Month: February 2017

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Common Horse Sense

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, February 27, 2018 by devadmin

Here’s some good news from this short Legislative session.

In many of Oregon’s rural settings, you will find innovative equestrian training facilities that specialize in providing therapeutic programs for adults and children.

These programs allow children and adults of all abilities and backgrounds to develop horsemanship skills, fitness, empathy, and self-confidence. Additionally, these facilities may also provide therapeutic and clinical programs, including counseling services.

Counseling services in the rural environs widens access to the real world by providing the opportunity to get dirty, connect with animals and gain very specialized therapeutic training using the natural beauty, grace and gentleness of horses. The power of this environment for counseling gets leveraged because it bypasses the sterile, and sometimes threatening, clinical type setting.

Additionally, the typical outdoor farm and ranch setting provides more than just exposure to dirt and horses. Anyone who has spent time in Oregon’s rural landscape knows that there is typically a myriad of other animals on the property from dogs and cats to chickens, cattle, goats, sheep and pigs. All of this deepens the experience for the children and adult clients as well as the instructors and counselors.

Rural property is typically zoned as Exclusive Farm Use (EFU) land. This means that any business taking place on this land must be related to farm, ranch, or an agricultural enterprise. This zoning was designed to ensure that high-rise office centers or strip-malls didn’t get built in the middle of a potato field. However, this has sparked some bureaucratic confusion regarding the legality of providing counseling services on EFU land.

I was happy to support a Senate Committee bill, SB 1533, that will clarify a vague law restricting where and how equine therapy centers offer counseling services.

There are nearly 20 of these centers all over our state doing extremely valuable work. They work with Veterans who may be dealing with the after-effects of a battlefield injury or PTSD and they provide needed therapy and counseling to children and adults with physical, emotional or mental needs.

These therapeutic riding centers have all been caught in a bureaucratic quandary – how would one provide hippo-therapy in a clinical setting? This is the classic problem where the County Zoning Departments must simply follow the statutes even if they recognize that the rural setting is obviously the appropriate place for horses, therapeutic horseback riding and complementary counseling. This therapy has been found to be extremely valuable and is simply impossible in a downtown medical center or it’s parking lot.

This bill simply clarifies that facilities that offer equine and equine-affiliated therapeutic and counseling activities are permitted to operate on EFU zoned areas. Problems arose when some counties were interpreting the law so that as soon as a patient was no longer physically touching the horse, the therapy was no longer permitted because counseling services were not permissible on EFU land.

This bill brought some common horse sense to the situation and removed the ambiguity about whether a patient had to be in physical contact with the horse.

My daughter is a Licensed Therapeutic Riding Instructor at Healing Reins Therapeutic Riding Center, in Bend, OR. Healing Reins is one of many outstanding facilities. They average about 15-20 horses that they use for riding therapy with 8 Licensed Instructors and about 150 volunteers. Additionally, they currently have 3 Mental Health Counselors and 2 Physical Therapists on staff.  The barn and arenas are buzzing with activity six days a week 10-12 hrs. per day.

Therapeutic riding centers typically offer a variety of therapy and counseling services, including traditional physical therapy, equine assisted psychotherapy, eco-therapy and therapeutic riding to improve balance, listening skills and the ability to stay focused on a task. The children and adults bonding with their horse is truly magical.

Jeff Campbell, whose wife co-founded Healing Reins Therapeutic Riding Center in Bend, said, “This very important legislation will provide a valuable platform from which our therapeutic riding centers can continue to serve our fellow Oregonians most in need due to physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges without the constant concern of the rug being pulled from under us due to some ambiguities in the current exclusive farm use code“

Campbell added, “Thousands of Oregonians across the state will continue to be effectively and seamlessly served in our centers, thanks to this valuable legislation.”

SB 1533 received unanimous support from the Oregon Senate and now moves to the House for further consideration. Let’s pray that common horse sense will prevail during the remainder of Oregon’s 2018 legislative session.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural-Oregon values and common sense – no one will!

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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You Gotta Watch Your Wallet…

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Monday, February 20, 2017 by devadmin

In 1946, Henry Hazlitt wrote a wonderful book, Economics in One Lesson. This small, easy to read book is still widely available and ought to be read and contemplated by all. The reason is simple. Hazlitt uses easy to understand stories to gently eviscerate the public policy mistakes that the know-it-alls and political wonks use to separate taxpayers from their wallets.

