Author: DevAdmin

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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

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Economic Tsunami

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Wednesday, January 30, 2019 by devadmin

Last year, Oregon’s Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) extracted roughly $1,400,000,000 ($1.4 billion) in contributions from tax-payers to fund state employees’ pension benefit programs. Over that same period, it paid out $4,700,000,000 ($4.7 billion) in pension benefits to state employees. (See Figure 1.)

Any bookie would recognize a lame horse when they saw it. Namely, PERS had a negative cash flow of $3,300,000,000 ($3.3 billion) during that one-year period and the problem is getting worse.

One would think that a negative operating cash flow of this size, shape and demographic velocity would be seen as a bad omen and everyone would be worried. Yet, no serious reforms can even get traction because everyone is bogged down in language about fairness, safety, inclusion and the need to fulfill promises.

Yet when the trestle bridge gets overloaded because everyone wants off the island at the same time, a lot of people will get hurt.

In this environment it’s hard to project the details lying dormant within the blue-sky assumptions undergirding the PERS system. Even more difficult to grasp is the catastrophic potential that these assumptions mask when market events slowdown causing liabilities to balloon.

In a recent Oregonian article, Allen Alley, a past gubernatorial candidate, inventor and technology investor, suggested that policymakers should start looking at the actual cash flowing out of the system. Alley calculates, that the 4.1 million tax-payers will owe $225,000,000,000. ($225B) for state employee retirement benefits over the next three decades.

Although PERS, as an issue, is always present, it is treated like a heavy punching bag in the corner at the gym–it gets ignored. Unfortunately, our governor’s top two policy goals aren’t related to PERS. They are revenue, staff, and policy issues that grow government and eventually worsen the tax-payer burden while ignoring the economic reality barreling straight at all municipal, county and state governments across the US.

All public sector retirement plans, and most private sector plans, carry unheard of levels of unfunded actuarial accrued liabilities (UAAL). The public pension crisis has been intensifying for quite some time and state governments are unwilling to go to the bag. This is mainly because governors, senators, representatives, county commissioners and city council members get elected on “present day promises,” not “future unintended consequences.”

For many years, annual returns for employees and their benefit accounts were pegged at 8-percent per annum. These promises were made during a brief period when that rate seemed  reasonable but would have long-term unintended consequences. Additionally, this return-on-investment (ROI) was guaranteed by tax-payer pickups during years with lower returns.

The folly of this strategy becomes clear in a Bloomberg article, which looked at long-term returns (50-year periods) and noted average returns, for pension-fund-like portfolios, are well below 6-percent and have only generated returns of 7 percent or greater twice since 1871. (See Figure 2.)

The article continues, saying the problem is worse today for two primary reasons: 1) “Cumulative returns are lower than the averages;” 2) “An extended period of bad returns cannot be made up even with astronomical returns later.”

Bloomberg goes on to explain that the compounding of these return projections is the real fly in our collective soup bowl. According to Bloomberg most funds can never keep up with their actuarial demands following a market downturn. The capital lost and the compounding interest required on the remaining capital is too great. This would be true, even if the pension was already fully funded, which Oregon PERS is not. Following market retractions, “there is no chance existing assets are enough to pay already-contracted liabilities.”

The proverbial spilled-soup comes when one realizes that once the base value of assets starts to decline there is no scooping it back up. The shrinking asset base can’t keep up with the demand pressure from the actuarially accrued increases in liabilities. Additionally, as payouts create greater shortfalls, the overall asset base shrinks even more, further inhibiting the fund’s ability to ever get ahead of the curve.

Bloomberg goes so far as to say, “Worrying about the next five decades is pointless, because there’s also no chance the current system will survive long enough to discover what the next 50-year average returns will be.”

This is a truly dire situation created by more than 50 years of unrelenting government growth sanctioned by elected representatives. It is unconscionable to not address this inadequacy when there are thousands of folks who will be negatively affected by this tragedy if we fail to act.

Alley claims that his calculation of $225B doesn’t even account for any new employees coming into the system but focuses only on existing employees. “As a CEO of a company, you think about cash,” he said. “What’s the check I have to write and where’s that money going to come from?”

