My colleague Sen. Ron Johnson recently argued on these pages that a supermajority voting requirement in the Senate is part of our Founding Fathers’ constitutional design and that recent efforts to change it are driving the “bankrupting of America” [“A simple majority is not enough,” op-ed, Oct. 23]. I take
Our homes are supposed to be the safe places in our lives. But that feeling of comfort is shattered when a family is faced with foreclosure. Financial problems, topped by foreclosure of one’s home, create unbelievable stress. Besides the stress to the homeowner and his or her family, foreclosures damage
China, Wall Street and his own community in east Multnomah County: U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., managed to touch on all three during remarks Tuesday in Pendleton. Merkley, the state’s junior senator, toured the ZeaChem demonstration plant at the Port of Morrow, then stopped at the East Oregonian for a
Last month alone, one in every 253 homes in Deschutes County was foreclosed upon. While Bend’s enduring housing disaster seems the flip side of its heralded growth years, the problem hardly nests there. One in every 397 homes in Crook County similarly went down in September, as did one in
Ever since congressional Republicans hijacked the national debate about the state of the U.S. economy and misdirected it toward reducing the federal deficit, millions of Americans — those still working as well as those unemployed and underemployed — have been trying to figure out why Congress doesn’t seem to understand
Senator Jeff Merkley is worried. He fears that it’s increasingly unlikely that the Congressional deficit “super-committee” will make a serious effort to incorporate job creation into its mission. Worse, he worries that some of its deficit-cutting proposals could actually do further harm to the economy. Senator Merkley has an idea
Jeff Merkley continues to be one of my very favorite senators: “We need to have every proposal that the super-committee brings out to have it scored by its jobs impact,” Merkley told me in an interview this morning. He plans to urge Democratic and GOP leaders to agree to this
Skyrocketing gas prices are like a tax on working families. And it is the worst possible tax in the sense that it ships our energy dollars overseas, enriching the Middle East while hurting job creation here at home. We need to take concrete steps both to lower costs at the pump now and to gradually reduce the grip oil companies and petro-dictators have on our economy.
BEND, OR — With oil and gas prices increasing considerably over the last couple of weeks, Jeff Merkley and several other senators have called on President Obama to act now to lower the price at the pump. Merkley, a guest Thursday morning on Wake Up Bend!, said a small portion
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley cosponsored legislation Wednesday that would lower the beer excise tax on small brewers. The Democrat said the bill would encourage job growth nationwide and in his home state. “Oregon’s brewers are a valuable part of our state’s economy and culture,” Merkley said in
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