Meanwhile, the policy-wonks in Oregon’s majority party are hard at work trying to stuff the Governor’s budget with money straight out of your wallet. They seem to be only looking at this current budget-cycle and not ever contemplating the long-term health of Oregon’s economy, it’s families and businesses.

One example is the crazy idea to put a $1000 tax on any car purchased before 1997. Yikes! There is another idea for a $.05 tax on every wholesale pound of coffee sold. Hearing this, I can imagine that ODOT is trying to re-engineer their GPS milage tracking device to also include a tax on every sip that you enjoy from your Dutch Bros Kicker cup.

Another shameless tactic which is fast spreading throughout Oregon’s counties is using government to provide “affordable housing.” Proponents claim this can be partially accomplished by rent control. This economic fallacy of rent control is continually embraced by pundits, politicians, editorialists, news reporters and academics as a requirement for economic development. HB 2004 is the rent control bill currently making it’s serpentine way through the twisted logic of Salem’s hallways.

Here is a portion of the bill’s contorted control language:

Thomas Sowell wrote, “History alone should be able to tell us what the actual consequences of such laws have been, since they have been around for thousands of years. Anyone who has taken a course in Economics 1 should understand why those consequences have been so different from what their advocates expected. It is not rocket science.”

The advocates make claims like, “this will ensure stable housing for workers,” or “it will stop the landlords from gouging tenants,” and finally, “land-owners should not be making tons of money during a housing crisis.”

In Oregon, the reason there is a lack of affordable housing is there is a lack of housing. This means housing is not being built. Why not? One of the main reasons is  because of existing laws which prevent housing from being built. This is a particular problem in Oregon where designated Urban Growth Boundaries (UGB) are a major component of the zoning, planning and building requirements.

High and unaffordable housing costs are not the problem, they are a symptom. The real problem is a shortage of houses.

I can illustrate this by using an example of an ice cream shop. With low cost ice cream and cheap treats, everyone wants some. If the ice cream supply were limited because of some legal requirement or some unforeseen circumstance then the local ice cream shop would quickly. Some would label this a “shortage.” However, if store owners can raise prices the will slow demand for the product.

Owners don’t do this because they are meanies and they want to gouge ice cream lovers.They do this to slow demand and their stabilize inventories. The higher price makes people think twice, reconsider their resources and/or needs and weigh any options. Just like the housing market, as prices rise, inventories stabilize and more treats are available on the street (or in the freezer.)

The high cost of housing is not something that needs fixing. Rather it is the supply of housing that needs fixing. You know that local housing is in short supply because it is becoming more expensive. When bidding wars break-out among home buyers, as is currently happening, it is a sign of a shortage. This is a not a sign of an outbreak of unbridled greed among wealthy landlords.

Supply and demand is one of the first things taught in introductory economics textbooks and you will find great examples in Hazlitt’s book. If only I could get some folks here in the capital to curl up with Hazlitt’s book, too. Now that would be an accomplishment.

Also, please let your voice be heard with regard to Oregon’s upcoming budget (2017-2019). Without any viable increases in the State’s income, non-critical services will require budget cuts over the next two years. Representatives need to hear whether your wallet is up for grabs, or not.

  • Here is the Full Roadshow schedule.
  • Here is the backgrounder on the current state of the budget, and Co-Chair’s proposed budget framework for 2017-2019.

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Ratepayer Protections

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, February 13, 2018 by devadmin

One of my bills, the Ratepayer Protection Act (SB 1552) will be heard on Wednesday, Feb. 14th. This bill has several sections designed to cap costs for Oregon energy users. The bill proposal would help establish strong, consistent policies aligned with keeping electric rates as low as possible.

Specifically, one piece of the legislation would prohibit a public utility from exceeding a 4.5 percent rate of return. Utility Companies can freely ask the Public Utility Commission (PUC) for rate increases. These increased payments come from the customers, who are businesses, households, commercial and industrial users. These ratepayers are the same ones trying to living within their means with little room to spare.

The Public Utility Commission exits, first, to “protect the customers from unjust and unreasonable extractions by establishing fair and reasonable rates.” (cf. ORS 756). This standard is established by definition, “Rates are fair and reasonable for the purposes of this subsection if the rates provide adequate revenue both for operating expenses of the public utility or telecommunications utility and for capital costs of the utility, with a return to the equity holder.”