Rest assured, there are no worries in that quarter… the political majority can easily figure out how to use our slowly deteriorating social contract and government’s misused power of coercion to their own advantage. As the noted 19th-century philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon outlined, the tax-payers can expect to be:

fleeced, exploited, monopolized, squeezed, hoaxed, drilled, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, repressed, fined, harassed,  judged, condemned, or deported…

Without a momentous shift toward slowing the growth in government our PERS dilemma will only worsen. Additionally, significant and serious modifications to new employee standing is the only mechanism that can begin to stem the potential economic tsunami resulting from a market downturn. Without these changes Oregonians will face far more turmoil than the political elites ever imagined.

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

Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28

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What’s up for the 2018 Session?

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Thursday, January 25, 2018 by devadmin

Here’s a look-see…

PERS unfunded liabilities are looming ever larger, high-school graduation rates, OHA budget over-runs, carbon emission debates, over-spending tendencies, school choice, criminal incarceration rates, marijuana problems and the opioid epidemic.

Additionally, we will be dealing with Clean Air Oregon, Carbon Cap and Trade, a potential constitutional referendum on unanimous juries, electric rate-payer protection, pharmaceutical drug transparency act and a limit on late-term abortions.

Myself and my fellow Legislators have got our work cut-out for us.

Aside from these and other issues, the Senate President added me to two new committees. Additionally, the Governor appointed me to a Special Task Force dealing with the rash of Opioid deaths by overdose.

Opioid overdoses plague rural and urban communities, alike.

Opioids such as morphine and fentanyl are the preferred clinical treatments for moderate to severe pain because of their strong analgesic (pain-relieving) properties. Effective pain management is one of the greatest challenges of modern medicine.

The increases in opioid deaths highlights the need for safer analgesics. Opioids, typically, cause death from respiratory depression induced by an overdose.

It is estimated that more than 100,000 adults suffer from chronic pain in the United States alone, and that this costs up to $635 billion per year in medical treatment and lost workforce productivity. The most commonly used drugs for pain management can have numerous side effects. For example, some cause cardiovascular complications, gastrointestinal bleeding, and renal disease.

Aside from these medicinal side-effects, opioids are extremely addictive. Opioids, both prescription and illicit, are the main driver of drug overdose deaths. Opioids were involved in 42,249 deaths in 2016, and opioid overdose deaths were five times higher in 2016 than 1999.

Oregon’s own statistics mirror the national averages. In Oregon, the opioid overdose death rate in 1999, was 2.1 persons per 100,000, while in 2016 the rate was 11.9 persons per 100,000. However, Oregon is at the high-end of the scale with regard to opioid prescriptions. There are 82.2 – 95 opioid prescriptions for every 100 people in Oregon.

A dedicated coalition is needed among the medical and pharmaceutical industries. Prescribers will need to focus on accurate data collection of distribution systems and product tracking to curb opioid abuse. Over the long-term, researchers are ever-hopeful for scientific breakthroughs in academic and pharmaceutical research for the treatment of chronic pain.

More items for investigation will be Oregon’s mandatory minimums on controlled substances, our prison and incarceration systems, local community-based re-habilitation efforts, staffing and budgetary requirements for state and local law enforcement.

Incarceration rates mandated by Oregon’s sentencing guidelines costs taxpayers hundreds of millions annually.

The biggest single problem with the system, as it is engineered today, is that it costs too much and is largely ineffective because the incarcerated individuals are rarely rehabilitated.

Here is a graphic summarizing what we see for all 50 states. (I will try to acquire Oregon specific data for next time.)

As shown in the chart above, drug addiction rates in the US (purple area/scale) are essentially unchanged from the time the War on Drugs was launched by Richard Nixon in 1972. Back then it was somewhere between 1-2% of the adult population. Today, it remains nearly the same, after 50 years of following the same formula.

Meanwhile the budgetary requirements for the nationwide system, including public safety, corrections, parole and probation has soared from a reasonable amount (green area/scale) to $20 billion in 2010 and $32 billion in the most recent year (FY 2017).

At the same time, the US prison population has exploded from 400,000 to more than 2.3 million (orange area/scale).

The current system knows no boundaries and is the perfect tax and spend machine. The licit and illicit drug industries continue to harness the power of the market by supplying drugs that are no longer scarce but remain extremely valuable and extremely dangerous.

The results are broken homes, damaged lives, homelessness and a rash of opioid over-dose deaths.

So, we clearly have our work cut-out for us.

