Corporate counselor says spend less, while Incumbent Governor Sees Kids-First as a responsibility for state.
(SALEM) - Oh ! -- NOW I “get it...!!”:It’s not “turn back the 21st Century” but really simpler.
Just “fix" the economy to pay off people with many more living-wage jobs but less health-care and pension costs.
That’ll lure better ones flooding into Oregon via “trickle-down”, sure to draw many new entrepreneurs; and the State won’t ever need any Oregon tax-rise.
We may have to fix health-care costs somehow, too, since they are rising so precipitously: DOUBLE inflation-now, 43 percent in 9 years if one can trust government bureaucracy to get it right.(Documentation available as PDF.)
But a “lavish-harvest of better-jobs” will take care of that, too.
Just to be sure, this is what we’ll do:We’ll make everything run much more “efficiently”-- “10 percent” better for every State program--even those already-slashed nearly-to-default now.
That will save enough dollars to answer all these funding problems rapidly and right (NO pun !); and of course “reasonably and rationally” too; without ANY tax rise.
We need never touch that massive corporate tax-shift from bottom-line to other-Oregonian shoulders.(OCPP: “Great Corporate Tax Shift”; www.ocpp.org/)
If we stick to “laissez-faire” for everyone it just builds the economy that much more rapidly for us all. Of course, “trickle-down” will help somehow, too.
If that is unfair for some...well, life’s unfair; unless you land in the right family, at the right time. THEN you can even move if needed.
What Saxton has been trying to tell us is that we’ve got to fix the economy first...then there’ll be good jobs aplenty and we won’t ever have to raise taxes again. Oregon must move right out-front of other states, he declares --and he knows just how to do it, now.
Just trust that solid record of leadership in Portland: You can-and-must act rapidly when you’re “high man on the totem-pole” --but only if you keep on top of the job.
He also now states we’ve got to fix health-care too.
We must avoid raising the Oregon tobacco tax; you’ll understand why.
SO what we do is fix-the-family situations first, and then these kids will never, ever, get addicted. That allows us to succor those other sweet-ones since that bad-fate via cigs will never capture them; thus reducing “program numbers” neatly and nicely.
Most are already getting the medical care they need. now, anyhow -- make that SOMEhow. You say “ER” ??
NOW let’s go back to Oregon realities as we must live them today, without further fantasy-futilities from friend Saxton and his minion-Schien.
Analysts are reporting that the two candidates came close to agreement on what must be done rapidly -- their major confrontation was on how to get us there.“SO what else was new?“
This is what took place at the first-of-four debate aired Thursday via Oregon Public Broadcast radio and television .
The best-possible shot at strong-start-in-school is every child’s right, Governor Kulongoski told corporate counselor Saxton. Saxton agreed on the necessity but denied it was a State responsibility.
He remained adamantly unclear on whom-to-blame when it remains unfunded; with all those sweet kids still relentlessly defrauded and deprived of their only early opportunity.
That fully illuminates the entire-hour of State-wide debate for many Oregonians: The same pattern surfaces on every major issue:
Something must be done, but we need to know more, study longer, plan better, prepare for future action, if any.
In any case, “Government can’t do it all.”
Who will if government can’t?What/and/where do disdvantaged Oregonians then go for any humane and/or Constitutional help ?
That last Constitutional-one, unmentioned in debate, brings into sharp focus the federal-court suit vs State of Oregon by parents and their school boards; with a black-cloud perhaps ONE BILLION DOLLARS-dark looming out there now.
Saxton made clear that we must: Never, ever, for any situation-or-need, raise taxes.
Never, ever, save the kicker for the inevitable rainy-day sure-to-come AGAIN with Oregon’s still-flawed funding.
Never, ever, tamper with the corporate tax-burden share now slewed-off --right onto Oregonian shoulders.
Never, ever, hamper that bottom-line/sacred principle built on 19th Century “supply-side” economics now so badly flawed it is a Long-standing-joke in economic circles.
Ask me to tell-again “the upside-down napkin” one; or
(“See with your own eyes” “Supply-Side Economics” 11/26/05).
Despite increasing pressures “to put up or shut up” on his professed “efficiencies in every program”, Saxton declared he will prevail; over all funding problems now prevalent in every State program without a rise in taxes.
But he never says how, or what will be done, by whom, when, and with what support from other situations closely bound to the one-discussed, and influencing still others.
That’s fully familiar to those same viewers, too; most know he’s PLEDGED to ATR --and Grover Norquist. He must honor that PLEDGE; or walk away from continued support by the national group and those other big-bagger/providers --the ones with whom he conferred confidentially; while the frustrated press were pressed to stay-away.
When was it that the Oath of Office became a nonentity and a mere formality, apparently meaning less-than-nothing now vs a PLEDGE to an obviously private-interest cabal ??
This hour-long discussion raced through recent once-rational and seemingly-reasonable situations-and-issues;
but the pattern never did vary very much.
Even the confrontations took familiar form derived from the deeply-antagonistic “attack-ad” style; determined early-on by Saxton usage; at costs estimated well over ONE MILLION DOLLARS SO FAR; and still rising.
That makes “corporate campaign contributions” seem so stingy, don’t you think ? Even if, indubitably, for same general purposes.
But then it depends on what you are out to acquire, and this is simply not the same as that “transactional lobbying” at “the Salem Arena”.
But it may be equally as “cost-efficient” in its long-run relation to Oregon political realities.
That’s going to be YOUR choice, soon:
Are you up-for-sale, too ???
Op Ed:Salem-News.com