Abetted by PolitiFact, Senator Doug Whitsett gets it all wrong

Kari Chisholm

A couple of weeks ago, Senator Doug Whitsett (R-Klamath Falls) penned an op-ed in the O calling for a constitutional spending cap pegged to population growth and inflation.

Whitsett conveniently forgets that Oregon voters actually considered this in 2006 and rejected it 71% to 29% (pdf). Measure 48 lost in all 36 counties of the state, including Whitsett's Klamath County, where it lost 62% to 38%. Whitsett obviously doesn't respect the will of the voters.

But nevermind all that. He made this claim in his op-ed:

Oregon spent about $20 billion in all-funds budgets 20 years ago. With this spending limit in place, the state's all-funds budget would be about $27 billion today.

This week, PolitiFact Oregon checked his math and gave him a "mostly true".

But the thing that both Whitsett and PolitiFact completely miss is the actual reason for the rapid rise in the cost of government. It's not because of liberals spending wildly like drunken sailors on shore leave. In fact, for the first 14 of those 20 years, the Oregon House was controlled by Republicans - and largely conservative ones. And for 8 of those 14 years, they controlled the Oregon Senate as well.

Whitsett - and PolitiFact - seem to have an unhealthy obsession with arithmetic, and a complete disregard for the actual context and facts of governance. And while it may not be obvious at first blush, once I tell you one simple thing, the reason for the rapid rise in the cost of government will be forehead-slappingly obvious.

Here's that one thing:

The single biggest driver in the rising cost of government is the exploding cost of health care.

Think about it. What does the state government spend its money on? For starters, roughly a quarter of all state spending goes directly to health care and human services. That alone is a chunk of spending that climbs faster than inflation, without keeping up with the caseload.

And then, after that, roughly a fifth goes to public safety and prisons and roughly half goes to education. And what's the primary expense in both public safety and education? Staffing. And what's been the biggest driver of the cost of staffing over the last two decades? Health care costs - which have been escalating at a far faster rate than the rate of inflation.

Oregon's budget problem is a health care costs problem. Oregon's school funding crisis is a health care cost crisis. Just about any state government funding problem you can think of is either directly related to health care costs, or would be much more easily solved if we could just reduce health care costs.

It's not a math problem, or a problem of profligate budget-writers. It's a health care problem.

The rising cost of government is not a problem that can be solved with Senator Whitsett's cute little mathematical cap. It's only going to get solved when we get the cost of health care under control. That's why President Obama's Healthy Americans Act is so critical, and that's why Governor Kitzhaber's work to transform health care delivery is so critical.

So, Senator Whitsett, if you're really, truly concerned about reducing the cost of government, stop playing around with equations on the back of your napkin, and get to work understanding the extremely complex health care system in this state and country.

And PolitiFact - why don't you step off the narrow and silly mathematical games and provide your readers some actual factual context? Because calling Senator Whitsett's math "mostly true" is just a bunch of nonsense and doesn't tell your readers what's actually going on.

By Kari Chisholm March 08, 2013