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"Full service" used to mean checking oil and air and other driving essentials during stops. Oregon passed legislation intending to stop the death of "full servi

"Full service" used to mean checking oil and air and other driving essentials during stops. Oregon passed legislation intending to stop the death of "full service" stations but failed to meaningfully define The level of service. The only excuse for the law being around so long was that it created jobs. Which was lame reasoning. They intentionally kept the gas tax lower in the state so consumers didn't notice the price difference. So effectively these were government subsidized jobs. Good riddance. Forcing someone to stand in gas fumes all day was clearly not good for their health. And I always avoided filling up in Oregon because waiting for the "service" could sometimes be longer than the fill-up itself.

ellisv 3y ago
> The only excuse for the law being around so long was that it created jobs. Which was lame reasoning. This was my understanding and I agree it is bad reasoning. It might have created jobs, but certainly not good ones.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  This feels like a constant whenever "job creation" is talked about. Sure there's plenty of uber eats driving jobs but this isn't exactly something you can raise a family with.
- treeman79 3y ago
  “While traveling by car during one of his many overseas travels, Professor Milton Friedman spotted scores of road builders moving earth with shovels instead of modern machinery. When he asked why powerful equipment wasn’t used instead of so many laborers, his host told him it was to keep employment high in the construction industry. If they used tractors or modern road building equipment, fewer people would have jobs was his host’s logic.” “Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?” Friedman inquired.
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    Usually these kinds of regulations are about keeping existing jobs rather than creating new jobs. I certainly understand the impulse, even when misguided, to slow down the rate of “progress”. There are always winners and losers, even if society as a whole would be better off in the long run.
  - no_wizard 3y ago
    There is a pretty good chance this quote is inappropriately attributed to Milton Friedman though if he did say anything like this, it was likely about a Canal rather than building roads[0] Feels like something he would say though, that's for sure. The ethos is right. [0]: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/
hans_malone 3y ago
[dead]
Analemma_ 3y ago
Yeah I don't see this mentioned nearly often enough in this discussion: gasoline fumes are very toxic and carcinogenic, mainly because of the benzene, which is just terrible for you. It's not a huge deal if you pump your own gas, because it's just a couple minutes of exposure at most a few times a week, but when it's your job and so you're getting hours of exposure many times a week, that's a whole different ballgame. We were forcing people into this actually-very-dangerous but nonetheless minimum wage job for literally no benefit. It was fucked up.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  This seems like a really easy thing to study and get reliable results. And assuming it is true, I'd expect some kind of class-action suit like we saw for mesothelioma.
  - hedora 3y ago
    You mean like the one where a bunch of stewardesses got cancer from exactly this (due to planes sucking fumes into the HVAC system at the gate), then won a huge class action lawsuit? The airlines stopped pumping exhaust into passenger compartments for a few years, but then everyone forgot about the whole thing. Now you get that good-old-fashioned jet-fuel eye sting again until you wash your face after the end of the flight. On the bright side, I don't think there's been many studies showing the old results on studies of stewardesses transfer to today's flight attendants.
    - jhugo 3y ago
      > The airlines stopped pumping exhaust into passenger compartments for a few years This is way off the mark. All airliners except for the Boeing 787 [0] pressurise the cabin with bleed air. This is not "exhaust"; it's pressurised air extracted upstream from the combustion stage. There are certain situations where the engine may ingest its own exhaust, or the exhaust of an aircraft in front, or there may be an internal leak in the bleed system. All of these are unintended contamination of the bleed air, not a normal mode of operation. In addition, the compressors ahead of the bleed valves must be lubricated and it is possible for this lubricant to get into the air stream if maintenance (including cleaning) is not carried out properly. There was no period of time where airlines stopped pressurising the cabin with bleed air. It is the only source available on all airliners except the Boeing 787, and pressurisation is not optional. [0] The Boeing 787 uses electric compressors to provide cabin air. This avoids some of the risks (leaks inside the engine, for example), but does nothing to avoid others (ingestion of exhaust from the same aircraft in certain wind conditions or from the aircraft in front when taxiing, or lubricants from the compressors getting into the air stream). The compressors are located in the wing-to-body fairing so the possibility to ingest external contaminants is quite similar to in traditional bleed air systems. The most noticeable difference on the Boeing 787 is the higher cabin pressure (lower cabin altitude) and higher humidity, both of which are made possible by structural improvements including the use of composites. Similar improvements (lower cabin altitude and higher humidity) are also present on e.g. the Airbus A350 and A380, which nonetheless — like all other airliners except the 787 — use traditional bleed air for pressurisation.
rootusrootus 3y ago
