"Cutting Fat"

Note - Originally posted in August of 2003, this is an archive edition "Highlight" from the early days of my pondering the run

In the Mail Tribune Online Edition - Letters to the Editor - August 17, 2003, Nancy and Bob Brousseau of Central Point write:

When the tax-and-spend mindset of an elected official thinks of tax dollars as play money, magically appearing out of paychecks and pockets of working families, then it is time to elect another representative who will have some fiscal responsibility, and to say a big thank you to the representatives who are trying to be reasonable by cutting the fat, not levying more taxes.

I feel compelled to ask a couple of questions and ask that you all out there comment to let me know if I am just out of it...

1. Are we still talking fat when we are cutting instructional days and on duty police?
2. Are we still talking fat when the investment of generations of Oregonians to establish the most accessible and well developed public parks system in the US fades into an underfunded short seasoned mess that individual Oregonians must pay each visit to use?
3. Is tax and spend as evil as borrow and spend?
4. So we as a state are OK with cutting services to the lowest level in the western US, because we do have the lowest taxes in the western US (dividing total revenue per capita...oh wait, but it's 85% personal income tax, so we FEEL really heavily taxed...)?
   

I gotta go do soccer, but I am curious about this point, so I thought I'd put it out there.

Update 9 July 2004

So, the 'fat' has continued to be cut. Medford's teachers are in renegotiation in a non-contract negotiation year with jobs being lost. One of the summer's hot films discusses the staffing levels of the Oregon State Police along a huge stretch of coastline and statewide. I still have to pay to use Day Use areas in the state park system. The on-site clinic at my school shut down and - ta da - access to birth control gone, students were getting pregnant within weeks.

Measure 5 was in Nineteen NINETY and the legislature STILL hasn't figured out a way to replace the revenue lost to localities. Governer Roberts' Conversations with Oregon came closest to addressing the issue and the resulting legislation lost in the House on a procedural vote.

Salem needs change. Salem needs fresh voices, new ideas, and innovative thinkers. The Salem solution for years - for a decade and a half - has been to say the voters have spoken, we have no consensus, there is nothing that can be done... This is about leadership. It's about getting out in front and saying "This is where we are going, this is why, you are all coming with us, and it will be GOOD!" and having the citizens of Oregon respond with enthusiasm, courage, and hope, like the English on St. Crispin's Day at Agincourt.

We can all be heroes for the future of Oregon. Vote in November for progressive voices like mine.