Here is the rub. A small team of political appointees make up the commission and must exhibit what I call an “unattainable degree of neutrality.”  The problem is in the presumption that the central planners know or can determine what is “fair and reasonable.”

In free, open and voluntary market economies consumers determine what are “reasonable and just” value assessments because each individual makes their own choices about what to buy, or not. There is no requirement for a neutral party or government entity to “decide” what would be appropriate because each shopper can buy what they think is appropriate. This is why gasoline prices are writ large at every service station. People can make their own choices.

This self-interested, market-driven mechanism is far more efficient for determining value and setting prices. In actuality, people set prices not companies. People willingly part with their own money based on their own understanding of value. Therefore, any accepted price will necessarily be reasonable because people are buying and selling freely, without any government or corporate coercion. Agricultural products, our daily bread, meat, dairy, fruits and vegetables provides the easiest illustration.

We all eat food. The modern grocery store is a testament to American diversity and ingenuity. Various stores cater to various tastes, ethnicities and preferences. Each store makes their best effort to service their customers.

Some individuals prefer organic. Some avoid sugar, peanuts, or dairy while others can eat anything. It is easy to see that farms fill these stores by providing a blend of products to service the consumer. Farming occupies a unique place of importance in all of our lives and the free-market allows for the diversity and specialization that has fed the world.

The single-supplier electric generation and transmission franchise necessitates the requirement for a Commission. Once the boundary and service area (franchise area) are mapped out, no single user can purchase from any other supplier. Consumers are essentially trapped within the monopoly boundary and need someone to represent them. The franchisee is in a similar boat. They too, need to justify their investment matrix, re-capitalization requirements and cost of service parameters.

SB 1522 does not deny any of the complexities of the large-scale electric generating enterprise, it simply binds the public utility to “reasonable” returns.

The bill also prohibits a utility’s Public Purpose Charge from exceeding 1.5 percent of utility customers’ costs and prohibits the gross collections, from Public Purpose Charges, from exceeding the 2016 total. It also limits salaries for Energy Trust of Oregon employees, essentially keeping them from being greater than the Governor’s salary.

The final section of the bill would stop the collection of the Klamath Dam removal surcharge from ratepayers’ utility bills. The devil is always in the details, so here is some background information.

For nearly two decades, disparate factions struggled to implement their respective irrigation, power and water-related interests with regard to the Klamath River Basin. Their efforts resulted in the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA) and the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement (KHSA). These agreements were part of a major push to remove the four PacifiCorp dams on the Klamath River.

The stage was first set via a 2008, Agreement in Principle, which compelled the Federal Government to assess the costs and benefits of dam removal and either designate a non-federal dam removal entity (DRE) to remove the dams, or “decline to remove the dams at which point PacifiCorp will return to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for relicensing.”

Although a DRE has been designated, Klamath River Renewal Corp. (KRRC), the KBRA and KHSA agreements have long expired due to congressional inaction. A third agreement, the Upper Klamath Basin Comprehensive Agreement (UKBCA) has also been terminated by the DOI.

The time has come for Oregon’s legislature to call the dam removal effort, whether good or bad, a failure. The agreements have little chance of being resurrected and it is time to exercise the last clause (above) where PacifiCorp declines dam removal and returns to FERC for relicensing.

SB 1552 would require PacificCorp to discontinue the assessment of dam removal surcharges that appear on ratepayers’ electric bills.  Specifically, if the Klamath Dam removal has not started by Jan. 1, 2019, the dam removal surcharge will be discontinued, and funds collected by PacifiCorp would be returned pro-rata to ratepayers with a 4 percent interest on the monies which have been held in trust.

Additionally, I also have an amendment where the monies could be used for fish ladders or fish passage alternatives. This would aid in mitigating PacifiCorp’s main problem with FERC re-licensing requirements.

Alan Mikkelsen, deputy commissioner for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has said BOR will not interfere with the FERC process and believes the dams will be removed. However, there are still plenty of environmental, legal and financial hurdles to deal with.

First, is the long-term liability for unknown and known problems, such as dealing with the 20 million cubic yards of accumulated sediment that will pollute the river after the dams are removed. Turbidity, water quality, and long-term fish habitat are all big environmental issues at stake.