> The only excuse for the law being around so long was that it created jobs. That may have been one excuse, but as a long time Oregonian my recollection is that the real reason is voters have rejected it when it did come up for a vote. People liked the idea of citing in their car and letting someone else do the work. > They intentionally kept the gas tax lower in the state so consumers didn't notice the price difference I recall once reading that the cost of insurance on a self-service station isn't far off the cost of staff, and it's mostly a wash overall. > waiting for the "service" could sometimes be longer than the fill-up itself. These days, Costco runs a massively efficient assembly line fill-up procedure, and self-service might well be slower. At quieter stations that may not be true. Even then, it depends on if you can navigate around the cars that are just parked in front of a pump while they are shopping inside the convenience store.
- derefr 3y ago
  > People liked the idea of citing in their car and letting someone else do the work. I like that idea too. But I don't like the idea of forcing a human to do the work. I like the idea of legislating for standardized interfaces between gas pumps and gas doors on cars, such that it becomes possible to build "full service" robot gas stations. I think the only reason this hasn't been pushed for, is that the automotive-sector companies with the robotics expertise are all electric-car companies. (Or hydrogen-fuel-cell car companies — lotta robotics people in that space.)
  - admax88qqq 3y ago
    Pumping gas is already 95% automated. A human is only in the loop to make the connection between the pump and the vehicle. It's not that much more work for a person driving in to a station to also connect the pump to the car.
- briffle 3y ago
  > That may have been one excuse, but as a long time Oregonian my recollection is that the real reason is voters have rejected it when it did come up for a vote. People liked the idea of citing in their car and letting someone else do the work. About once a year or so, I get a person at the pump behind me that is FURIOUS that I am pumping my own fuel, and start yelling at me. They ignore what I say, until the station employees confirm with them that yes, it is legal to pump your own Diesel in Oregon, just not gasoline, since gasoline is flambile. (the existing law is governed by the state fire marshall). They are usually grateful, since they are always down at least one attendent, and busy as heck.
seany 3y ago
Only applied to gas. You could always pump your own diesel.
- dieselgate 3y ago
  Also motorcycles and boats as well Can pump their own fuel? It’s funny to make small talk with the attendants while pumping diesel, they really want to do something like clean a windshield in my experience
talldatethrow 3y ago
I always felt the same about toll booth collectors. Sitting in exhaust fumes for 8 hours must have been terrible.
- deathanatos 3y ago
  We need better regulation on electronic indicators, though. Governments happily use them to track vehicle movements unbeknownst to most motorist. (And not at toll booths.) License plate readers (which are also used in some toll systems) share the same abuses. (That, and some regulation around rental car companies charging a 2500% "convenience" junk fee for handling tolls.)
ramesh31 3y ago
>So effectively these were government subsidized jobs. Is that so bad? Plenty of other countries use tax dollars to pay the poor to do busywork. And Oregon is an extremely rural state outside the Portland metro, with very little agriculture or industry other than logging and fishing, so gas stations are most likely one of the few decent options available.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Yes. There is plenty of more worthwhile work Oregon taxpayers could be paying for, like picking up the trash everywhere.
jfengel 3y ago
I wonder how much any of those "driving essentials" could matter at this point. Tire pressure sensors are mandatory. Oil pressure sensors won't tell you until it's too late, but cars are now built better and are no longer assume to leak oil after a few tens of thousands of miles. It might be nice to have somebody wash the windows and check the washer fluid level, but it's hardly essential. We don't even need them to run the credit cards any more. It's so weird going to a station in New Jersey, handing the attendant your card, and having them slide it right on the pump, just as you would. (And yeah, I've avoided filling up in New Jersey for the same reason: it takes longer.) Maybe this served a goal at some point, but technology seems to have vaporized whatever it could have ever served.
- nickvanw 3y ago
  I don't even have a dipstick in my car at this point - the computer will warn you when the oil level is low, otherwise you're to assume it's fine. It also warns me when the windshield wiper fluid reservoir is low so that I can fill it before running out. Not that gas stations in Oregon were doing any of this anyway, they were pumping gas and nothing else.
  - jfengel 3y ago
    Oh, man. I've never even looked for the dipstick on my (25,000 mile old) car. I used to change the oil on my cars myself. I've never even tried on my newest car.
  - deathanatos 3y ago
    My car has both the in-cab oil indicator, and the dipstick. The indicator comes on late, like, it is bone dry and well below the L mark on the dipstick. But, I mean, every model is different. (I know this because this is how we started to learn we were losing oil, somewhere. … and unlike the parent poster's suggestion that old cars did this after 10k miles … this was around 130k miles. This is but one car, though, I suppose.)
- no_wizard 3y ago
  They don't wash the windshields or check the washer fluid in any part of Oregon I've been at so far. Granted I'm a recent move in, but this never happens, at least not at the Fred Meyer or Costco gas stations I go to. More often than not, its just a bunch of people standing around using their phones as they wait for fill ups to end and they meander between the cars. Its really poor service, honestly.
kodah 3y ago
Oregon has a runaway train of taxation, especially in dense counties. Interestingly, if you ask residents they think our government is poor: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/projects/state-fiscal-briefs/oregon https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...
- no_wizard 3y ago
