Celebrity Death Match: Sheketoff vs. McIntire
That's right, BlueOregonians, on Friday our very own Chuck Sheketoff will be debating the godfather of Measure 5, Don McIntire. Chuck, who runs the Oregon Center for Public Policy by day, will be representing the forces of goodness and light. Don, who preceded Bill Sizemore as the state's anti-tax, anti-government kingpin, is back at it again - advocating ever more stringent limits on public investment.
To catch the debate, head on over to the Portland City Club event on Friday - held at the Governor Hotel. Doors open at 11:30, gloves come off at 12:15 p.m. More info here.
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March 17, 2005
Posted in open discussion. |
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Mar 17, '05
I want to know if Kari's taking bets on this. And is he giving odds?
Mar 18, '05
Bah. If Pottymouth McIntire was serious about lowering taxes, he'd start a swear jar and donate the proceeds to the state treasury. It'd add millions to revenue. Especially if you press him for straight answers rather than his standard brand of "know-nothing" budget hype.
Of course, I could just be cynical. After all, he does seem to have given up the habit of cursing at elected officals over live mics...
9:19 a.m.
Mar 18, '05
Yikes.
Will Sheketoff be wearing a garlic necklace and be armed with a crucifix? Yeesh.
Mar 19, '05
Bah! I ask Kari for odds and he doesn't give em! Too worried about corn dogs and basketball.
I think that Kari's starting to resemble that blowhard at the Trib who won't follow up on a bet.
Mar 19, '05
If you actually examine the measures proposed by Sizemore and McIntire there is decidedly more temperate and reasoned approach by Mr. McIntire. I don't care much for the goodness and darkness characterizations because they imply the lack of infallibility of the forces of goodness, kind of like a king is infallible. The Good American approach is to doubt anything offered by anyone in power regardless of their claim to be the sole source of goodness; that is, all men (and women too) in power are evil.
2:32 p.m.
Mar 19, '05
Sorry, Roro, I thought your question was a rhetorical one. You wanted real odds on.... what? I'm not sure how you score a philosophical debate. Even you could, we'd spend all day arguing about the scoring system.
Anyway, having listened to much of the discussion via the delayed broadcast on OPB, it sounded to me like McIntire spent the entire time alternating between Limbaugh-esque rightie aphorisms and mismatched and mismashed stats.
Meanwhile, Sheketoff actually put together a cogent argument based on some core values, a clean understanding of the history and the research, and a clear-eyed view of what's possible and what's not.
Far from being an apologist for biggumbint, Chuck took the realistic approach: there are services we want, let's discuss how we're going to pay for them.
I'd call it a three-round TKO.
5:29 p.m.
Mar 19, '05
After hearing the program, I have to say that I was disappointed to hear the same retoric from both sides that we have been hearing for the 17 years I've been in Oregon.
Yes, I believe that government truly helps people, and should not be strangled. But I also believe that many of the criticisms of lack of discipline in the legislature are well founded.
We need new ideas, like the Governor's attempt to move us away from current service level budgeting, not the same old retoric.
Mar 19, '05
SB 905 and SCR 6 are attempts to name things for a Californian named Ronald Reagan.
If there was truly an attempt to cut waste (rather than people crusading against things they dislike rather than promoting what they are specifically FOR), we would hear outrage about those renaming bills. And it is not likely McIntire would ever support laying off people who accept petition signatures because that would crimp his lifestyle.
One Senate staffer I talked with said his boss prob. signed on as a favor to another Senator but wouldn't support spending any money on the project.
Printing legislation and holding hearings is not spending money?
Not to mention proposals to regulate administrative salaries or (gasp!) even have a ratio that no legislative staffer could make more than, say 3 times what a legislator makes. Have you ever seen the salaries of the Speaker's Chief of Staff and press secretary? That would be true discussion of cutting government spending.
Most folks don't understand things like "current service budgets" but do understand specific expenditures/ cuts.