“No government at any level, or at any price, can afford, on the crime side, the police necessary to assure our safety unless the overwhelming majority of us are guided by an inner, personal code of morality. And you will not get that inner, personal code of morality unless children are brought up in a family – a family that gives them the affection they seek, that makes them feel they belong, that guides them to the future, and that will build continuity in future generations. . . . the greatest inequality today is not inequality of wealth or income. It is the inequality between the child brought up in a loving, supportive family and one who has been denied that birthright.”

                                                                – Lady Margaret Thatcher, from her speech,                                      “The Moral Challenges for the Next Century,” March 5, 1996.

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 I

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, January 24, 2017 by devadmin

Oregon’s Legislative Session starts on February 1st and the biggest topic will certainly be the budget. Gov. Kate Brown released a recommended budget last month that has everyone in media gasping for breath because of a $1.7 billion shortfall.

The governor is quoted as saying, “The budget includes significant cuts at a level I find absolutely unacceptable…”

I agree–the budget proposal is unacceptable.  It is unacceptable because it merely supports the status-quo by presenting ever-growing government, more regulations and increasing taxes as the only reasonable budget expectation.

Yet, Oregon is expected to receive $1.5B more revenue this biennium than last. that is an increase of $1,500 million or $1,500,000,000 extra dollars in the state’s coffer. The story that Oregon has a shortfall is fiction. We have a budget that has grown beyond any semblance of normal.

The budget proposal has been created by assuming that Oregon’s current service levels or baseline of operations should be the standard for next year. The baseline budgeting process starts with current programs intact and then adds cost of living adjustments (COLA) combined with increases in service level goals.

Using “baseline budgeting” ideology as the operating standard doesn’t identify programs  that are inefficient or unnecessary. It also fails to address or support any significant technological choices that might transform the lives of Oregonians. It only instills more of the same for the future. This is not how our future should be planned.

During the governor’s inauguration speech there was a reference to our Oregon Trail heritage. The governor said, “And we now have two modern-day Oregon trails to choose from. One trail is to continue the endless process of slicing and squeezing, of diminishing our hopes and expectations, and shrinking our dreams of what it means to be an Oregonian. The other trail is to follow the advice of Governor McCall.  To not be guided by regionalism and factionalism.”

This is good advise.

Let me wade past the rhetoric and imagine trying to use our illustrious Oregon Trail heritage as the historic baseline mark on the landscape.  Think of the transformative technologies that have occurred. Now, ask yourself which of these modern technologies you would be willing to ignore because you were wed to the old stuff you brought from Missouri. Your Conestoga wagon, for example.

The reason baseline ideology can’t properly assess the potential efficiencies that might be gained through alternatives is because the baseline receives the funding not new ideas.  A requirement when trying to address maximum utilization from limited resources requires flexibility in weighing and ascertaining the value of various approaches.

A more flexible management approach would provide a credible rationale for reallocating resources by focusing on a systematic review and justification of the funding and performance levels in current programs.

However, if this sounds too complicated then let’s just drive our wagon down the well traveled trail of common-sense.

Since 1980, Oregon’s budget requirements have ballooned by eight-fold.  This means it has doubled three times, 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 (cf., Figure 1). In 1980 Oregon’s budget was near $10B and today the budget projection is approaching $80B.

Noticing this eight-fold growth, let’s ask some thoughtful questions:

  • Did our service requirements grow by eight-fold?
  • Did our state’s population grow by eight-fold since 1980?
  • Did your city’s population grow 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 number of seniors living in your community grow by eight-fold?
  • Does your computer/cell-phone or TV cost eight-fold more than it did in 1980?
  • Did the value of your home grow by eight-fold?
  • Is criminal activity in your neighborhood up eight-fold?

Even if a couple of these questions come out within a reasonable close-call, my question is still valid: Should the cost of government services have risen eight-fold since 1980?

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

Best Regards,

– Dennis

Senate District 28

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Gunsmoke and Mirrors

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, January 22, 2019 by devadmin

After the recent elections, the Democrat Party has a “super” majority in both of Oregon’s Legislative chambers. They also own the Governor’s office. This means they have a 60% majority in the legislature and can pass any tax or spending increases without pesky Republicans getting in the way.

While their goals may appear noble, admirable or desirable since they defy logic, science, and fiscal rectitude they cannot provide Oregonians with a viable future. They can only lead to a larger, more rapacious state government. Nevertheless, the majority appears willing to use a gunsmoke and mirrors campaign to mask attacks on our Constitutional rights while promoting their own Utopian agenda.