  For all the tax dollars the state collects, there's not much to show for it, generally speaking. Seems like it all goes to PERS obligations and administration, rather than improving communities. Not to mention, they have the auto refund of the surplus, which is kinda silly, because what you'd want the state to do is setup a rainy day fund that can be safely invested for future endeavors, but no, the legislative body of 1979 made it so that if the state runs a surplus they allow everyone to get a tax "kicker"[0] instead, which is pretty short sighted IMO. Not to mention, the amount after being spread out across all of Oregons tax paying base, is really small and makes hardly a difference for the average person. [0]: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/oregon-kicker-tax-rebate-raid/283-1ec5a2be-6b12-4487-9d39-de1d28f619b7 https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/oregon-kick...
  - kodah 3y ago
    I mostly agree, though I think creating slush funds from personal taxation is straight up wrong. The state should not become rich on the backs of it's citizens. Instead, we could follow Norway in using the profits of industrial sectors to fuel those slush funds. The amount of Oregonians that think infinitely taxing individuals is okay is vexing. The bigger problem in Oregon government is the fact that our municipalities fail to do basic planning for their initiatives, so there'll be a surplus in one category and a deficit in another. This, I imagine, is where their slush fund could come in handy. Lastly, we have a lot of corruption in this state which should be a higher priority to deal with. I was shocked in the Fagan case when I learned that we don't have anti-corruption laws to charge something as brazen as what she did.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
brantonb 3y ago
My first job was pumping gas at a full service station in Ohio in the late ‘90s, where full service stations were rare. We had two islands, with two pumps each. When out-of-towners would pull up and see us approach, they’d often drive to the other island. We’d get a big grin and walk over to them again. We’d get the best tips from them, because they didn’t know what to do. I’d probably check someone’s oil about once an hour, but we washed windshields by default. It was before “pay at the pump”, so I spent a lot of my time walking credit cards in and out of the store to run them. It was actually a fun summer job for a high school kid. A few summers later, I got a software internship at that oil company’s headquarters, working on a Visual Basic app for the pricing department to set prices at all of their stations. I’d often complete my week’s work by Monday afternoon and spend the rest of the week in their library, learning about all sorts of new technology. They treated me well and I was fortunate they didn’t offer me a full-time job at the end of my internship, because I likely would’ve taken it. When I’ve filled up in Oregon, I’ve not seen them do anything but pump gas. During the pandemic, I drove through Oregon many times and learned to get gas before entering the state.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
dheera 3y ago
> And I always avoided filling up in Oregon because waiting for the "service" could sometimes be longer than the fill-up itself. Also because they would look at you with sheepy eyes expecting tips. I avoid valet parking for the same reason. I can fill up my own gas and park my own car, I don't need the service in the first place.
willio58 3y ago
> So effectively these were government subsidized jobs. Hey now, without government-subsidized jobs we'd have millions out of work if you take into account not only government agencies but also the US military. While I think this specific version of government-subsidized jobs (pumping gas) feels forced, I think the government creating jobs is a great thing on the whole. The New Deal was a great example of this, created 20-something million new jobs for a decade or so and pulled us out of the great depression. Now if we want to talk about truly bad government-subsidized labor it revolves around private companies abusing our welfare systems by paying their workers starvation wages cough Wal-mart cough.
stepanhruda 3y ago
“Creating jobs” only makes sense if funding those jobs provide actual value that wouldn’t exist otherwise. You can “create jobs” by making people dig holes and fill them up, but you’re just wasting your population’s productive time - you would be better off by just giving those people money for nothing, some of them might just do something useful in the newly created free time. I’d argue that pumping gas overall provides very low value.
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  One good thing about declining birth rates is that you can't waste people on bullshit jobs. Fully automated gas stations has been a thing in my country for thirty years. And they can be up to 20 cents cheaper so it was adopted by consumers very quickly.
  - vxNsr 3y ago
    Fully automated as in you drive up and it “plugs-in” to your car itself? Or just self service?
    - WeylandYutani 3y ago
      Self service without a shop- no cash only cards.
Lammy 3y ago
> Oregon passed legislation intending to stop the death of "full service" stations This is 110% conjecture on my part, but I always wondered if this law wasn’t originally a covert way to impede travel for certain groups of people by empowering service stations with final say on who was allowed to buy gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Oregon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Oregon
solardev 3y ago
As an Oregonian, I wish they'd tax me the same (or more, arguably gas shouldn't be this cheap), skip the pointless attendant jobs, and just give those displaced workers a UBI so they can pursue more useful jobs or educations can instead. It's fine with me to use my tax dollars to subsidize someone else's income when they have no better alternative. I just wish it wouldn't waste everyone's time while doing so. If you're gonna redistribute wealth at least do it efficiently, lol.
jjav 3y ago
> Good riddance. These are the small things that make life better! Wonderful news! Living in California and driving semi-regularly to Washington I've always had to deal with the Oregon problem of gas stations. I always carry a couple of fuel jugs to fill up so I can avoid Oregon gas stations with their insane service rules. I'm glad that's over, finally.

