What Gordon Smith would have done for Oregon schools and jobs... (Hint: Nothing!)
Kari Chisholm
Yesterday, the Oregon Legislature completed its work in closing the giant $855 million budget hole for the last few months of this biennium. How did they do it? From the O:
To fill the $855 million hole, lawmakers agreed to spend about $405 million of the federal stimulus money set aside for Oregon, cobbled together about $140 million from a variety of state agencies and cut about $310 million from agency budgets.
Without that federal stimulus package, we would have been in an even deeper hole:
"Without that federal stimulus money, colleagues, we'd be closing down our schools in May. We'd be closing prisons," said Rep. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, co-chairman of the committee that writes the budget.
And it's not just schools and prison funding. Stimulus dollars are now flowing into Oregon - to create and protect jobs. In a statement, Senator Jeff Merkley noted:
Earlier this week, Oregon received the first chunk of transportation funding from the Recovery Act: $75 million to put people to work modernizing public transportation systems in rural and urban areas. The state also received $22 million for Byrne Justice Assistance Grant programs to fund local crime prevention initiatives and keep police officers on the streets.
Which all leads to an interesting question... How would Gordon Smith have voted - if he were still a U.S. Senator (and not a lobbyist)?
It seems that all of his campaign talk of bipartisanship and Obama-love was a bunch of hooey. From the East Oregonian:
So, would he have voted for the recently-debated stimulus package?"Not a chance," Smith said.
Good ol' Gordon Smith even managed to trot out one of his favorite tropes (bottled up during the campaign season, of course):
"The whole predicate of the stimulus package is that government can manage the inevitable cycles of supply and demand," Smith said. "If that were true, we would still call the Russians 'Soviets.'"Smith worries about a creep to socialism. ...
"Congress, in all of its folly, is a reflection of the American people," Smith said. "Right now, the American people are moving hard left."
Sorry, Gordo, it only feels hard left because we've been going so hard right for so long - thanks to you and your pals.
Good luck with the lobbying gig. Send us a postcard from Brussels, would ya? And feel free to stay awhile. We're doing just fine without ya.
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connect with blueoregon
Mar 6, '09
Kari says: Sorry, Gordo, it only feels hard left because we've been going so hard right for so long
Hey Kari, some numbers for your elucidation. I don't know how to do tables here, so the key for below is:
Year / Adjusted US Govt Spending / %GDP / Adjusted US Govt Spending per capita
2000 $1.208T 12.3% $4293 2001 $1.291T 12.7% $4543 2002 $1.418T 13.5% $4942 2003 $1.524T 13.9% $5259 2004 $1.590T 13.6% $5434 2005 $1.688T 13.5% $5712 2006 $1.808T 13.7% $6065 2007 $1.839T 13.3% $6114 2008 $2.000T 14.0% $6590
If this is 'hard right', I shudder to think of what 'moving left will bring'... but then, I already have an idea:
2009 $2.979T 20.8% $9729
YOWSA!
NOTE: Adjusted US Govt Spending = Total US Govt Spending less DOD and Interest expense
(All data from http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/)
Mar 6, '09
hey - alcatoss
How much of that run up in spending over the last seven years was for the wasteful little adventure in Iraq? doesn't sound very lefty to me.
12:34 a.m.
Mar 7, '09
Alcatross -- I'll take your word for it that your spending numbers are minus Defense spending. But why?
Mar 7, '09
Minus DOD because providing for the defense and protection of a bunch of States united as one is actually one of the few things a Federal Govt is suppose to do, whether hard right or hard left.
Gotta laugh at the "hard right" language regarding Bushie II. The bottom fell out of his support because pragmatic people across the country finally realize he was a big government politician like the rest of the political class in DC. A Big govt republican equal's < 30% approval rating. Remember, Bush had as high of approval ratings the first few weeks as Obama is enjoying.