They desire a world where wealth and prosperity are abundantly available and evenly distributed. But nothing in the universe is equally distributed; not height, weight, melanin, academic abilities, artistic aptitude, creative genius or mechanical inclinations.

Today’s Utopians want free universal healthcare but keep driving the costs higher and higher while the care gets worse and worse. They want low-cost or free college education for today’s students who will end up paying for it tomorrow. They also promise jobs galore and high-tech employment for everyone, yet the market has no way to efficiently respond to this temporary, abnormal and artificial flood of competing job-seekers.

At the heart of the matter is an age-old collectivist vision delivered by government control. If you think I’ve gone overboard, read what the Utopian Robert Owen wrote in 1816:

“Society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal.”1

The reason Utopian dreams don’t work in the real world is because they don’t account for scarcity, human resourcefulness, compassion or commerce.

Human-beings are our only true source of wealth.

Wealth does not come from our state’s untapped natural resources or from state government. It does not come from our rivers, forests or land. These things become productive resources only through the innovation, creativity and genius of working people. Without the rich contributions of hard-working Oregonians, we would never have had lumber, crops, beef, concrete, wine, milk or cheese.

Only men and women can supply the creative genius to turn natural resources into usable goods that improve the well-being, quality and health in our lives. This means however, that Oregon must be willing to allow people to create and keep the rewards that flow from their voluntary engagement in the free-market system. Confiscating the fruits of a person’s labor will naturally remove their desire for work.

While this may sound like common-sense, I fear our governor has missed this point. The Democratic-socialist party’s legislative agenda includes enormous disincentives for productive labor, capital formation and investment.

History tells us that increasing a tax, like the “sin taxes” on inhalant products, cigars and cigarettes will decrease their consumption. Yet, no one asks what might happen to the productive industries for malt beverages and wine when taxes are applied to those products. Also, imposing higher taxes on personal, corporate, and out-of-state income will decrease the activities that produced that income, not the other way around. The same negative consequences will impact our transportation industries as higher boating fees, aviation, diesel, and gasoline fuel taxes are bandied about.

Lastly, increasing our property taxes is supposedly the price we have to pay to live in Oregon.

What’s left to tax or regulate out of existence? Ohh, yeah, …  our 2nd Amendment rights! The gunsmoke and mirrors gang is just getting started.

Their propaganda message is, “Oregon’s children are only safe in gun-free zones.” In other words, your home must become a gun-free zone. However, we know that gun control laws only work for law-abiding citizens, which by default means only law-breakers and criminals will own firearms.

Guns are not the biggest problem which citizens, and/or children, face with regard to their lives, health and safety. Have you seen the statistics for opioid overdoses or automobile fatalities? Recently, economist Antony Davies and political scientist James R. Harrigan, reported that Americans are artificially tied up in knots over violent crime—particularly crimes committed with “assault weapons.”

They note, “This concern, statistically speaking, is fairly irrational. You are far more likely to be killed by being beaten or stabbed than you are to be killed by any kind of rifle, ‘assault’ or otherwise.” Their timely podcast goes through the actual numbers, here.

Liberty and respect for the individual demands that we act in the interest of the individual – not in the interest of the state.

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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Saving Thousands of Millions

Oregon State Legislature sent this bulletin Tuesday, January 1, 2019 by devadmin

Johnson continued, “He that is extravagant will quickly become poor, and poverty will enforce dependence and invite corruption.”

Frugality, in the dictionary, is simply economy. For the individual this means exercising prudent techniques for saving so that resources are not wasted but used judiciously to serve the most appropriate hierarchy of needs without needing to beg or borrow.

For our state, the definition would apply; except, the sources of revenue would no longer be classified as voluntary contributions (begging or borrowing) but would become forced contributions through taxation and debt-bonding.

Likewise, the state that is extravagant or wasteful will quickly impoverish itself and its citizens. Additionally, in their poverty, the citizens will be forced into dependence and the state will experience corruption throughout its domain.

Let’s look at some numbers. During the 2015-17 biennium, Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services (DAS) processed nearly $8 billion worth of procurement services. That’s big money! That is 8,000 million dollars’ worth of goods and services. Wow! Especially when you consider that Oregon only has 4.1 million residents.

