Rubbish.

I've had it with this right-wing privatization nonsense. The only thing privatization does is reduce the level of services for increased cost. Corporatists and right wingers are drooling at the prospects of making American pay through the nose for services they depend on. Privatization schemes are right there beside multi-level marketing schemes for outrageous business practices. Privatization schemes are also right beside defense contractors for notoriously underbidding a project to get an initial contract, then immediately blowing prices through the roof once those who depend on services are held at the mercy of the service provider.

The private prison industry is one of the most notorious examples of this. Story after story of abuses and failure to comply with terms of these contracts. Sky-rocketing costs. Using the prison populations as cheap labor pools like in China. Private prisons are a disaster.

Look at the Iraq reconstruction. Halliburton promised Iraq's reconstruction would pay for itself. That's the standard privatization lie to get a contract. Then reality strikes. How many tens of billions have we dumped into that disaster, and to what result? Services in Iraq are still deteriorating.

Health care. There is a reason THE REST OF THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD has government-run, single-payer health care. It works. It provides twice the health care per currency unit spent in comparison to private health care systems.

If efficiency and productivity is the goal, there's no better bargin than public services.

There is one simple reason why we can't solve this problem: corruption. People motivated by self-interest have corrupted government, unions, politics, the courts, the corporate world, and activist organizations and couldn't care less about what is right. In such a climate, there is NO solution to the increasing budgetary/services imbalance. The children, the elderly, and the citizens in general will continue to pay the price of this endless wrestling match between the aforementioned unappreciative individuals who prevent the rest of us from living the life of peace and prosperity we are fully capable of living as a society. Until the good people are finally fed up and refuse to tolerate it any longer from anyone - even those involve in organizations we believe in - the madness will continue.

Tongue in cheek or not, the goal of eliminating (or at least minimizing) the expenses of incarceration is laudable.

But DC already has more than its quota of miscreants if you count those who are guilty of dis-assembling our nation step by step (latest disservice: re-starting the US manufacture of land mines, discontinued since 1997 [according to Democracy Now 8/4/05]).

Instead let's use this suggestion as a chance to think about how we might actually reach the goal of not needing much in the way of prisons, including restoring the personal/business tax balance, making good education available in all parts of the state, eliminating the failed war on drugs, treating mental illness and substance abuse problems as prima facie medical rather than criminal, and keeping living-wage jobs in our communities. It will take resolve and attention, but it's our society, and if we can meanwhile prevent the neo-cons from inducing collapse, perhaps we can still fix it.

Aside from the obvious fact that a government is NOT a coporation, I don't think handing out $1500 annually to families is going to change anyone's socio-economic status. Besides, it's a hell of a lot more efficient for the citizens of the state to fund education collectively than to try to go it alone.

Unless you're really rich.

Becky...

That's simply not true. Government-sponsored, single-payer health care works very well in the rest of the industrialized world. Why? Because the people who want to provide health care are in charge of finding ways to care for people. Putting the people who want to make a ton of money in charge of a patient care system will create a system that does exact what the top management want it to do... make a ton of money.

It as simple as this. You have to decide which is more important... providing a certain set of decent services to people... or making a ton of money. You cannot do both well. As far as health care goes, once you decide that the health care system should be focused on health care, not making people rich, it's pretty simple to design the system to affordably provide a basic level of health care services.

Please keep the "welfare queens driving Cadillacs" distractions out of this discussion. These were very, very rare exceptions to norm used by the right wingers to move the issue discussion away from the very real fact that public service providers are by far the most efficient and effective way to deliver services to a large population.

This is about all I can come up with. Soooooooooooooo many sevices are already subcontracted out to corporations and private not-for-profits.

1. Compensate liquer store owners then get rid of the OLCC.

A typical corporate CEO would provide (or sell) education and health care to those who could pay for it. If were lucky, the CEO might (with a huge PR campaign) provide scholarships to a few poor kids and treat a cancer patient or two.

AFS -

Government-sponsored, single-payer health care may very well work in the rest of the industrialized world, but it won't happen here because of the intertwined and competing, self-centered, corrupt forces involved in our system. The same is true for all the other funding problems mentioned in the post. Maybe it's our pure capitalist mentality that prevents us from moving beyond self interest to considering what is best for the whole community. Maybe the problem is because we have become so fractured as a society, moving far away from family, not knowing our neighbors, and not being involved in community activities. I don't know the cause, but I do see that our leaders are displaying a level of self-focus that is highly dangerous to the future of our society.

