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MAY 26, 2017
FIVE WEEKS FROM THE END?
There is
always an attempt to end the long session of the Legislature in June, but we
can constitutionally continue through July 10th. Based on this time
frame one could assume we should be farther along in many areas than we
currently are. Part of the problem from the Republican perspective is the
fact there seems to be no interest in finding any real efficiencies in
government. We asked early on for the ability to reduce the cost of
government by one billion dollars, which out of a 76-billion-dollar budget
seems reasonable. We are getting no real movement in that direction, in
fact the Speaker is determined to get an additional two billion dollars in
taxes. Oregon has been basically a one-party state for over 30 years and
it still appears the agenda is the continued expansion of government.
What we are
finding is many state agencies, who are supposed to be serving the people, have
become instruments of a political agenda. I am basing this on a Forbes
article, which did a data base search of government salaries and expenditures
at all levels of government. One of the interesting things revealed was
the fact taxpayers are spending $278 million dollars for the
Democrat-controlled administration to spend on politically well-connected firms
and vendor’s big-ticket PR contracts. One example (of many) is the Oregon
Tourism Commission “Travel Oregon,” which is funded by a lodging tax. The
agency has 43 staffers at an operational cost of $5 million per year, which
works out to over $116,000 per employee. Despite that, they are still
contracting with a private sector PR firm at over $22 million. What is
even more interesting is the fact they refused to disclose relevant information
as to how the money was spent. One can find similar PR efforts in other
agencies including the Oregon Health Authority and the Department of
Environmental Quality. Using state agencies and taxpayer dollars to push
a political agenda is a violation of everything we are supposed to be doing.
But that is
not the worst example of the way our political process is being violated.
The Legislature is divided into two types of committees, policy committees and
budget committees. It is generally acknowledged that policy issues should
be dealt with by the policy committees in both Chambers and the Ways and Means
Committees should not be making policy. That principle is being violated
in a major way this Session, as over 200 House policy bills have been sent to
Ways and Means rather than come to the Senate policy committees. It is
hard to know what the “game plan” of the majority party is at this point
relative to these bills, but one might assume we could see some significant
policy happening in committees not designed to deal with such issues.
Policy
committees in both Chambers will be finished a week from today. The
reality of what happens in Ways and Means is the fact the Speaker, the President
and the two co-chairs of the committee totally control the agenda. It
would be pure speculation to try and guess what will be coming. We do
know there will be a hard push for tax increases, which is very
frustrating. We have offered a plan to fully-fund Medicaid and education
without tax increases, but it is not the direction we seem to be going.
We have been
on an expansion of government pathway for the last decade and it is simply
unsustainable. I keep saying it is time we put the people ahead of
government, but we keep pushing a government first agenda. Of course,
they will say “it is for the people,” but that is simply not true. The
continued expansion of the public employee unions serves only one purpose, and
it can only happen at the expense of the private sector. It is time for a
real reality check in Oregon, and I hope it happens before it is too late.
Sincerely,
Senator Jeff
Kruse
email: Sen.JeffKruse@oregonlegislature.gov I phone: 503-986-1701
address: 900 Court St NE, S-205, Salem, OR, 97301
website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/kruse
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