Issues
I have five major issues:
1) Fiscal issues: Institute fiscal responsibility by prioritizing budget items to the core services government is responsible for. These items to include fire, safety, education and infrastructure. All other items, in the budget, should be scrutinized as to their validity with respect to the authorization or the lack of it contained within the constitution.
2) Education: In that the public school system in the state of Oregon boasts a 30% drop out rate is obvious that this institution is broken. I strongly support injecting competition into the equation. I support such alternatives as charter schools, vouchers and virtual schools in an effort to allow families to choose the appropriate alternative as they see fit.
3) Accountability: A cursory review of the core services government is responsible for would indicate we have a disconnect between their stated objective and the results. The state all funds budget has doubled over the last 10 years from $27 billion to $54 billion. I defy anyone to point to one of these core services and produce findings that indicate a doubling in their output. Are there twice as many fire and rescue professionals, police officers, roads? Has our dropout rate of high school students been cut in half? I would suggest that the answer to these questions is a resounding NO!
4) Illegal immigration: This is not a difficult issue for me to address. Illegal immigration is just that, it’s illegal. By not enforcing our immigration laws we have created problems for ourselves in a number of areas. First by allowing our laws to be broken we are telegraphing to society, in general, that right and wrong is subject to one’s interpretation vs. statue. In addition the message that we send to those who come here illegally is that it is simply OK which perpetuates more illegal immigrants coming to this country understanding that will there will be no consequences for breaking our laws. Another residual effect of illegal immigration is the financial cost to our society. It is estimated our state spends in excess of $1 billion per year on welfare benefits, medical expenses, education for children of illegals and incarceration for those who commit violent crimes.
5) Unemployment: At the present time state unemployment is at a record high. Obviously this situation exists due in part to the worldwide recession we find ourselves in. Having said that state government has in fact exacerbated the problem by its onerous regulations, fees and taxes. Oregon is one of the least business friendly states in the United States. It is a popular belief among politicians and legislators in general that the government can in fact create jobs. The truth of the matter is the only jobs that the state can create are public employee jobs. To energize job creation we must first make it attractive for businesses to stay in Oregon and to attract new ones. To this end it will be necessary to simultaneously reduce taxes on individuals and corporations and cut wasteful government spending. This will put more disposable income in the pocket of consumers thereby creating more demand. Businesses will ultimately invest in property plant equipment and increase their workforce to satisfy this increased demand.
The above is not necessarily in order of importance. A number of these issues are intertwined which would make it difficult to rate them as to their order of importance.
