Obama Picks Oregon’s “Your Tax Dollars At Work” Guy
Chuck Sheketoff
President Barack Obama recently announced that he appointed former Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS) Director Kevin Concannon Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services in the US Department of Agriculture. That means Kevin will be the top official in charge of the Food Stamp Program, now technically called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) under legislation Congress passed last year. (I’m not a fan of window-dressing legislation that changes the names of long standing programs, and I suspect I will not be alone in referring to the program as the Food Stamp Program for many years to come.)
Once confirmed by the Senate, Kevin will be in charge of leading President Obama’s effort to reduce hunger in America and improve nutrition for our kids.
Kevin’s a life-long public servant who never lost his charming Maine accent. When the 1993 legislative session extended into August, Kevin had the chutzpah to stand up to then-Oregon House Speaker Larry Campbell when he threatened to shut down the state government, putting DHS clients at risk.
But what I remember most about Kevin is that he really understood the need to teach Oregonians about the important role of tax dollars in the lives and economy of Oregonians. That’s why he’s a perfect fit for the Obama team.
In a DHS newsletter article in June 1994 titled “Human Resources Dollars at Work” (PDF; we now call them “human services” to avoid confusion with personnel policy types), Kevin urged state and local government employees and those private sector employers (for profit and nonprofit alike) who are reliant on state and federal human services funding to educate the public about the fact that their services are provided to Oregonians with tax dollars.
Over the years I’ve told dozens of audiences about the story Kevin tells in the article about how he educated another parent watching a soccer game about the role of Medicaid dollars in the economy.
Kevin concludes by challenging the DHS workforce and others to join him in becoming “a mobile, living billboard reminding friends and acquaintances of [government’s] powerful privatizations, partnerships and pass-throughs” of tax dollars.
That’s just the job President Obama needs Kevin to do at USDA if the President wants to be successful in restoring trust in government and the public’s understanding of the important role that government plays in our lives each day.
 |
More Recent Posts | |
Albert Kaufman |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
Kari Chisholm |
Final pre-census estimate: Oregon's getting a sixth congressional seat |
Albert Kaufman |
Polluted by Money - How corporate cash corrupted one of the greenest states in America |
Guest Column |
|
Albert Kaufman |
Our Democrat Representatives in Action - What's on your wish list? |
Kari Chisholm |
|
Guest Column |
|
Kari Chisholm |
|
connect with blueoregon
Apr 27, '09
Well, if Obama wants it, then we sure as hell better do it.
All hail the messiah!
Apr 27, '09
Three years ago I was asked to write a program that would falisfy data sent to the USDA about DHS management of the FS program. I refused and was terminated. The personnel head stood there with a copy of the employee handbook, and told me that the rights in the handbook could be withdrawn, "for mission critical reasons". DHS directors have made backroom deals to cover mismanagement and fraud in the agency for years.
I waited three years so a) they wouldn't see everything as a potential lawsuit, b) we would have a new administration, and c) we would have two receptive Senators. Now, BHO makes a DHS administrator the final arbiter. I was STUPID to work within the system! I should have hired a personal injury lawyer and said "sweet fuck all that he'll be taking taxpayer dollars", or caused a major crisis at the workplace that would have gotten news coverage. If I had had 1/2 a brain, I would have sent everyone in the FS database a xmas card saying, "this is DHS' idea of data security".
Did you know that blacklisting is only illegal with unions? Did you know that DHS maintains one of whistleblowers? Yeah, I know, I'm going to have to produce a copy. Fine. Hope you can read it though the gore.
Apr 27, '09
Is this the same guy who presided over the DHS debacle of going hopelessly into the red in 2006 and 2007?
Apr 27, '09
http://harrisondailytimes.com/articles/2009/04/27/news/doc49f5e2582256f533475629.txt
This guy?
Apr 27, '09
See all the comments on "sports welfare" and the "Portland has a" effect. We're like old whores. It doesn't matter we're being used; we're supposed to be flattered by the attention!
I used to hate seeing multi-million dollar second "homes" built in wilderness areas, all around the country. This shows me the way to be proud. They may be built on the bones of my dead arborial cousins, but, hey...those are OREGON trees!
