NEWS UPDATE FROM STATE REPRESENTATIVE DAVID GOMBERG: Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Neighbors and Friends,

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite annual celebration. It is a time to pause and reflect and appreciate all the things we have to be truly grateful for.

We have learned in the face of all that recent years have thrown at us, that we are fortunate to have family and friends we can count on to help us get through difficult times. Hopefully, Thanksgiving will be more traditional this year. But it’s important that we remember the strength of spirit that binds us together as Oregonians.

In the past few days, I have worked a community dinner where 250 Thanksgiving meals were served at the Newport Senior Center. I’ve watched historic statues unveiled in Waldport and new sculptures erected in Lincoln City. I gathered with supporters of our marine reserves at the Land and Sea Symposium in Yachats. I’ve celebrated the Siletz Pow Wow. And I’ve lunched with local Chambers of Commerce. The common thread for each was volunteers working together to make our communities stronger, more vibrant, more livable, and more successful. Our wealth of volunteers is something we can all be thankful for.

Each morning, I look out my living room window to the forested hills of Otis and Devils Lake in the distance. You can see each day nature and neighbors recovering from the fires. As the seasons change, each day is different. Some are dark and brooding, some are crisp and clean, and some are shrouded in mist and mystery. Each is remarkable and beautiful and full of promise. I’m thankful to live in this special part of Oregon each and every day.

I’m thankful for the small businesses that make up the backbone of our regional economies. I’m thankful for the fisherman, the farmers, banks, and grocery store workers, the B&Bs, and the gift shops. I’m grateful for the entrepreneurs who are risking everything with little more than their experience, their creativity, and their raw economic courage to try and create something out of nothing. Small business owners are working to create a sustainable future for themselves, their families, and their employees. And as they do so, they make our communities more vibrant, more interesting, and more sustainable.

I’m thankful for our first responders in the Coast Guard, police departments, fire departments, senior care, pharmacies, and hospitals. I’m thankful for our veterans who have served or who continue to serve and to their families who share their sacrifice to secure our freedoms. I’m thankful for our researchers and scientists who seek to address the challenges of our collective future. I’m thankful for those public employees who keep everything working.

I’m thankful for everyone who helps serve, support, and protect our kids and grandkids. That certainly includes our teachers and educators who strive to prepare future generations to go out into the world and thrive.

I’m thankful for major new developments that will change our communities for the better. There is still work to do. But we have improved roads and highways, new hospitals, enhancements at our ports, new parks and plazas, and growth at the Hatfield Center which is a model for tsunami and earthquake-resistant architecture that will show every coastal city how to live safer.

And most important, I’m thankful for my remarkable wife Susan who has shared our ongoing life of adventure, building a business, traveling the world, and caring about the people and environment around her. I learn every day from Susan. I laugh with her every day. And every day I am grateful to have her in my life.

Finally, I am thankful to all of you for the great honor of allowing me to represent you. I have often observed that this is the hardest work I have ever done. It is also the most rewarding. I sincerely believe that together, we can make things better.

Susan and I wish each of you all a meaningful and memorable Thanksgiving.

After months of record revenue growth, Oregon economists now expect the state to enter a “mild” recession next summer.

State economists told a legislative panel last Wednesday that they anticipate a recession because inflation remains higher than the Federal Reserve wants it to be, and interest rates will rise as a result. That will produce a decline in housing and business investments.

There are three reasons to expect the recession to be mild. First, businesses, financial markets, and people expect inflation to slow. Second, the labor market has been so tight that employers aren’t likely to let go of workers even if their sales slow. And finally, many people still have higher savings from wage growth, stimulus payments, and limited spending during the pandemic – though those savings are concentrated in higher-income households.

Quarterly revenue forecasts are used to help plan for state income and spending. Oregon lawmakers will begin drafting the state’s next two-year budget when we convene in January. According to projections, we’ll have about $3 billion less to work with than the current two-year budget cycle.

The state will also pay out a record “kicker” tax credit in 2024, which is triggered when the state collects more in personal income taxes than it budgeted. Oregonians who paid taxes in 2022 and 2023 will receive credits totaling $3.7 billion when they file their tax returns in 2024, with larger credits for those who paid more in taxes.

Cutting budgets while also returning funds to taxpayers reflects the paradox of Oregon’s unique kicker law and also the difficulty of accurately projecting the economy two years in advance when so much of that economy is influenced by circumstances outside Oregon. Lawmakers can reduce or eliminate the tax refund with a two-thirds vote – 20 senators and 40 representatives. But such a vote seems unlikely and would require support from both Democrats and Republicans.

That said, Oregon is well-positioned to weather economic challenges with almost $1.8 billion in cash reserves. Read more here.