That is why Jackie Winters taking a stand last session that some cuts were justified and others would never leave her committee because she thought they were too deep is a better person than Minnis or McIntire who just talk vague "wasteful government" rhetoric but are unwilling to publish a list of actual cuts.
Mar 20, '05
I was there for the entire event and found it to be anything but a revealing or a TKO for either. Calling it so is pure blind deaf and dumb bias. Just because you like what an individual says does not make TKO. Especially when you may have been wearing narrow minded ear plugs while you were supposedly listening.
McIntire was on the usual message in which recent votes show aligns with many Oregonians, even in Multnomah County. M28, M30, M34, M36, M37 I don't see Sheketoff making any progress and certainly did not score well in that direction during the event. The topic was a spending cap but Sheketoff recycled M30 rhetoric which Kari enjoys so much he feels a TKO occurred. Very weak perspective.
On the reality side I found one Sheketoff position to be the ultra recycling of counter productive spin. He falsely stated, (and I suggest knowingly) that if we not had the kicker we would have X billions more today to help with our shortage. No one but the intellectually dishonest believes that.
In one of the later broadcasts of Seven Days, David Sarasohn and other blues on the panel discussed the need to rid our state of the kicker. They moved through the discussion to a point where Sarasohn inadvertently put the brakes on when he said, "Well the truth is if there were no kicker all of that money would have spent". When every member of the panel voiced or nodded in agreement there was then a silent pause, indicating they all recognized at the same time how that just blew apart their entire previous discussion, and the topic immediately changed.
I also found it a weak moment for Chuck when an audience member asked him if he agreed with the governor saying we spent too much money in the 90's. Expectedly he disagreed with the Governor as Sheketoff is a bit out there, viewing no level of spending too high. With so much of our tax reform discussion ushered along with "too much money in good times and not enough in bad" how does Chuck's stance wash? Not with Kari but the greater debate.
I just do not think Sheketoff moves the McIntire camp with his approach. He obviously impresses Kari but is that his goal?
Mar 20, '05
How about this for Quote of the Century from the Oregonian story: State government is "too many people doing too little for too much," McIntire said.
Mar 21, '05
Sheketoff came of with (and used perhaps too many times)this yawner.
Mcintire (conservatives)is
"Frozen in the ice of his indifference"
3:31 p.m.
Mar 21, '05
I feel compelled to respond to the misinformation from Richard.
If he listened carefully, or took the time to listen carefully to the on-line version, he'd know I did say that had we saved the kicker in a rainy day fund instead of squandering it mostly on the wealthiest 20 percent in our society, we would have almost had enough to get through the 2001-03 shortfall. I also mentioned that with regard to today's revenue shortfall we would have more money without raising any individual income taxes if corporations paid taxes at the level they paid in the mid-1970s - about 15 percent of Oregon's income taxes, vs. 5 percent today.
The issue with the kicker isn't whether it would have been "spent" but whether it could or should have been spent on a rainy day fund, vs. spent on a tax cut that primarily benefitted people who were getting the most out of the economic boom.
I have no intention of moving "the McIntire camp" with my arguments. The McIntire camp is obviously closed-minded and immoveable.
Also, the quote (from Roosevelt's nomination speech for his second term) I read and then partially repeated a few times was "Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference." I did repeatedly note that Mr. McIntire is, and wants Oregon, "frozen in the ice of its own indifference" by making the effects of a recession permanent with his spending limit.
Last, and certainly not least, "viewing no level of spending too high" is without merit. In fact, I noted early in my talk that Oregon needs to continue to work to become more efficient and save money, and cited an example of that this biennium (the smart buy program). I challenge anyone to find where I have ever said (at the City Club or elsewhere) that no level of spending is too high.
Mar 22, '05
The McIntire camp is obviously closed-minded and immoveable.
<h2>Pot: "Hey, Kettle, you're black!"</h2>