On June 17, the Oregon Legislature’s emergency board approved $7.5 million of additional state funding for Southern Oregon University (SOU) so the school can keep its doors open for another year. Over the last 10 years, the school has been bleeding money and students. According to a report SOU sent my office on June 16, full-time enrollment there has dropped 22% in a decade.
The crisis at SOU is a downstream effect of Salem’s war on the Rogue Valley’s regional economy. By systematically suffocating our traditional resource industries and increasing regulations and taxes, Democrats stripped away the family-wage jobs required to keep young families in our region. When timber, ranching and local businesses are regulated out of existence, working-age parents are forced to move out of state to find work. They take their children with them, effectively choking off the pipeline of local high school graduates who would otherwise fill SOU’s classrooms.
Instead of temporary emergency board “Band-Aids,” SOU and the Rogue Valley need real fixes. We must restore our region’s economic competitiveness.
I want SOU to succeed. My son graduated from the school last year, and I know it’s a great place. But the university is the economic harbinger for our entire region; its 22% drop in enrollment is a flashing demographic warning light.
In my district of Josephine County, the working-age crisis has become severe. The entire 18-to-64 demographic now makes up barely half (53%) of the county’s total population, and the county’s labor force participation rate has plummeted.
Our community deserves to be a place where our young people can stay, build careers and start families. Instead, we are watching families and businesses flee the state. We are losing the core demographic of 30-somethings required to build businesses, buy homes and raise the next generation of students.
According to the Tax Foundation, Oregon levies the second-highest corporate tax rate in the country. This hostile climate acts as a massive “Keep Out” sign for investment.
That is why this November matters so much. Oregonians sent Salem a clear message in May when we rejected the gas tax and vehicle fee hikes, but we know the Democrats will try again. The stakes are simply too high to stay home this November.
We need to fire Tina Kotek and elect Christine Drazan. We need a governor who will veto the next gas tax, stop new tax hikes before they hit working families, demand accountability from state agencies, and stand with the small businesses, farmers, truckers, timber workers, students and families being pushed out of our state.
The first major step must be to repeal the Corporate Activity Tax (CAT). The CAT is one of the most destructive taxes in Oregon because it punishes businesses on gross sales, not actual profit. That means a business can be struggling, barely breaking even, or even losing money and still owe the state more. For entrepreneurs, employers and investors looking at Oregon, the CAT is another giant “Keep Out” sign posted at the state line.
In the 2027 legislative session, I will champion legislation to fully repeal the CAT and replace Oregon’s anti-business tax climate with a pro-growth agenda that rewards investment, job creation and local hiring. But introducing bills isn’t enough. I will keep forcing votes, exposing bad policy and holding state agencies accountable when they use unelected rulemaking to impose the mandates, fees and regulations that treat rural Oregon like an afterthought.
Oregon does not need more excuses, more temporary bailouts, or more tax-and-regulate schemes from Salem. It is time to stop the bleeding, protect the future of Southern Oregon and build an economy where the Rogue Valley can finally thrive again.
Dwayne Yunker is a Republican representing House District 3, Grants Pass and Josephine County, in the Oregon House of Representatives.