ellisv 3y ago

> The only excuse for the law being around so long was that it created jobs. Which was lame reasoning. This was my understanding and I agree it is bad reasoning. It might have created jobs, but certainly not good ones.

MSFT_Edging 3y ago
This feels like a constant whenever "job creation" is talked about. Sure there's plenty of uber eats driving jobs but this isn't exactly something you can raise a family with.
treeman79 3y ago
“While traveling by car during one of his many overseas travels, Professor Milton Friedman spotted scores of road builders moving earth with shovels instead of modern machinery. When he asked why powerful equipment wasn’t used instead of so many laborers, his host told him it was to keep employment high in the construction industry. If they used tractors or modern road building equipment, fewer people would have jobs was his host’s logic.” “Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?” Friedman inquired.
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  Usually these kinds of regulations are about keeping existing jobs rather than creating new jobs. I certainly understand the impulse, even when misguided, to slow down the rate of “progress”. There are always winners and losers, even if society as a whole would be better off in the long run.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  There is a pretty good chance this quote is inappropriately attributed to Milton Friedman though if he did say anything like this, it was likely about a Canal rather than building roads[0] Feels like something he would say though, that's for sure. The ethos is right. [0]: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/

hans_malone 3y ago

[dead]

Analemma_ 3y ago

Yeah I don't see this mentioned nearly often enough in this discussion: gasoline fumes are very toxic and carcinogenic, mainly because of the benzene, which is just terrible for you. It's not a huge deal if you pump your own gas, because it's just a couple minutes of exposure at most a few times a week, but when it's your job and so you're getting hours of exposure many times a week, that's a whole different ballgame. We were forcing people into this actually-very-dangerous but nonetheless minimum wage job for literally no benefit. It was fucked up.

