Portland blocks robo-taxis as Democrats push jobs out and tech innovators flee

Democrats in cities like Portland have an amazing talent for shooting themselves in the foot. Every time they jack up the minimum wage and drown businesses in red tape, they act shocked when companies find ways to cut them out altogether. Want a Big Mac? You better get used to talking to a touchscreen, not a smiling clerk. At the grocery store, forget the friendly cashier—just scan your own stuff. Why? Because heavy-handed leftist policies leave businesses with no other choice but to automate and survive.

Now Portland’s “geniuses” are at it again. This time they’ve set their sights on driverless taxis—those futuristic robo-cabs that could have made rides cheaper, streets safer, and cities more modern. But liberals can’t stand anything that threatens their little fiefdoms. When faced with rules that strangle regular taxis and rideshares, companies came up with driverless solutions like Waymo. Instead of celebrating some real American innovation, Portland’s regulators want to kill the robo-taxi before it even gets rolling. Why? All roads lead back to government control and union special interests.

It’s the same old game. Democrats invent nonsense regulations, then complain when technology finds a way around them. They talk about progress but do everything in their power to block it. They claim to care about workers, but their rules just squeeze out jobs through automation—even Uber and Lyft drivers aren’t safe from their twisted utopia.

What liberals just can’t grasp is that the free market, left alone, creates real progress. If people don’t want robots at the drive-thru or behind the wheel, they’ll say so with their wallets. But the far left doesn’t trust regular Americans to make those choices. They want government bureaucrats and elite activist groups to decide what’s best for everyone. So the city gets stuck in the past, small businesses suffer, and the only “progress” is more people heading to the unemployment line.

Maybe that’s exactly what the Democrat machine wants. More people out of work, more people dependent on government, and more power in the hands of bureaucrats. That’s the future they’re building—one stalled innovation at a time. Is it any wonder America’s brightest minds are moving out, while Portland’s stuck chasing its own tail?

Source: Townhall