So, I guess they don't do the usual backgrounder on candidates at his level. I assume they wouldn't want all the underhandedness with contractors (google CSG "Client Server Group", Portland, DHS) coming out. What about the way DHS sidesteps leg by declaring a requisition to be "critical to core DHS functioning"? Is he going to do that with the Congress?
He is hopeful in one respect. Oregon DHS has pioneered the concept and implementation of a policy for removing a child from the parents that, bottom line, makes money for DHS on a per kid basis. Couple that with the continuing trend to criminalize any undesirable behavior, and you can take most peoples' kids away! Imagine it on a national scale...
Apr 27, '09
Apr 27, '09
Larry, as a young person working in the Forest Service,I literally SAW the blacklist kept by the Ranger at Detroit Ranger District. I marched in and demanded he show it to me and he did. Ack. You are not completely in left field. "Do not hire" lists are absolutely de rigeur, and administrators break laws of workers rights by talking to each other all the time. They feel they have the right to. THe worst are attorneys and doctors who feel entitled. It's interesting to be a confidentiality professional and hear these people do as they like from the position of their pedagogical mystique
Apr 27, '09
Hey Chuck - food "stamps" have not been used in going close to a decade now. THey have been using a debit-style card. It's one thing to be resistant to the renaming that seems to take up a lot of key-level administrator time: but you may cause yourself to appear as an old fogey and wildly out of touch with the bedizened recipients of that program if you refuse to update your language at least one generation!!
4:15 p.m.
Apr 27, '09
Kurt, you are wrong on two points. First, if you either knew state government or read the President's announcement you would see that he wasn't even in Oregon then. Second, there was not a debacle that was presided over -- increased demand for public services that exceed the authorized budget is not the fault of a DHS director.
You are obviously over your head when it comes to making constructive criticism of government. Get a new job.
4:20 p.m.
Apr 27, '09
rw - I am well aware of the Oregon Trail electronic benefits card...but up until last October the program still had the name "Food Stamp Program" even though actual stamps were no longer being used. It is sorta like people saying "dial this telephone number" long after dials have been off phones, or calling CD's "albums."
see http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/Default.htm ("As of Oct. 1, 2008, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the new name for the federal Food Stamp Program.")
Apr 27, '09
Chuck, your skin is a little thin these days. I clearly was asking a question. Whomever presided over the DHS spending spree in 2006-2007 spent money when times were good. This was due to a completely inept managment structure in place at DHS, not as you postulate, increased demands for services.
Perhaps if you ever ventured outside the progressive think tank embryo you might understand the non-to-subtle difference.
However, thanks for answering my question that this appointee was not invovlved in the aforementioned problem.
5:03 p.m.
Apr 27, '09
Kurt, my skin isn't thin, I just have never had much taste for broad stroke attacks with no substance such as "the DHS spending spree" and "This was due to a completely inept managment structure in place at DHS." Did DHS spend any money inappropriately or not authorized? What documentation do you have that its management structure was "completely inept?"
Frankly, as someone who's been involved with the agency for 17 years (starting during the time of Kevin Concannon), the current DHS director is the best we've ever had -- most accountable, most effective at bringing about change and managing the largest state agency and serving the vulnerable.
Apr 27, '09
OK folks: Chuck is always right.
Chuck, I'm telling you what the down and out feel like when people like you show clearly they are far out of touch with THEIR daily reality via verbiage. No kidding, pal. They parse the language of the well-employed for any signs of connection or disconnect. I was simply making a humorous observation, a basketball-tossing of the elbow.
I work directly, on the street level, with people on the streets. I listen to how delicately they parse the language of disconnect. Always have. They are sensing about for signs of not having to put out extra energy to be understood.
Your intonation was so freaking defensive. It was more like an observation and a chirking with the elbows, sorry you took it quite so deeply to heart..... Sheesh.
CHeers.
Apr 27, '09
His decisions are quite inspiring!
For those that have to deal with DHS' upper management, this story let me really empathize with those lower Manhattan office workers.
Joe Kennedy as SEC regulator comes to mind as well...
May 1, '09
Blue Oregon, originally a place for "progressives" to discuss issues, seems to have become just another place where the ranting right intrudes on every discussion, often succeeding in turning it into a pissing match...so that little progress is made in discussing the original topic, and much energy wasted in rebuttals.