rootusrootus 3y ago
This seems like a really easy thing to study and get reliable results. And assuming it is true, I'd expect some kind of class-action suit like we saw for mesothelioma.
- hedora 3y ago
  You mean like the one where a bunch of stewardesses got cancer from exactly this (due to planes sucking fumes into the HVAC system at the gate), then won a huge class action lawsuit? The airlines stopped pumping exhaust into passenger compartments for a few years, but then everyone forgot about the whole thing. Now you get that good-old-fashioned jet-fuel eye sting again until you wash your face after the end of the flight. On the bright side, I don't think there's been many studies showing the old results on studies of stewardesses transfer to today's flight attendants.
  - jhugo 3y ago
    > The airlines stopped pumping exhaust into passenger compartments for a few years This is way off the mark. All airliners except for the Boeing 787 [0] pressurise the cabin with bleed air. This is not "exhaust"; it's pressurised air extracted upstream from the combustion stage. There are certain situations where the engine may ingest its own exhaust, or the exhaust of an aircraft in front, or there may be an internal leak in the bleed system. All of these are unintended contamination of the bleed air, not a normal mode of operation. In addition, the compressors ahead of the bleed valves must be lubricated and it is possible for this lubricant to get into the air stream if maintenance (including cleaning) is not carried out properly. There was no period of time where airlines stopped pressurising the cabin with bleed air. It is the only source available on all airliners except the Boeing 787, and pressurisation is not optional. [0] The Boeing 787 uses electric compressors to provide cabin air. This avoids some of the risks (leaks inside the engine, for example), but does nothing to avoid others (ingestion of exhaust from the same aircraft in certain wind conditions or from the aircraft in front when taxiing, or lubricants from the compressors getting into the air stream). The compressors are located in the wing-to-body fairing so the possibility to ingest external contaminants is quite similar to in traditional bleed air systems. The most noticeable difference on the Boeing 787 is the higher cabin pressure (lower cabin altitude) and higher humidity, both of which are made possible by structural improvements including the use of composites. Similar improvements (lower cabin altitude and higher humidity) are also present on e.g. the Airbus A350 and A380, which nonetheless — like all other airliners except the 787 — use traditional bleed air for pressurisation.

rootusrootus 3y ago

> The only excuse for the law being around so long was that it created jobs. That may have been one excuse, but as a long time Oregonian my recollection is that the real reason is voters have rejected it when it did come up for a vote. People liked the idea of citing in their car and letting someone else do the work. > They intentionally kept the gas tax lower in the state so consumers didn't notice the price difference I recall once reading that the cost of insurance on a self-service station isn't far off the cost of staff, and it's mostly a wash overall. > waiting for the "service" could sometimes be longer than the fill-up itself. These days, Costco runs a massively efficient assembly line fill-up procedure, and self-service might well be slower. At quieter stations that may not be true. Even then, it depends on if you can navigate around the cars that are just parked in front of a pump while they are shopping inside the convenience store.

derefr 3y ago
> People liked the idea of citing in their car and letting someone else do the work. I like that idea too. But I don't like the idea of forcing a human to do the work. I like the idea of legislating for standardized interfaces between gas pumps and gas doors on cars, such that it becomes possible to build "full service" robot gas stations. I think the only reason this hasn't been pushed for, is that the automotive-sector companies with the robotics expertise are all electric-car companies. (Or hydrogen-fuel-cell car companies — lotta robotics people in that space.)
- admax88qqq 3y ago
  Pumping gas is already 95% automated. A human is only in the loop to make the connection between the pump and the vehicle. It's not that much more work for a person driving in to a station to also connect the pump to the car.
briffle 3y ago
> That may have been one excuse, but as a long time Oregonian my recollection is that the real reason is voters have rejected it when it did come up for a vote. People liked the idea of citing in their car and letting someone else do the work. About once a year or so, I get a person at the pump behind me that is FURIOUS that I am pumping my own fuel, and start yelling at me. They ignore what I say, until the station employees confirm with them that yes, it is legal to pump your own Diesel in Oregon, just not gasoline, since gasoline is flambile. (the existing law is governed by the state fire marshall). They are usually grateful, since they are always down at least one attendent, and busy as heck.