Lastly, a host of legal problems associated with the tentative dam removal agreement between Oregon and California will become tangled in strategies to find non-federal funding sources. Prior dam removal cost estimates, for the four dams, range upwards from $950 million and possible funding streams have not yet been identified.

Pinocchio

It’s time to stop the never-ending appearances from our dueling pair of “good cop/bad cop” protagonists with their endless questioning, changing, redefining and reinterpreting important issues. The opposing sides are arguing about what the definition of “is” is, and it should be as plain as the nose on Pinocchio’s face.

Here’s the straight scoop: Oregon’s hydro-electric power generation facilities are the most cost-effective base-load power sources for our state’s growing electric needs. Wisdom demands that we get back to using real-world economics, science and common-sense to steer Oregon’s natural resource policies in the right direction.

If we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common-sense  – No one will!

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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The Ever-expanding Universe of Laws

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, February 8, 2017 by devadmin

 “There ought to be a law…” 

Have you every seen something silly or ridiculous and muttered to yourself, “There ought to be a law?”

You and I might say, “There ought to be a law?”  when we see something that we think is ironic, unexpected, or just plain nuts. But, most of the time we realize that people have the freedom to make their own personal choices, even if the house color that they happen to choose isn’t our own favorite color.

Fundamentally, we are each faced with living, and cooperating, in a world with thousands of choices. We must be willing to allow others the same opportunity for free and independent action, unless an individual’s freedom impinges on someone else’s freedom or their personal property.

This is probably easiest to understand in the sense of property. I’m free to purchase and drive my car under obedience to the rules of the road. These rules have been established over time to create what I call “Ordered Liberty.” It is ordered so that there is a smooth  and safe flow of traffic. I have the freedom to go where I wish, when I wish, and the only constraint is that I pay attention to others, allowing them equal freedom while all of us follow the rules.

This may sound like common-sense, and it is, but things quickly go haywire when the legislature gets a little too cocky for our own good. You see, we send men and women to Oregon’s Senate and House and we call them legislators.

As legislators, they feel their job consists of being able to legislate, i.e. to make laws. So, when they get to Salem, what do they do.

They do their jobs, they legislate…

I think this has turned out to be detrimental to Oregon and it’s citizenry.

Why do I think that?

Because we have so many laws and so many regulations that no one can keep track, except the bureaucrats who are payed for their rule making efforts. They also write the enforcement measures, discover the appropriate fee schedule, determine the stiffness of the fines and/or penalties they adjudicate any grievances to determine whether or not they have done their jobs correctly.

Jefferson noted this danger, even during our nation’s earliest years. He said, “An elective despotism was not the government we fought for…”  He continues, describing the nature of a truly free and representative government by adding that it would be one, “in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies… as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”

Oregon’s legislature is so busy making new laws, that there isn’t time to focus on the principles of good governance or self-governance.

To date, in the 2017 session, the Legislature has introduced 1,806 measures.

Just how many laws do Oregonians need to ensure that their liberty is protected?

This growth essentially represents the problem with government – that is, it has an uncanny, but natural propensity for growth. It turns out it is worse than germs growing in a lab petri-dish. It is really more akin to our ever-expanding universe.

The American astronomer, Edwin Hubble, discovered in 1929 that the distant galaxies were moving away from our Milky Way system. His observation was generalized into a universal law, known as Hubble’s law, where science can measure the speed and rate of expansion of the universe by observing a redshift in light emanating from distant objects.

It appears our government is experiencing this same natural redshift tendency. It even follows Jefferson’s pattern where the black-ink on our budgetary pages experiences a natural shift towards red. Jefferson described the process, where there is a consistent multiplication of public offices, increases in expenses beyond income, and the growth and entailment of a public debt. This is exactly the path set forth by the governor’s budget.

Additionally, the numbers above only represent the number of acts or measures, not the number of pages within the bill. Some of these bills are short while others are several hundred pages in length. The real impact on law-abiding citizens includes not only these laws but also the administrative costs for creating and enforcing subsequent rules and regulations.

For each of these laws, the bureaucracy creates and writes the regulations and then formulates the rules regarding fines, punishments and enforcement measures. These rules and stipulations might span several thousand more details all spelled out in mind-numbing legalese.