The politicians are working to keep power and make their contributors happy. The lobbyists are working to keep power and make their clients happy. The corporations are working to keep power and make their executives and shareholders happy. The unions are working to keep power and make their members happy. The activist groups (usually led by a charismatic person who loves his or her role as a "mover and shaker") are working to get power and make their contributors happy. The lawyers are afraid to upset the judges, and the judges or those who want to become judges are focused on what will be good career moves, rather than on justice. The press is too concerned about what sells or what it will cost to dig up the real news or maintaining access to news generators, and because they are afraid of regulators and their advertisers, they refuse to really shine the light on what is going on. I don't see any of the real players in our system truly trying to do what is best for this country as a whole. Their arguments are biased, the deals they cut are self-serving, and their top two concerns are whether they will still be in power if they do this or that, and how much money they and theirs will get or lose as a result.

Now if you want to believe that's not what is happening, fine. I used to believe that way, too. But perhaps you've noticed that things just keep getting worse, not better, as they would if people were actually trying to improve them. I have seen amazingly diverse groups be able to come to sensible compromises on any number of controversial issues when they had nothing to gain or lose from making the correct decision. We are, as a species, capable of getting along and living at peace - if we have the courage to weed out corruption, as we apparently do not right now.

In other words, all our grandiose plans and ideas for making things better aren't ever going to come to fruition if we don't get rid of the corruption in our midst that is preventing progress. We must refuse to tolerate it any more. Anything less, and we're simply spinning our wheels in the mud.

By the way, please don't lecture me about "welfare queen" cliches when I haven't used any, ok?

Becky, You are absolutely correct. K-12 education in Oregon (for example) is not "about the children". It is about power, influence and individual compensation. If it were "about the children", we would have average class sizes (instead of the 4th largest in the U.S.), complete school years, 5,000 more teachers, complete programs. A byproduct would be higher graduation rates and better attendance (we are now 49th in U.S. for K-12 attendance). Instead, we have the 8th highest compensated K-12 workforce, which would be fine if we had corresponding academic results. It would also, be easier to manage if Oregon's "per capita income" weren't ranked 36th and going lower.

Kari...

Fine. I'm easily fooled sap. It is pretty hard to tell the difference between good sarcasm and bad right wing policy these days though. You are talking about an environment where social conservatives are attacking Spongebob, forming posses to round up illegals on the border, arresting Muslims as terrorists for having Spanish homework assignments on their home computer, attempting to teach in the public schools that the Grand Canyon was formed by Noah's flood, and defend having a gay male prostitute in the White House press corps. It's hard to tell where the right wing insanity ends and the comedy begins anymore.

Becky...

All that you have noted is all a result of the decision that hoarding wealth was the only value of importance in our society. When enthusiasm to further fuel hoarding is treated with more importance than honor, integrity, honesty and self-sacrifice, the social contract is seriously broken. That said, it easy to fix. You stop promoting neo-con values of hoarding wealth, and start promoting the values that really matter again.

I've been on this site for at least 10 months (or so it feels).

I remember Becky's early posts -- most of which I universally disagreed with.

I find her point -- corruption in our system of governance -- completely valid.

I suspect she may even like Portland's ideas about public financing of elections a good step.

A closer gap between us feels like progress to me.

Randy

The irony is that as I read Gil's post I thought he was talking about the Board and leadership of Portland Public Schools. Gil just demonstrates that Portland Public Schools is a micro of the State of Oregon. The Portland school board members new, current and past see the board as a stepping stone to future political opportunities (a governor candidate; the wife of a governor candidate; a county commissioner wannabe). You've got a new superintendent with a PR machine to get her back to the East Coast after leaving in disgrace; a smoke and mirrors ageement with the powerful PAT that made it appear that it was controlling health care costs, but it aint's so; and a public who has lost faith in its school district. The school board was so sure that the legislature would give it an additional 15 million. But in the end, even the legislature lost faith in its largest school district. It's no wonder that at 5:00 all the traffic is going from Oregon to Washington. Oregon and Portland is an okay place to work, but not a place to live, raise a family, and educate your children.

So much for livability.

Jeez, I didn't think I would start such a far ranging discussion with such a quirky little column. Matter of fact, I'm always amazed at the people who talk about running government like a business, since I've worked in a lot of really badly run businesses that still make lots of money because they can con people into buying enough of their products or services. I worked for a large privately held corporation in which the majority owner had two ex-wives and three other ex-lovers on the payroll. I doubt that even Tom Delay could get away with that.

Seriously, though, if we are stuck in a stalemate situation in which the state has no ability to raise taxes and thus new revenues, should we not enter into a discussion about what government should do? I'd rather pay more taxes, but I doubt the majority of Oregonians can be convinced to pay more taxes, or even convinced to shift more of the tax burden onto corporations. The prevailing mindset among Oregonians is that government wastes taxpayer money, even as much of that "waste" is government adequately compensating its employees.

So if we are forced to live within a certain constrictive budget, I'm all for putting most of it into education, both k-12 and higher education. I mean funding education so well that Oregon school districts are the best in the nation, and that our universities are available for an extremely affordable tuition to all in-state students (as was the case in the 1960s). This is pretty much a South Korean/Taiwanese approach, and it may mean more sick people will die and more emotionally disturbed people will be homeless.