seany 3y ago

Only applied to gas. You could always pump your own diesel.

dieselgate 3y ago
Also motorcycles and boats as well Can pump their own fuel? It’s funny to make small talk with the attendants while pumping diesel, they really want to do something like clean a windshield in my experience

talldatethrow 3y ago

I always felt the same about toll booth collectors. Sitting in exhaust fumes for 8 hours must have been terrible.

deathanatos 3y ago
We need better regulation on electronic indicators, though. Governments happily use them to track vehicle movements unbeknownst to most motorist. (And not at toll booths.) License plate readers (which are also used in some toll systems) share the same abuses. (That, and some regulation around rental car companies charging a 2500% "convenience" junk fee for handling tolls.)

ramesh31 3y ago

>So effectively these were government subsidized jobs. Is that so bad? Plenty of other countries use tax dollars to pay the poor to do busywork. And Oregon is an extremely rural state outside the Portland metro, with very little agriculture or industry other than logging and fishing, so gas stations are most likely one of the few decent options available.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
Yes. There is plenty of more worthwhile work Oregon taxpayers could be paying for, like picking up the trash everywhere.

jfengel 3y ago

I wonder how much any of those "driving essentials" could matter at this point. Tire pressure sensors are mandatory. Oil pressure sensors won't tell you until it's too late, but cars are now built better and are no longer assume to leak oil after a few tens of thousands of miles. It might be nice to have somebody wash the windows and check the washer fluid level, but it's hardly essential. We don't even need them to run the credit cards any more. It's so weird going to a station in New Jersey, handing the attendant your card, and having them slide it right on the pump, just as you would. (And yeah, I've avoided filling up in New Jersey for the same reason: it takes longer.) Maybe this served a goal at some point, but technology seems to have vaporized whatever it could have ever served.

nickvanw 3y ago
I don't even have a dipstick in my car at this point - the computer will warn you when the oil level is low, otherwise you're to assume it's fine. It also warns me when the windshield wiper fluid reservoir is low so that I can fill it before running out. Not that gas stations in Oregon were doing any of this anyway, they were pumping gas and nothing else.
- jfengel 3y ago
  Oh, man. I've never even looked for the dipstick on my (25,000 mile old) car. I used to change the oil on my cars myself. I've never even tried on my newest car.
- deathanatos 3y ago
  My car has both the in-cab oil indicator, and the dipstick. The indicator comes on late, like, it is bone dry and well below the L mark on the dipstick. But, I mean, every model is different. (I know this because this is how we started to learn we were losing oil, somewhere. … and unlike the parent poster's suggestion that old cars did this after 10k miles … this was around 130k miles. This is but one car, though, I suppose.)
no_wizard 3y ago
They don't wash the windshields or check the washer fluid in any part of Oregon I've been at so far. Granted I'm a recent move in, but this never happens, at least not at the Fred Meyer or Costco gas stations I go to. More often than not, its just a bunch of people standing around using their phones as they wait for fill ups to end and they meander between the cars. Its really poor service, honestly.

kodah 3y ago

Oregon has a runaway train of taxation, especially in dense counties. Interestingly, if you ask residents they think our government is poor: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/projects/state-fiscal-briefs/oregon https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

no_wizard 3y ago
For all the tax dollars the state collects, there's not much to show for it, generally speaking. Seems like it all goes to PERS obligations and administration, rather than improving communities. Not to mention, they have the auto refund of the surplus, which is kinda silly, because what you'd want the state to do is setup a rainy day fund that can be safely invested for future endeavors, but no, the legislative body of 1979 made it so that if the state runs a surplus they allow everyone to get a tax "kicker"[0] instead, which is pretty short sighted IMO. Not to mention, the amount after being spread out across all of Oregons tax paying base, is really small and makes hardly a difference for the average person. [0]: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/oregon-kicker-tax-rebate-raid/283-1ec5a2be-6b12-4487-9d39-de1d28f619b7 https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/oregon-kick...
- kodah 3y ago
  I mostly agree, though I think creating slush funds from personal taxation is straight up wrong. The state should not become rich on the backs of it's citizens. Instead, we could follow Norway in using the profits of industrial sectors to fuel those slush funds. The amount of Oregonians that think infinitely taxing individuals is okay is vexing. The bigger problem in Oregon government is the fact that our municipalities fail to do basic planning for their initiatives, so there'll be a surplus in one category and a deficit in another. This, I imagine, is where their slush fund could come in handy. Lastly, we have a lot of corruption in this state which should be a higher priority to deal with. I was shocked in the Fagan case when I learned that we don't have anti-corruption laws to charge something as brazen as what she did.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

