Warning Ahead
What We Don’t Have Are Gauges.
Everyone has driven a car that still runs but tells a worrying story if you pay attention.
The dashboard lights up. The check-engine light flickers. There’s a knock under the hood you swear wasn’t there last winter. The fuel gauge drops faster than it should, even though you just filled up. You can keep driving, sure. Most people do. Until the repair bill dwarfs the value of the car.
That’s Oregon government right now.
Not broken. Not stalled on the shoulder. But clearly running hot, leaking money, and overdue for a real inspection.
High Mileage and a Familiar Driver
Oregon has been under more than thirty years of Democratic control in the governor’s office, with legislative supermajorities in recent years and nearly all major agency leadership appointed from the same political ecosystem.
That alone is not corruption. But it is high mileage.
Any system driven that long by one set of hands develops blind spots. Warning signs get normalized. Noises get explained away. Eventually, the dash lights stop prompting action and start getting taped over.
Minnesota ignored those signals and ended up with catastrophic fraud exposure. Oregon would be foolish to assume its engine is immune.
The Warning Lights We Already Ignored
Oregon has seen its dashboard light up before.
The check-engine light came on when Governor John Kitzhaber resigned after ethics violations tied to conflicts involving his spouse. That was not a minor sensor issue. That was a core system failure that forced the vehicle off the road.
The inspection sticker failed when national watchdogs gave Oregon an F for state integrity, citing weak ethics laws, limited enforcement authority, and poor transparency. That is not partisan commentary. That is an independent diagnostic.
The transmission slipped during the COVID era when Oregon paid out billions in improper unemployment and relief payments, even though the state had been warned for years that its systems were outdated and vulnerable. One state official admitted at the time that the system was never designed for crisis scale. Translation. The car was redlined with no coolant.
The electrical system flickered when senior officials at the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission were caught diverting rare liquor for personal benefit. Small dollars, yes. But anyone who has owned a car knows electrical problems rarely stay small.
Oil and coolant mixed when the Secretary of State resigned after taking paid consulting work from an industry her office was actively auditing. That job exists to be the mechanic, not to moonlight for the parts supplier.
More recently, ethics complaints involving Governor Tina Kotek were dismissed, but only after public scrutiny exposed how thin Oregon’s conflict-of-interest guardrails are when spouses and close relationships intersect with power.
None of these incidents alone totals the car. Together, they tell you the engine has been knocking for a while.
The Canary Under the Hood
Before the collapse of FTX, before the convictions, and before billions in missing customer funds were fully understood, Sam Bankman-Fried routed roughly half a million dollars into Oregon-connected political causes.
At the time, it barely registered. One outlet later described his political giving as a “river of cash that flowed freely until the dam broke.”
No one is alleging Oregon officials knew what would later be revealed. But in hindsight, that donation was a classic warning light. It showed how easily large, unexamined money could flow into the system during an era of exploding budgets and expanding federal programs.
That was not the breakdown. That was the check-engine light blinking while everyone kept driving.
Spending Without Gauges Is Not Governance
Here’s the deeper problem. Oregon does not just have warning lights on. We do not have real gauges that tell us how the vehicle is performing.
A recent Wall Street Journal analysis noted that welfare spending is larger than ever, while basic questions remain unanswered. How much is being spent per qualified recipient. What outcomes are improving. Where results are flat.
That is like knowing how much gas you bought last year but having no idea what your miles per gallon actually are.
The same is true across major state programs.
In housing, Oregon routinely claims affordability is controlled by market forces. Yet builders and auditors consistently show that soft costs such as permitting, engineering, compliance, and taxes consume an outsized share of total construction cost per square foot. Other states build comparable units for far less. Oregon rarely publishes a clean side-by-side comparison.
In homelessness, the state spends hundreds of millions annually while unsheltered counts remain stubbornly high. Journalists have asked the obvious question. How many unhoused individuals are there, and how many dollars per person are we spending. The answers exist, but they are scattered, inconsistent, and rarely presented together.
In health care and behavioral services, the Oregon Health Authority moves billions in state and federal funds. Yet patients still face long wait times, provider shortages, and uneven outcomes. Spending totals are reported. Performance per dollar is not.
Campaigns With Full Tanks, Roads Running on Empty
This is where the dashboard analogy becomes uncomfortable.