That’s right! Oregon spent 8,000 million dollars on 4.1 million people. That’s just under $2,000 of stuff for every man, women and child of every category, background, country of origin, make or model.  That’s just stuff; the total outlay for all goods, services, salaries, wages and benefits came to about $9,100 in 2016, on a per capita basis.

On the other-side of the accounting ledger Oregon only collected $2,700 in taxes on a per capita basis. This is what any normal person would call living beyond one’s means. The federal printing press barely helps reduce our overall shortfall, even though that contribution is an amazing 30% of all state revenue.

Recently, the Secretary of State’s (SOS) office auditors found Oregon missed opportunities to save 5 percent to 20 percent of the state’s procurement budget. That means Oregon missed the opportunity to save 1,600 million dollars ($1.6B) on state purchases.

The audit reveals that Oregon’s current procurement systems lack the information necessary for procurement specialists to effectively evaluate spending with regard to possible opportunities for cost savings.

Understandably, the DAS specialists buy lots of stuff for many disparate agencies. They purchase for Capital Finance and Facilities, Fleet Services, Operations and Maintenance, Building Security, Custodial, Landscape, Repair and Maintenance, Planning and Construction Management, IT, Real Estate Services, Interiors, Leasing, Land transactions, Surplus Property, and Enterprise Goods & Services.

This extraordinary range of goods and services crosses multiple agency boundaries and the state’s procurement services could be effectively streamlined if there existed a single data-store for this information. The audit found that of the $8 billion spent in procurements in 2015-17, the state only has purchase-level data for about 12.5% of the transactions, or roughly $1 billion.

What about the source level information on the other 87.5% of the state level procurements reviewed by the auditors? Obviously, the auditors found this to be subpar.

SOS Dennis Richardson’s office suggested that the statewide implementation of an eProcurement system should be implemented and would provide the additional data needed to perform a full spending analysis. It is no surprise that understanding the capital cost of an asset, including its full-life cycle costs – maintenance, operating and disposal costs, along with supplier bidding and contract opportunities could result in hundreds of millions in potential savings.

After reading this audit report, several small-government proponents in Oregon State Legislature called for swift procurement changes. Sen. Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer), issued a press-release stating, “the state needs to modernize its 1990s-era system. Oregon could have saved $1.6 billion had it previously implemented the system, meaning if Oregon succeeds in implementing OregonBuys ahead of the next biennium, the state could prevent the need for any new taxes being pushed to fill a supposed budget gap.”

Rep. Bill Post (R-Keizer), echoed those thoughts, “Had the system been previously implemented in the last biennium, it could have potentially saved billions of taxpayer dollars.”

My own statement was, “We should not be raising taxes until the government’s procurement system is fixed. Some in the partisan supermajority seem to view Oregonians as ATMs rather than constituents.”

Obviously, taking people’s hard-earned money away from their families and communities, only to push loads of cash into a broken vending machine of a government, is not only senseless, it is immoral. As a legislator, I have a duty to my constituents, and I will continue to be a strong voice for government accountability and change this upcoming session.

In an era of rising taxpayer dissatisfaction, higher expectations and rapidly changing economic conditions, high-performance sourcing, procurement, and supply chain management services are crucial to our state.

Our state’s ungainly combination of legacy systems, spreadsheets, email, and yellow sticky-notes has burdened taxpayers with unnecessary costs. Many of these problems can be relieved with advanced digital technologies for sourcing and procurement. The lack of technological integration and automation in our state is a legacy built over the past 30 years. It is time for leadership so that we can make Oregon great again.

It’s time for Governor Kate Brown to trim expenses, reduce unnecessary burdens and pursue budgetary and tax moderations. These steps would empower Oregon’s citizens to live within their means while enjoying the abundance that comes from the sweat of their own brow, the strength of their hands and the creativity and innovation of their minds.

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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Cultivate Liberty

How was your Independence Day Celebration?

You probably never gave a thought to Hillary’s crimes, the $19 trillion dollar national debt, local unemployment, the unbridled money printing schemes of the Federal Reserve, the bad science and policy oozing from every corner of the federal bureaucracy or whether your conversations were being recorded – Good for you!

Our day was full of fun and festivities. It included family, friends and friends of friends.  Our celebration, like America’s in general, was sidetracked by other details – the parade, decorations, food and drink, who picked up the sparklers, where’s the best fireworks show?