Mar 7, '09
jonnie: Obama has as high a approval rating as Bush did? Don't think so. If memory serves me right Bush's approval rating wasn't anything to write home about until after 9-11 when everybody rallied around him in a time of national crisis. (totally unlike the dead-ender conservatives attitude toward Obama during our current republican created economic crisis)
Of course Bush was hard right. When Bush appeared at the CPAC convention last year the crowd went wild and chanted "Four more years, four more years, four more years!" Gotta love the way they dissed him at CPAC.
Bush is a Conservative %100 born and bread. It's too late to disown him. He is THE archetype of the failure that is Conservatism. They all say they want smaller government but when they get in power nobody actually reduces it. Why? Because they don't really want to. They just want your votes and know that if they spout off just the right code words and phrases, not matter how inane and unworkable, they will get your vote just like a trained dolphin gets a raw fish as a reward for a trick well done.
Let's face reality. Enormous tax breaks targeted to the already wealthy have not helped created jobs for the greater than 95% of Americans who make less than $250,000 a year.
The supposed economic growth of the last 8 years was simply people moving money around from one place to another and hoping you would eventually find a "Greater Fool" that would pay you more for your assets (stocks, houses etc) than the over-inflated price you paid for them. We have run out of greater fools.
And that 'capitalism, unfettered by regulation' idea hasn't worked out to well either. The Maddoff ponzi scheme just shows us that nothing has changed since the Enron scandal. The whole economy was a Maddoff-Enron ponzi scheme.
Hello conservatives, I've got news for you. When there are enormous amounts of money involved, some people will steal it if nobody is watching and they think they can get away with it. That's not conservative or liberal, it's reality.
Conservatives have been brainwashed by their media into magical thinking: "If only." If only we had tax cuts for the top 2% of wage earners everything would be perfect. If only we had small government everything would be perfect. If only we had no regulation or rules everything would be perfect. If only everyone carried a gun everything would be perfect.
Until conservatives give up their Ryandian utopian fantasies and start dealing with the real world their numbers will continue to shrink until the republican party will be small enough to drown in a bath tub.
This rant has gone on too long and I've not had enough coffee yet this morning but, in closing.........
The biggest consumers of porn per capita in the US are the Bible Belt States and Utah.
Hilarious.
Mar 7, '09
Kari asks: I'll take your word for it that your spending numbers are minus Defense spending. But why?
To keep people like 'columbia' from asking: How much of that run up in spending over the last seven years was for the wasteful little adventure in Iraq?
Mar 7, '09
columbia says: How much of that run up in spending over the last seven years was for the wasteful little adventure in Iraq? doesn't sound very lefty to me.
Hey columbia: none of it...
See NOTE: Adjusted US Govt Spending = Total US Govt Spending less DOD and Interest expense
So you better listen more closely...
Mar 7, '09
UL - tis true.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/Gallup_Poll-Approval_Rating-George_W_Bush.png
The media cheerleaders think at 60% AR for Obama ='s a new paradigm, but Bushie II had similar numbers his first few weeks of his Administration.
Bush was never hard right. Look at the Federal expenditures. He's a big government politcian who happens to be a republican, small r.
We've never had unfettered regulations. The SEC fully knew of Madoff, only they, being career bureaucrats didn't want to stir the pot. Bushie II tried to increase regulation on Freddie/Fannie but Dodd and Frank would have nothing to do with it. Raines, Gorelick and others were making too much money and the lobbyists were flushing the D's coffer's with money.
What's hilarious is the of all people Frank has had more to do with our mess than any one person and he frames himself as a person to clean up the mess...by making taxpayers bail out speculators, house fippers and people who live outside their means? Wow. If this is the new anti-Raydian philosophy, it'll be a non-starter.
I'd expect as much of you to quote that porn study - because D's rarely understand science while proporting to be the science party. That study was based on ONE cable company and provided data by zip code. Nonetheless the data was summarized by state. The Utah data showed that 1.69 people per 1,000 ordered from that company. That means only 5,000 people out of Utah's 2.7M people ordered from that company and the "science" party takes this a Utah being the biggest consumer of Porn? Wow! The porn industry as a whole is much more rampant in Oregon than Utah, to say the other is well, anti-scientific and to use that fatally flawed "study" and call it science, is well very Progressive.