Political campaigns in Oregon are rarely underfunded. Tanks get topped off quickly. Donors find their way to the pump. Meanwhile, road maintenance backlogs grow, basic systems limp along, and emergency programs rely on federal infusions just to stay operational.
One transportation official famously said during a budget debate that Oregon had “ambitions larger than its maintenance budget.” That is what happens when you polish the exterior while ignoring the brakes.
Without real gauges, spending becomes self-justifying. Bigger budgets get mistaken for better performance. And warning lights get blamed on the driver behind you.
What a Real Dashboard Would Look Like
A modern state should have a public performance dashboard that lets citizens compare Oregon to itself over time and to other states.
Welfare and public assistance should show total spending divided by qualified recipients, with outcome indicators attached.
Housing should show hard construction cost per square foot, soft costs per square foot, and total unit cost excluding land.
Homelessness programs should show total spending per unhoused individual alongside year-over-year changes in unsheltered counts.
Health and behavioral services should show dollars spent per patient served, wait times, and measurable outcomes.
Not slogans. Not press releases. Gauges.
Oversight Is Maintenance, Not an Accusation
Calling for bipartisan oversight and real metrics is not an attack. It is basic maintenance.
Minnesota did not implode because everyone was corrupt. It imploded because programs scaled faster than accountability and oversight relied on trust instead of instrumentation.
Cars do not fail all at once. They fail when warning lights are ignored and gauges are missing.
The Inspection Window Is Coming
In May 2026, Oregon voters will head into a primary election, followed by a midterm and gubernatorial election.
That is the inspection window.
Voters will decide whether to keep driving the same high-mileage model and hope the knocking quiets down, or demand new leadership, real gauges, and a system designed for today’s load.
That decision should be made with eyes open, informed by Oregon’s history of breakdowns, ignored warning lights, and missed chances to install the instruments that could have prevented them.
The dashboard is lit up.
The question is not whether Oregon can keep driving.
The question is how much damage we are willing to accept before we finally check under the hood.
That’s my viewpoint.
Source Notes & Further Reading
Welfare spending & per-recipient cost
- Wall Street Journal, The Biggest Fraud in Welfare (paywalled but widely cited):
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-biggest-fraud-in-welfare-c325638d - Congressional Budget Office, The Distribution of Household Income (benefits valuation):
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58353
Sam Bankman-Fried political donations
- Oregonian/OregonLive, coverage of SBF-linked political donations:
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/11/ftx-founder-sam-bankman-frieds-political-donations-reached-oregon.html - OpenSecrets summary of Sam Bankman-Fried political contributions:
https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?name=Sam+Bankman-Fried
Kitzhaber resignation & ethics violations
- Oregonian/OregonLive, resignation coverage:
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2015/02/gov_john_kitzhaber_resigns.html - Oregon Government Ethics Commission final orders:
https://www.oregon.gov/ogec/pages/index.aspx
Oregon “F” grade for integrity
- Center for Public Integrity, Oregon Gets an F:
https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/state-integrity-investigation/oregon-gets-f-grade/
COVID unemployment & relief fraud
- Oregon Secretary of State audit reports (unemployment insurance):
https://sos.oregon.gov/audits/Pages/unemployment-insurance.aspx - OPB, COVID-era unemployment failures:
https://www.opb.org/article/2021/04/23/oregon-unemployment-fraud/
OLCC rare liquor scandal
- Oregon Capital Chronicle, OLCC bourbon investigation:
https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2023/02/02/oregon-liquor-officials-rare-whiskey/
Secretary of State Shemia Fagan resignation
- OPB, resignation and ethics investigation:
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/05/02/oregon-secretary-of-state-shemia-fagan-resigns/
Governor Tina Kotek ethics complaints
- OPB, Ethics Commission dismissal:
https://www.opb.org/article/2024/06/28/oregon-ethics-commission-dismisses-complaints-made-against-gov-tina-kotek/
Housing costs & soft-cost inflation
- Terner Center for Housing Innovation, cost breakdown studies:
https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/construction-costs/ - Oregon Housing and Community Services cost data:
https://www.oregon.gov/ohcs/development/pages/housing-development.aspx
Homelessness spending vs outcomes
- HUD Point-in-Time homelessness data:
https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/hdx/pit-hic/ - Oregonian/OregonLive, homelessness spending analysis:
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2023/01/oregon-homelessness-spending.html
Oregon Health Authority budget & programs
- Oregon Health Authority budget overview:
https://www.oregon.gov/oha/Pages/budget.aspx
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