For Diane and I, our attention was also proudly divided between a love of America’s exceptional triumph in Liberty and a joyful celebration our first grandchild’s one-year birthday.

Others of you may have had equally worthy distractions and I caught myself wondering about the future and how I might infuse a realistic dose of Freedom’s requirements into our modern hectic lives.

John Adams wished for the same as he wrote to his wife, Abigail:

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

In this correspondence Adams is referring, interestingly enough, to July 2nd, not July 4th.

Why July 2nd? Adams knew that the real meat of the event happened with Richard Henry Lee’s resolution on July 2nd:

“Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

Even this Resolution was brought to the floor thirty days earlier, on June 7, 1776, for discussion and debate. I will argue that June 7th, July 2nd or July 4th are dates when Liberty rose to take the standard but Liberty had been cultivated in  hearts and minds for centuries.

Bushels of fruit do not magically spring into the marketplace.  Land must be acquired, cleared, prepared, planted, irrigated, nourished and protected. Then the crop has to be harvested, sorted, packaged, and freighted to distribution centers. Now, you might already be dreaming of fresh produce for your upcoming family picnic. However, your market must still put it on display, price it and sell it. Then, and only then, can you tootle over to the market, purchase, prepare, share and enjoy this bounty.

The same is true for our American concepts of Liberty, self-governance, individualism and the consent of the governed. These ideas need a lot of thought, preparation, watering and cultivation to bear fruit.

Unfortunately, we, in modern America, are a little too accustomed to shopping at Costco. Americans expect Liberty to be stocked in a never ending supply of jumbo-sized, shrink-wrapped packages.  “But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.  It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government.”[1]

Liberty takes effort – a lot of effort. Let us never forget that our Freedom belongs to us.

What are we willing to do today to support our Tree of Liberty? – Clear, till, plant, weed, water, protect or distribute?

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men,
undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”
–Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

[1]  Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

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Sure Guardians of Liberty

Last week, Diane and I joined with hundreds of others to hear KrisAnne Hall in Prineville, OR.

KrisAnne is an attorney and former prosecutor who travels the country teaching the Constitution and the history that gave us our founding documents. She spent all day (in three different meetings and settings) connecting a vast array of historical events and painting a poignant picture. Her presentation did a wonderful job of “connecting the dots.” She used history to powerfully stress the fact that ideas have consequences.

It reminded me of the famous saying, “Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.” (Mt. 7:17) And so it is with ideas – good ideas produce good results and bad ideas, bad.

Today, more and more people are wondering about the limits of government because they are challenging the bad ideas that come from big government. This is good news. Our culture needs people who are willing to consider these things.

FDR and his “New Deal” brought the Socialist/Progressive ideas to Main Street America. He promoted a big, fatherly government watching over its citizens, regulating their economic affairs, protecting them from fear, want, and hunger while insuring their “general welfare.” During the Great Depression these ideas sounded promising. However, across America today we see the destructive results of government overreach.

America was built on the solid foundation of constitutionally limited government, individual liberty, and free market economies.

The prevailing sentiment today is overwhelmingly in support of regaining America’s traditional approach to self-governance, family and freedom.

The small minority of people spouting today’s confused claims for socialistic betterment can only do so with other people’s resources and money. This  is where the average person awakens. It always happens when you feel someone’s hands in your own pockets.

Yet, the minority keeps claiming it will be better if we would just let the controllers control us. I disagree. The evidence is in and the results stink.

KrisAnne gave one example that particularly hit home, since I am on the campaign trial in Oregon’s 28th Senate District.  She quoted James Madison’s words,

“the State Legislatures will jealously and closely watch the operations of this Government, and be able to resist with more effect every assumption of power, than any other power on earth can do;”

It was Madison’s sincere belief that the State Legislatures were “to be sure guardians of the people’s liberty.”

Although quotes like this seem outmoded because they were made 230 years ago they are still relevant and directly applicable.

Take ObamaCare for example. We don’t need to put the House, Senate and Presidency into the hands of Republicans to repeal it because we can void it at our state’s legislature.

The same goes for the recent attempts to destroy the clean energy hydroelectric facilities on the Klamath River. This issue does not rightfully belong to FERC, Senators Merkley, Wyden, Feinstein, or Boxer but rather it belongs to the people of Oregon and California.