But if we fund education to the point of excellence, rather than mere adequacy, we'll reap the rewards rapidly as businesses with a bit of social responsibility choose to locate or exand here, and that will increase the tax base and eventually allow us to fund all the other things.

I don't know if the Republicans will ever let this happen. To maintain their hold on government, they need an ignorant and distracted population.

I am not sure whether or not Gil is being serious or sarcastic. As ASF notes, it is difficult to tell sarcasm from serious right wing policy ideas lately. As a newcomer to this state and region, I am tuning in during the middle of a disturbing social dialogue. Cutting back on education strikes me as a particularly dangerous idea. If the children of Oregon do not receive adequate education then they will not have the knowledge necessary to make positive contributions to society in the long run, which will further devastate the local economy. We should be debating whether or not 180 days a year in school is sufficient. It seems obvious to me that children in the 21st century should be attending school during the summer. The idea of cutting back the school year and laying off teachers is penny wise and dollar stupid. Undereducated people will never be able to compete in the global economy. This country is losing (or has already lost) its competitive edge, partially because we are not devoting enough resources to the education our children.

Government should not be treated as a private corporation because its bottom line is qualitative and not quantitative, as T A Barnhart has noted.

Steve, It is called the "Oregon Squeeze", and it is unique to Oregon. We have among the highest individually compensated K-12 employees in the U.S. There are only seven states which compensate higher. Oregon has slipped steadily from 25th in "per capita income" in 1990 to 36th in 2004. The "Squeeze" is brought about by these two diverging economic forces. There is no state with a wider divergence between teacher salaries and "per capita income". When our #1 ranking (a full 11 percent ahead of 2nd place Wisconsin) benefits package is included, the divergence is much more dramatic. The high individual compensation ($700 million per year above 25th ranking state), prevents Oregon from hiring 5,000 additional teachers, having complete school years and programs. It is that simple.

You say, "The idea of cutting back the school year and laying off teachers is penny wise and dollar stupid."

You are very correct, welcome to the "Oregon Squeeze".

I'm tired of rhetoric and would like to see something happen. How about an initiative to cut out all the business tax breaks and dedicate the increased revenue to the Oregon Health Plan, which has been devastated by cuts over the last few years? I think it would pass.

Oregonians will vote for increased taxes, as long as they don't have to pay them. For example the tobacco taxes for OHP, and recent increases in the minimum wage. We need to shift the tax burden off of individuals and back onto business.

If everyone is just going to talk and talk, nothing is going to happen.

Do any Democrats own businesses? It seems like that is the case (no business owners), from what is often presented on this and similar forums. Business taxes get passed through to the consumer. Very seldom does a business absorb any taxes. Each business has an economic reason for being in existence. When that reason is diminished, businesses leave or stop.

Bailie,

You are being simplistic. Businesses will pass taxes, and any other business expense, onto customers if they can. Often they cannot, because the customers will refuse to buy at a higher price.

Businesses have to pay taxes to support this state, just as individual taxpayers do. Business taxes have been greatly lowered with tax breaks, pushing the tax burden onto the rest of us. Some state legislator said the legislature has been "passing out tax breaks like candy." We do not have to bribe businesses to stay in Oregon and take advantage of our workforce, customer base and quality of life. It's time to wipe out the tax breaks and make business pay its fair share. Although I doubt that Democrats will have the nerve to do that, since they seem to want to be invisible.

Lynn, Do you think your suggestions will make it better to do business in Oregon? If we have all of these tax benefits, as you suggest, wouldn't you think that businesses would be flocking to Oregon? We have a beautiful state. Why aren't they coming? Why has our unemployment rate been at the top or near the top for the last five years? I would suggest that if we want to stop our slide from 25th in "per capita income" in 1990 to 36th in 2004, perhaps we need to do just the opposite that you suggest. The worst thing we could do is make it more difficult for business in this state.

You say, "Often they cannot, because the customers will refuse to buy at a higher price. So what happens to the business in your example? They lay off employees and/or cut salaries. Is this a good situation?

AFS - You are absolutely right, in my opinion.

Steve2 - Thank you. I've learned a lot here - mostly to look deeper to what I really believe rather than clinging to the package of ideas I was fed growing up. This is a great forum and I'm grateful for the willingness I've seen here to really debate and try to understand people who see things differently.

I meant Randy2, not Steve2!

Bailie: "Do any Democrats own businesses?"

No. Not one Democrat owns a business. All Democrats earn their incomes from the secret International Communist Conspiracy Collective just like Rush Limbaugh say.

Dumbass.