It turns out Oregon doesn’t need any more Legislation. We need some de-Legislators who will lesson the burdens placed on Oregon’s businesses, families and individuals.

Please remember –– if we do not stand up for rural Oregon and common-sense, – no one will.

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Constant Clamor

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Monday, February 5, 2018 by devadmin

This week I joined as a Co-Sponsor of HB 4005 – the Prescription Drug Price Transparency Act because for the past twenty years pharmaceutical prices have been sky-rocketing upwards. US drug prices have long out-paced historical norms and there is no foreseeable downward pressure on the cost curve.

I’ll be the first to admit that government intervention is problematic because it creates a constant clamor for more government. Once some segment of any industry gains a legislated upper hand then everyone else rushes in for more legislation and government grows. Congressional meddling, over-regulation and unintended consequences, stemming from well-meaning healthcare policy initiatives, has caused a large part of these price increases.

HB 4005, however, is not invasive government intervention but a well-crafted surgical strike focused on the cost of prescription drugs. It will shed light on drug pricing whenever a drug manufacturer has a steep price increase or when they bring a new expensive blockbuster drug onto the market.

President Trump mentioned the problem in his State of the Union address, He said, “One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I have directed my Administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities.”

It will be fascinating to see how Congress handles this challenge because they created the lopsided environment where complexity reigns and patients lose.

The federal healthcare system is a giant spaghetti ball of legislation, with myriads of alphabet-soup agencies and 50 years of re-do’s, take-overs and fixes. The end result is an overly complex and extremely messy bundle of rules, regulations and unintended consequences.

And, we’re stuck in the middle…

However, in the face of continued skyrocketing prescription drug prices, Oregon can provide a little bit of needed transparency. Oregonians for Affordable Drug Prices announced bipartisan and statewide support for HB 4005 that will require pharmaceutical manufacturers to share information on any drug price increase that is more than 10% annually.

I have more faith in free, open and voluntary markets than government bureaucracies. The injection of government into the healthcare arena did not create better solutions for those in need. What it did supply is a source of revenue – the taxpayer.

Decades of lobbying has resulted in a protectionist system plagued by three systemic issues. First, the beneficiaries, or patients, present an insatiable, unquenchable and uncontrollable demand on the system. This is a hallmark of socialism where third-party payers carry the burden of an ever-growing desire for more and more services.

Secondly, current law provides the best of crony capitalism – market monopolies. Healthcare service providers composed of delivery system cartels of doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, pharmaceutical suppliers, medical device makers, etc., have implanted themselves deep into congressional organs.

Patients experience the results in a complex system of excessive wait-lines, multiple referrals, and continual follow-ups while the providers are party to a rigged reimbursement system which maximizes revenue gains, minimizes system efficiency and has no competitive discipline.

The graphic below shows dramatic tandem price increases over the past twenty years for two competing insulin analogues. The upward trend is not due to normal inflationary increases; it is due to federal policies.

Competitive pressure should surface when supply chain circumstances, commodity contracts or manufacturing advantages present themselves in a free market. As can been seen, even when alternatives exist, there is little competition and prices do not go down. In fact, the opposite occurs – prices increase in tandem with one another.

This is because the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which established Medicare Part D, banned direct negotiations for lower prices on prescription drugs by the government. If the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, the agency could leverage its enormous purchasing power to pay less for drugs.

Lower prices would reverberate through the market because information is power. “I can’t give you a discount because when the word gets out then I’ll have to give discounts to everyone.”

Also, in the thousands of ACA pages there are several items that favor the lopsided pricing fiasco we recognize. These items are a mandate prohibiting re-importation of drugs (like insulin from Canada), preserving Medicare’s over-payment for drugs, mandates requiring state subsidies for drugs under Medicaid, and hundreds of billions in subsidies for drugs in Medicare part B and D.

Under HB 4005 drug makers will be required to give advance notice to payers before price increases of more than 10 percent a year. Additionally, for all drugs that increased more than 10 percent in the prior years, the manufacturer must report to the state their research, development and marketing costs, profit margins and whether generic drug alternatives are available.

Another feature of the bill requires companies to report what the price for their medication is in other countries, an especially pressing issue when prices are, on average, 50 percent lower in other industrialized nations. The graph below illustrates the enormous price discrepancy for insulin in the US verses other countries.