Chief Justice John Roberts told us as much in his opinion for the first ObamaCare Supreme Court challenge – NFIB v. Sebelius. Justice Roberts made it clear and he firmly reiterated the idea that our state governments have the duty to defend the powers they retained under the U.S. Constitution.

Justice Roberts wrote, “In the typical case we look to the States to defend their prerogatives by adopting ‘the simple expedient of not yielding’ to federal blandishments when they do not want to embrace the federal policies as their own.”

Justice Roberts then added , “The States are separate and independent sovereigns. Sometimes they have to act like it.”

As your next State Senator, I will be proud to defend Oregon’s prerogatives, while jealously and closely watching for, and resisting, every assumption of power by any agency or body that has not been delegated that authority under our US Constitution. <See more at ElectDennis.com>

Oregon has a way to go, but we will prevail!

My thanks to KrisAnne Hall and all of those across Oregon, and in Prineville, who realize that “We the People” are the solution to Oregon’s problems.

“If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves.”
– Thomas Jefferson

 

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It’s True – I Did

Last week a local newspaper made note of the fact that I filed as a candidate for Oregon’s Senate District #28. If you haven’t heard the news, it’s true – I did.

The ideals and traditions that have made America great will be the same principles grounding my candidacy. These are the principles for Life, Liberty, and the freedom of our individual pursuits.

Allowing Oregon’s citizens the right to work toward these ideals will be my goal. Pursuing these freedoms will do more to help Oregon than any of the results oozing from progressive legislators.

Several of the future economic deformations headed toward Oregon families are: **

  • more unemployment due to minimum wage increases;
  • increased tax penalty for the working poor who bump up through the state and federal income tax tables (which are not adjusted for inflation);
  • annual increases scheduled for agricultural pumping costs;
  • increases in household electric rates exceeding $190 per year;
  • grid distortions caused by the green energy fleecing of Oregon taxpayers.

Our American traditions are being lambasted, altered and undermined by collectivist ideals. These arbitrary and capricious ideals mask the nature of modern governments.

The history of mankind is filled with stories of oligarchs, tyrants, and dictators. Their arbitrary forms of government have been the general rule. Restrained government is our American exception.

Oregon needs a Rebirth of Liberty – the liberty and spirit that embodied our American Institutions. As Americans, living in Oregon, we can use the elements from our past and return to a system that will protect our future.

These elements are well known. They show themselves in our courts and town halls. They weave through our neighborhoods and blossom in our relationships. They are what remains of our nation’s individualism, voluntarism, constitutionalism, government by law, representative government, limited government, natural rights, moral order, private property, thrift, industry, and competition. Unfortunately, these enduring principles and American traditions have been chased from history.

These principles comprise what our founding fathers meant by their use of the word “liberal.” They meant “liberal” as in “liberated.” They birthed the tradition of representative government, self-governance and individual Liberty. This is the only legitimate replacement for the historical authoritarian tradition.

The Founders did away with the hierarchical political values brought from Europe. Their desire was to start the American form of government on an obvious (but never before tried) idea about dispersed control. They started with equality among people and finished with active consent as government’s limiting boundary.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These are not new thoughts. They should be well known to all American’s and anyone who has ever dreamed of coming to America.

Yet, the newspaper I mentioned earlier identifies me as one who is a, “prolific writer with a pretty easy-to-find track record of strong anti-government views.”

They ask their readers, “Is this the right person to become the legislative ‘face’ in Salem?”

What do you think?

  • Do you still admire our Nation’s Founders?
  • Do you believe in Liberty over Security?
  • Do your believe in fighting for your Rights?
  • Are you an “anti-government extremist”?

All of the Founders of our great nation would have been characterized as “anti-government extremists.” I am proud to be associated with such good company. But they were not “anti-government” they were anti-authoritarian. They, in fact, created a historic enterprise; a government that was “a more perfect union.”

They each had a prolific thought-life that has been the admiration of generations. They were not afraid of picking up a quill and scribbling out their ideas. They were so committed to their treason that those who signed declared, “[F]or the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Today’s progressive movement has thrown aside our American tradition in favor of a Utopian dream fulfilled by big government authoritarians. To the dismay of liberty loving patriots all over Oregon, the progressive movement is wielding it’s majority with thoughtless abandon.

