more like slapping the accelerator on the same political decision-making that got us into this mess.
Given the track record, “FastTrack” feels a lot like:
Step 1: Hike taxes and fees.
Step 2: Promise jobs and growth.
Step 3: Announce a funding shortfall, cut services, blame “headwinds,” repeat.
A Roadmap Drawn After the Wreck
To her credit, Kotek’s document admits Oregon faces:
- Sluggish job growth
- Elevated unemployment
- Weak population growth
- Businesses leaving or expanding elsewhere
What it never honestly confronts is that this didn’t just happen to Oregon. This is the predictable outcome of the policies Kotek championed as Speaker and now as Governor: high taxes, heavy regulation, Portland-centric ideology, and an almost religious refusal to prioritize core infrastructure over political pet projects.
You don’t get a $350 million ODOT hole, stalled projects, business flight, and thousands of lost jobs by accident. You get there on purpose, mile after mile, budget after budget.
Now the same driver who put Oregon’s transportation system in the ditch is handing us a “Prosperity Roadmap” and asking us to believe that this time, if we just add a Chief Prosperity Officer and another council, she’ll somehow steer us out — while still flooring it toward the same cliff.
Final Thought
Oregonians don’t need another PDF, another council, or another six-figure bureaucrat with “prosperity” in the title.
We need a government that stops treating the productive economy like an ATM, stops pretending tax hikes are a growth strategy, and starts doing the basics: safe roads, predictable rules, competitive costs, and a serious effort to keep employers – and families – from quietly packing the U-Haul.
Until then, Kotek’s Prosperity Roadmap looks less like a plan and more like the pamphlet they hand you at the edge of the canyon, right before they ask you to sign a waiver and climb on the bus.
That’s my viewpoint.
Ben Roche’s other content can be found on Substack at https://bensviewpoint.substack.com
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