brantonb 3y ago

My first job was pumping gas at a full service station in Ohio in the late ‘90s, where full service stations were rare. We had two islands, with two pumps each. When out-of-towners would pull up and see us approach, they’d often drive to the other island. We’d get a big grin and walk over to them again. We’d get the best tips from them, because they didn’t know what to do. I’d probably check someone’s oil about once an hour, but we washed windshields by default. It was before “pay at the pump”, so I spent a lot of my time walking credit cards in and out of the store to run them. It was actually a fun summer job for a high school kid. A few summers later, I got a software internship at that oil company’s headquarters, working on a Visual Basic app for the pricing department to set prices at all of their stations. I’d often complete my week’s work by Monday afternoon and spend the rest of the week in their library, learning about all sorts of new technology. They treated me well and I was fortunate they didn’t offer me a full-time job at the end of my internship, because I likely would’ve taken it. When I’ve filled up in Oregon, I’ve not seen them do anything but pump gas. During the pandemic, I drove through Oregon many times and learned to get gas before entering the state.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

dheera 3y ago

> And I always avoided filling up in Oregon because waiting for the "service" could sometimes be longer than the fill-up itself. Also because they would look at you with sheepy eyes expecting tips. I avoid valet parking for the same reason. I can fill up my own gas and park my own car, I don't need the service in the first place.

willio58 3y ago

> So effectively these were government subsidized jobs. Hey now, without government-subsidized jobs we'd have millions out of work if you take into account not only government agencies but also the US military. While I think this specific version of government-subsidized jobs (pumping gas) feels forced, I think the government creating jobs is a great thing on the whole. The New Deal was a great example of this, created 20-something million new jobs for a decade or so and pulled us out of the great depression. Now if we want to talk about truly bad government-subsidized labor it revolves around private companies abusing our welfare systems by paying their workers starvation wages cough Wal-mart cough.

stepanhruda 3y ago

“Creating jobs” only makes sense if funding those jobs provide actual value that wouldn’t exist otherwise. You can “create jobs” by making people dig holes and fill them up, but you’re just wasting your population’s productive time - you would be better off by just giving those people money for nothing, some of them might just do something useful in the newly created free time. I’d argue that pumping gas overall provides very low value.

WeylandYutani 3y ago
One good thing about declining birth rates is that you can't waste people on bullshit jobs. Fully automated gas stations has been a thing in my country for thirty years. And they can be up to 20 cents cheaper so it was adopted by consumers very quickly.
- vxNsr 3y ago
  Fully automated as in you drive up and it “plugs-in” to your car itself? Or just self service?
  - WeylandYutani 3y ago
    Self service without a shop- no cash only cards.

Lammy 3y ago

> Oregon passed legislation intending to stop the death of "full service" stations This is 110% conjecture on my part, but I always wondered if this law wasn’t originally a covert way to impede travel for certain groups of people by empowering service stations with final say on who was allowed to buy gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Oregon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Oregon

solardev 3y ago

As an Oregonian, I wish they'd tax me the same (or more, arguably gas shouldn't be this cheap), skip the pointless attendant jobs, and just give those displaced workers a UBI so they can pursue more useful jobs or educations can instead. It's fine with me to use my tax dollars to subsidize someone else's income when they have no better alternative. I just wish it wouldn't waste everyone's time while doing so. If you're gonna redistribute wealth at least do it efficiently, lol.

jjav 3y ago

> Good riddance. These are the small things that make life better! Wonderful news! Living in California and driving semi-regularly to Washington I've always had to deal with the Oregon problem of gas stations. I always carry a couple of fuel jugs to fill up so I can avoid Oregon gas stations with their insane service rules. I'm glad that's over, finally.