[fludlight]

This isn't a problem of "big money", but a failure of government. They reduced taxes and, shocking(!), that led to lower tax revenues.

> Oregon lowered taxes and maintained weaker environmental protections on private forestlands than neighboring states in exchange for jobs and economic investment from the timber industry.

> Despite such concessions, the country’s top lumber-producing state has fewer forest-sector jobs per acre and collects a smaller share of logging profits than Washington or California.

> If Oregon taxed timber owners the same as its neighbors, which are also top lumber producers with many of the same companies, it would generate tens of millions of dollars more for local governments.

[david38]

It is big money that drives most government policy.