Rep. Reshcke: 2025 is Oregon’s awful year

By Oregon State Representative E. Werner Reschke,

2025

2025 has not been kind to Oregon. The public policies of the past 20 years have finally “come home to roost” for Oregonians and their businesses. That translates into fewer good paying jobs and opportunities. It means state and local governments run into budget shortfalls. Add to those problems Oregon’s affordability crisis and it’s a recipe for economic failure. If things continue, 2025 will be characterized as Oregon’s year tipping point towards decline and disinvestment.

For the past two decades Democrat’s have dominated the public policy space — from the legislature, to the Governor’s office, to the courts. Democrat leaders have been resolute to enact policies making Oregon a less and less friendly place to start, expand or relocate a business. Higher and higher taxes coupled with burdensome labor and environmental regulations have forced many people and businesses to load the U-Haul and look for greener pastures elsewhere.

Moving Out

Those who live in the Klamath basin are far too familiar what losing a headquarters means to a local economy. About 10 years ago Jeld-Wen moved its corporate headquarters from Klamath Falls to Charolette. The local economy has yet to fully recover from that loss. Sadly this year, two more iconic, Oregon-grown business have announced the relocation of their headquarters.

Tektronix: The electronics testing equipment giant, once Oregon’s largest employer, is moving its headquarters to North Carolina. This reflects broader challenges in Oregon’s business environment, including taxes and workforce issues.

Dutch Bros: The coffee chain, founded in Grants Pass, Oregon, is relocating its corporate headquarters to Phoenix, Arizona, to support growth and consolidate its expanding team.

Laying Off

But the news only gets worse. Other major businesses have announced layoffs or are closing their operations in Oregon.

• Intel said earlier this year it was cutting 529 job cuts across its Oregon sites. Then later in July revised that figure so the total layoffs rose dramatically to 2,392 jobs across four Washington County campuses.
• Wells Fargo announced it is laying off 500 employees in Hillsboro and 221 in Salem, tied to the closure of two non-customer-facing facilities between October and December 2025
• NIKE announced it will be laying off 740 workers at its Beaverton Headquarters.
• Owens Corning will be closing its Prineville facility, laying off 184 workers by November 30, 2025.
• Jeld-Wen is closing its door and window manufacturing factory in Klamath County, laying off 128 employees by the end of 2025.

Missed Opportunities

While there has been much debate over Trump’s tariff policy to leverage better trade deals for the U.S., what cannot be refuted is the fury of significant commitments by multi-national businesses to bring back manufacturing and family wage jobs to America. This list is merely a quick summary:

• Apple: Announced a $600 billion investment over four years (up from an initial $500 billion) to expand U.S. manufacturing, including AI server production in Texas, Arizona, and California. This is expected to create 20,000 jobs.
• TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company): Committed $100 billion to build semiconductor fabrication plants (fabs) in Arizona, Ohio, and New York, spurred by the CHIPS Act’s $39 billion in incentives and tariffs on Chinese chips. These facilities aim to produce advanced chips for AI and defense applications.
• Nvidia: Plans to invest $500 billion in U.S.-based AI supercomputer manufacturing in Arizona and Texas.
• Intel and Micron: Collectively pledged over $100 billion for chip manufacturing in Arizona, Ohio, and Idaho.
• Hyundai: Committed $5.8 billion to a new steel plant in Louisiana to supply its Alabama and Georgia auto factories, avoiding 25% tariffs on imported steel and auto parts.
• Honda: Shifted production of its Civic Hybrid Hatchback from Japan to Indiana to bypass a 25% tariff on vehicles and parts, effective later in 2025.
• Nissan: Indicated plans to relocate production from Mexico to the U.S. to avoid 25% tariffs on non-USMCA-compliant vehicles, though specific investment figures are pending.
• Eli Lilly and Company: Announced a $27 billion investment in four new U.S. manufacturing sites for pharmaceuticals, creating 3,000 skilled jobs and 10,000 construction jobs.
• Merck: Invested $1 billion in a 470,000-square-foot facility in Wilmington, Delaware, to produce Keytruda, a cancer immunotherapy, motivated by tariffs and domestic sourcing mandates.
• Abbott Laboratories: Committed $500 million to expand manufacturing and R&D facilities in Illinois and Texas, hiring up to 300 workers for medical device production, supported by tariff-driven demand for U.S.-made supplies.
• GE Appliances: Announced a $3 billion investment creating 1,000 new jobs in U.S. manufacturing facilities.

Again, that is not the full list and it is only August. The list shows some serious investment activity. What’s also serious is that Oregon is not any part of this re-shoring of investment. Oregon used to be a destination for precision manufacturing. Now it is seen as merely a fly-over state.

The Doom Loop

Recently the Portland Metro Chamber’s 2025 State of the Economy highlighted some troubling trends: Multnomah County is losing population, especially higher-income residents moving to Clark county in Washington. Job growth lags behind national trends, with losses in high-paying sectors like manufacturing and financial services. Portland’s real estate appeal ranks 80th out of 81 cities nationally, and housing affordability remains a crisis, with most areas unaffordable for households earning less than $160,000 annually.

According to a recent survey of Oregon businesses conducted by Oregon Business & Industry:

• 74% of respondents say that regulations affecting business change so frequently that it is hard to keep up with what they’re supposed to do.
• 41% of respondents say they’re considering closing, selling or moving their businesses because of taxes, Oregon’s regulatory environment or a combination of the two.
• On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being “great,” more than 80% of survey participants rate Oregon’s business climate below a six.
• Only 18% of respondents believe that state lawmakers care about the success of their businesses.
• Only 7% of respondents believe the state’s business climate will improve in the coming year.

Are More Taxes the Answer?

If you ask the Governor and Democrats in the Legislature they would respond yes. In two weeks, a special legislative session will begin to approve a transportation package that increases gas taxes by 15%, doubles the payroll transit tax and dramatically increases vehicle registration and licensing fees.

This special session is a sneaky tactic by left-leaning politicians to have you look only at one issue at a time. However, no one policy acts in a vacuum — they are ALL interconnected. What’s more Oregonians pay the final bill, not just the cost increase of one policy.

Looking at the transportation package, many in the BMW class would say they can afford these increases. However given the year Oregon is experiencing the better question is whether middle and lower income Oregonians’ personal finances can continue to afford higher taxes and fees — increases which will impact every corner of the economy — and whether Oregon businesses can absorb even higher costs just to remain in Oregon.

The Answer

The solution to end this doom loop is not hard: the legislature must stop increasing taxes, making Oregon less affordable to live and less profitable for businesses. Oregon politicians should stop doubling down on the same business strategy enacted by Democrat leaders over the past 20 years. Oregon should return to the business policies of the 1980’s, 90’s and early 2000’s when investment dollars were flooding into the state, not bypassing us or rushing out.

In the meantime to shore up ODOT the state can use emergency funds and/or reallocated monies from other agencies. ODOT also needs to reprioritize how it spends its money — the legislature can dictate how that is done. None of this requires higher taxes or fees, just some common sense principles from Budgeting 101.

With the right leaders Oregon could be positioned as one of the best states in the nation, with the best opportunities for the people and the business where they work. However, that will never happen if the same type of leaders continue to dominate the public policy space — enacting the same doom loop measures year after year.

 

The post Rep. Reshcke: 2025 is Oregon’s awful year first appeared on Oregon Catalyst.