Hilarious. But the left keeps patting themselves on the back as the "science" party.
1:17 p.m.
Mar 7, '09
Johnnie --
So, by your logic, does that mean all "defense" spending is exempt from budget discussions? Must we go back to the 50s era of calling highway and higher ed spending "national defense" bills? And is there no such thing as a wasteful defense expenditure?
Are you also arguing that, as a matter of principle, that anything the left and right agrees on is exempt from being counted as part of the budget?
What's wrong with just counting everything? A budget should be a fiscal planning document - make the political arguments elsewhere.
1:36 p.m.
Mar 7, '09
"Minus DOD because providing for the defense and protection of a bunch of States united as one is actually one of the few things a Federal Govt is suppose to do, whether hard right or hard left."
I know that, like Rush, many conservatives don't actually understand what's in the US Constitution. But does the phrase "promote the general welfare" ring a bell?
1:42 p.m.
Mar 7, '09
It's really not smart to attack something on the basis of poor science--and then fuck up the science yourself. Unless you know that all 2.7M Utahans order cable service from that company, your use of 2.7M as the denominator makes little sense.
Now, if you want to lodge criticisms you can assert that this one cable company enjoys a customer base that doesn't represent the general cross section of the public, or that cable internet customers represent a small portion of the total porn consumed in the US, you'd at least be raising viable points.
But if 1.69 of 1,000 customers in Utah consume porn, and that rate is higher than in any other state (and I assume the cable company is active in every state), it's entirely valid to say that Utah consumes the most porn. What's NOT scientific is asserting that Oregon and Washington have "way" more porn--without any evidence to support you at all. What sources of porn are you saying they're missing?
Mar 7, '09
Murkily has done nothing for schools. How much of the stimulus is targeted for fixing old Oregon bridges that may fail ? I bet none of it is. Light rail pork and privacy invading GPS car schemes mostly-the sustainability industrial complex. As far as the creeping towards socialism goes we have a more polite word for that..."parnerships".
Mar 7, '09
Don't know if it means anything but the O reports Gordon Smith didn't attend Dorchester and the GOP is moving the state HQ to Portland.
Mar 7, '09
Don't know if it means anything but the O reports Gordon Smith didn't attend Dorchester and the GOP is moving the state HQ to Portland.
Mar 8, '09
Posted by: DanOregon | Mar 7, 2009 9:10:24 PM
Don't know if it means anything but the O reports Gordon Smith didn't attend Dorchester and the GOP is moving the state HQ to Portland.
Should help BO. If lobbing a 'tail at the HQ is as easy as trolling here, why not? Personally I will picket the building every day he runs, for anything, proclaiming, "End Mormon Child Abuse", "No Sanctuary for Mormon Baby-nappers", and "Separate the Church from this State...At the Neck!"
Mar 9, '09
Anyone that can make policy with their head and not their other squishy bits will realize that the best thing that one could do for Oregon schools is to legalize marijuana. The prison savings alone- forget the revenue/taxation side- would solve all current school funding ills. Add that revenue and you could have an educational system that is the envy of the world.
No, you'd rather "send a message" to...who, exactly? The relevance for this topic is that what you fault Gordo for is only a more advanced case of the same disease. Neither can make policy without sticking their finger in the wind. It is hard to stomach Dems triumphalism, as your better policies are simply a reflection of your better constituency. Rep. Cannon says it himself, on his post, that it was "hard" and only accomplished with the support of constituents, to stand up for Dem principles on the budget and education. Are you saying Smith is less principled? He's just pandering to a more banal constituency.
This is just more of the normal kids pointing fingers and laughing at the retards. I wonder why real progressives can't make it through two posts without starting to spit bile.
Mar 9, '09