Together we must return to the ideals that guided the men & women who fought the tyranny of the ruling power during the late 1700’s. Men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams and women like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis-Warren and Penelope Barker.

My hope is that our generation will provide the catalyst for the Rebirth of Liberty. Join with me and renew your commitment to Oregon and America. Together, we can, “mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

** I will explore these bulleted issues over the upcoming weeks…
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Government Bias Corrupts

A recent link from Dennis Prager’s, Prager University Instagram account spawned some thoughts that are worth sharing.

In this 10 second teaser, Prager paints government as the rain cloud which provides the water for the land and crops. This quick graphic also shows roots springing up. The implication is that these roots are weeds, or the corrupt entanglements of crony-capitalism, rather than beneficial crops. [See complete video here]

Like the water cycle in our natural world, the rain water coming from Prager’s government cloud originates elsewhere. The question to be asked is, where does this bounty originate?

  • Does it come from only the richest reservoirs?
  • Does it originate from only the largest lakes and salty oceans?
  • Does it evaporate from our yards, lawns and tea-cups?

The rampant socialism flooding through Washington, DC and our state capital (Salem, OR) promotes the idea that only the wealthy will pay the burden. Yet, we all know that while large lakes release enormous volumes of water vapor they also have the capacity to capture equally large volumes of the returning rain.

By comparison your tea-cup doesn’t have much capacity.

The most insidious part of this equation is that while government pretends neutrality, it is always biased. Government is always biased because it is made, “of the people, by the people and for the people.” People are biased–you and I, your senator, your representative, your governor and your president.

This is part of our humanness. We each have our own likes, dislikes, dreams and preferences. We have been gifted with our own natural tendencies, inclinations, skill-sets and wholesome individuality. This is not a bad thing.

This conforms nicely with our Founders love of individual liberty and natural law. They wrote extensively about everyone deserving fair and equal treatment under the law. Their era was filled with robust discussions regarding methods for ensuring equality through public participation and constitutional limits on power and authority.

Our constitutionally federated republic was designed to set people free and to constrain excessive government control.

Without Constitutional constraints on government, we face the naked possibility that “might makes right”.  We can witness this across the US, at every level of municipal, county, state and federal government. The most obvious examples surface in legislation for healthcare, minimum wage, solar and wind energy subsidies, climate change and education.

Former US congressman and budget director for the Reagan administration, David Stockman, insists that economic controls are nothing but a malignant cancer resulting from statist ideology and shameless pursuits for political power.

In Oregon, our raincloud has been loaded with highly combustible energy policies, restrictive gun-control measures and minimum wage boondoggles. Unfortunately, Oregonians will be paying the price for this destructive rain.

How can I make this claim?

It’s easy, follow the money. Look at whose cups are getting filled.

For example, with the minimum-wage, Democrats claim that higher prices and low wages are the two things crushing those earning minimum wage salaries. Do they think raising the minimum wage will lower prices? If prices do rise (to cover the increases in wages) will the poor be exempt from the new higher cost of a burger and fries? Does this solve the cost-of-living conundrum? How many low-wage earners will lose their jobs as businesses strive to control costs?

Additionally, for all the media time spent on social justice and wage-inequality, this legislation makes wage inequality the “Law of the Land.” The progressive voting block, centered in Portland, gets enormous wage increases compared to those elsewhere in the state. Why? What happened to the supposed concern for “equal pay for equal work?”

Portlanders, in the Governor’s “Showpiece” Tier will race to a mandated minimum hourly wage of $12.00, by 2018. While the “Peripheral” Oregon Tier will not receive that wage until 2020, and the poor folks on the “Frontier” won’t arrive in Nirvana until 2021.

This is not humanitarian equality, this is nothing but pandering and vote-seeking. Government gets the bounty while the lowest person on the totem-pole gets sacked.

Stockman documents in his book, The Triumph of Politics, “Public policy [is] not a high-minded nor even ideological endeavor, but simply a potpourri of private interests parading in governmental dress.”

Government cannot accomplish what it claims without 1) gathering resources, 2) feeding itself first (with 60% of the resources gathered), and 3), designating a special-interest group for the remainder. Yet, just like the rainfall, the moisture must come from somewhere.

These policies will not help Oregonians. These are gross misrepresentations masked in humanitarian language and masquerading as some glorious fount of governmental blessing.

“The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to [equality.]” —Alexander Hamilton, 1775

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