Please join us for an insightful conversation on our state economy with our partner Eric Fruits, Ph.D, Vice President of Research at Cascade Policy Institute. 

Eric Fruits is the research director at Cascade Policy Institute and adjunct professor at Portland State University. His research focuses on regulation and tax policy. At PSU he teaches courses in urban economics and real estate. He’s provided invited testimony to the Oregon legislature on tax policy and the minimum wage and testified before the Oregon Supreme Court on PERS reforms. His research on cartels has been published in top-tier academic journals and his op-eds have been published in The Economist and the Wall Street Journal.

Quinn Burket, Business and Rural Outreach Director for the Yes For a Healthy Future Campaign will provide a brief presentation on a November ballot measure. The measure is aimed at reducing smoking and vaping across our state and funding medicaid and smoking cessation and prevention programs. Healthcare costs associated with smoking and vaping cost taxpayers thousands of dollars, not to mention smoking is still the number one cause of preventable death in Oregon, claiming 7,000 lives every year.