The US spends 18% of GDP on health care compared to 10-12% in the rest of the developed world. There is no hope of slowing down the health care monster without some transparency and the restoration of basic free market principles like consumer sovereignty, patient responsibility, risk-based pricing and a free market supply chain.

HB 4005 is one small step for transparency and gaining insight into the problem of rising prescription drug prices. The public hearing for HB 4005 will be on Monday, Feb. 5th at 3:00pm in Hearing Room E in the Capital Bldg.

Remember, if we don’t stand for rural Oregon values and common sense – No one will!

Best Regards,

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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Session will begin with a Budget Bang! – Part II

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, February 2, 2017 by devadmin

Last weeks article highlighted that the Governor’s released budget had everyone in media gasping for breath because of a $1.7 billion shortfall. Yet, Oregon is expected to receive $1.5B more revenue this biennium than last. That is an increase of 15 thousand million or 1,500,000,000 extra dollars in the state’s coffer.

I pointed out that Oregon’s budget has increased eight-fold since 1980 and then I posed some thoughtful questions:

  • Did our state’s service requirements or population grow by eight-fold?
  • Did your school district attendance grow by eight-fold?
  • Did your own personal salary or wages grow eight-fold since 1980?
  • Did the value of your home grow by eight-fold?

If you are like me, you are probably having trouble identifying anything in our lifetime that has grown as rapidly as government.

This has occurred mainly because we have allowed government to absorb responsibilities that previously belonged to families and individuals. Government has done this quite stealthily.

It starts with people who want to help. They become politicians. Politicians get elected to the legislature. Legislators have a job to do – legislate. Yet, even if the legislature, their committees and constituents propose solutions that sound reasonable, it doesn’t mean the legislation will work reasonably.This is exactly where we are today – Legislators are legislating and government is growing.

Our unique American form of government was designed to protect the rights of the people and ensure their individual freedom. Oregon’s constitution does not provide a mandate to micromanage, interfere and legislate away citizen’s individual choices and freedoms on a daily basis.

How much would government services cost if we had constrained government by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics – Inflation Calculator?

Using the inflation calculator, for example, $10B in 1980 is the equivalent to $29.1B today (cf., Figure 2). This means $50B dollars of the current $80B budget is in excess of the cost of inflation.

Even accounting for an increase in Oregon’s population which has grown by only a factor of 1.54 since 1980 levels, not an 8X increase, the $29.1B number would only increase by $15B, not $50B.

Again, why is Oregon’s budget pegged at nearly $80B?

Are Oregonians really that much more needy? Do we need that many more state bureaucrats shuffling paper and creating regulations?

The problem rests with the baseline budgeting methodology where after funding our last biennium’s base of operations no one has enough resources available to seek answers to different questions.

There will never be a change to any part of an agency’s inner-workings if the agency will automatically receive the same, or better, for doing the same ol’, same ol’. This is partially why Oregon’s graduation rates stay so abysmally poor – same ol’, same ol’.

ORS 291.210, requires the Legislative Fiscal Office (LFO)  to develop a projected tentative General Fund/Lottery Funds budget for the 2017-19 biennium.  A couple of bullets from that document are below:

  • State personal services growth is projected at 9% for the biennium, including step increases, roll-up of current collective bargaining agreements and management salary packages, health benefit costs, Pension Obligation bond payments, and an increase in the PERS rate.
  • Standard biennial inflation of 3.7% for services and supplies and 4.1% for medical costs.
  • Backfill of 2015-17 one-time funds with General Fund, or fund shifts, that change 
funding sources for programs between the two biennia, total a net $626 million. This is primarily in the Human Services and Education program areas, and includes $328 million related to an increasing state responsibility for Affordable Care Act costs and other federal match changes.

These are all growth items.

We don’t face a revenue problem, we face a problem with government growth and spending. Oregon’s legislature must be willing to address our state’s spending problem and this will mean breaking through factional barriers.

Otherwise, we really are just kicking the can down the road.

We all recognize there is more squeezing that needs to be done in the state’s budget. But, if the Governor has her way, the squeeze is going to happen with our wallets. Oregon’s Governor put forward a budget proposal that is “too expansive.”  As legislators we must be committed to squeezing government, not the hardworking taxpayers wallets.

Please remember–if we do not stand up for rural Oregon values and common-sense, no one will.

Best Regards,

Dennis

Senate District 28