It's simplistic nonsense like that that demonstrates why the economy goes into the toilet every time the GOP takes power. Democrats are all for business. Small locally owned and operated business. Small business is always at the forefront of innovation, job creation, and economic growth. Multi-national corporations suck the life out of the economy. Multi-national corporations feed on the real engines of economic growth, and throw the capital they make into worthless paper transactions of buyouts and takeovers. Do you know how much economic capital the multi-national corporations waste on paper transactions that are of no real use to the economic growth cycle?

You need to stop reading talking points for a second and look at the hard economic data. Progressives support innovation, job creation, and long term economic growth. Neo-conservatives support economic activity which sacrifices real economic growth for short term profiteering and consolidation of power.

afs,

You say, "Not one Democrat owns a business." From your rant,you have convinced me.

Are you suggesting we get rid of multi-national corporations? You say, ""Multi-national corporations suck the life out of the economy."

You say, Democrats are all for business. Small locally owned and operated business." Is this at the exclusion of big business? No Intel, Nike, General Electric and thousands of other multi-national corporations. It is difficult to take your discussion seriously.

I don't "read talking points".

Bailie said: "From your rant,you have convinced me."

Then you're doing nothing to dispel your the image of being a dumbass, are you, bailie?

As I made crystal clear, Democrats are all for economic activity that stimulates innovation, creates jobs, and spurs long-term economic growth. It's the GOP that has bent over backward to protect and support all that economic activity that not only does not help economic growth, it reduces economic growth. All that economic capital thrown into the toilet on worthless buyout and takeover transactions.

Do I support eliminating multi-national corporations? That would be pretty pointless. What I do support is a Value-Added Tax on all corporate buyout and takeover transactions. You can do it by kicking in the Value Added Tax when a whatever threshold is appropriate for the massive stock transfers to a single entity happens in said corporate buyouts and takeovers transactions.

Corporate buyouts and takeovers are massive hole in which massive amounts of economic capital that could stimulate economic growth gets thrown in a black hole never to be seen again. Those transactions need to be taxed at a higher level to help heal the damage the loss of taking that capital out of the economic cycle costs our economy in lost fuel for potential economic growth.

I also support an exit tax on the entire corporate asset portfolio of a corporation that attempts to close up it's US operations and move their corporate headquarters to a foreign post office box in order to try to skirt US corporate taxes. Corporations that do business in the US are going to pay their fair share of taxes on the business they do in the US.

afs, You say, "As I made crystal clear, Democrats are all for economic activity that stimulates innovation, creates jobs, and spurs long-term economic growth."

How does that apply to the Democrat support of the union philosophy of equal pay for position regardless of performance, seniority trumps productiveness and stifling the advancement of meritorious pay.

Hey Bailie...

You know one thing "right to work" laws in a "right to work" state did? They allowed my mom's company to fire her without cause the day her MS diagnosis came down. The exact same day the MS diagnosis came down. It seems the company did not want to their health insurance rates to be driven up by my mother's MS being included in the employee risk pool, and because right to work laws allow employers to fire for any damn reason they choose, my mom was fired officially without cause a couple of hours after she was informed she had Multiple Sclerosis. Never mind the fact that she was a bookkeeper, and she could be still doing that job with her MS even now more 20 years after she was fired that day.

If big business REALLY used meritorious pay to reward good work, there wouldn't be a union in the country that would disagree with the policy. Instead, big business has used all the things you mentioned primarily for one thing for more than 100 years. TO BUST UNIONS. Unions have bent over backwards through the more than 100 year history of the union movement in the US to work with big business on making the workplace more productive. Every time unions try another attempt to bring productivity measurments into the workplace, big business manage yet again to find a way to make sure the union leaders are the first one fired under each experiment. Until big business stops trying to use these rules primarily to get rid of the most active union leaders, there can be no progress on this. Blame big business for there being no meritorious pay. They refuse to use meritorious pay for anything but a tool to break unions.

Bailie,

According to what I've read, tax breaks are actually not a significant factor for businesses considering relocating. What is important to them is an educated workforce and quality of life.

So our unemployment problem might have something to do with the fact that for years we've passed out business tax breaks, lowering state tax revenue, starving our educational system and other public services. That doesn't make our state very attractive. It makes us a national laughing stock with prominent mention in Doonsbury. As Molly Ivins wrote of Texas, we've become a "low-taxes low-services state." The Appalachia of the Northwest.

I've also read that part of Oregon's economic problem is an over-reliance on manufacturing, which has nationally been in decline for decades. In the U.S. manufacturing has gone the way of agriculture previously, and partly for the same reason. Agriculture was mechanized and manufacturing has been automated. So have a lot of office and middle management jobs. Plus outsourcing.

"So what happens to the business in your example? They lay off employees and/or cut salaries." Again, I think you're being simplistic. They may do that. U.S. companies have been doing that for decades. Because they don't need us as much as they used to. However, if they actually need the employees they won't lay them off. Whether they cut salaries or not depends on whether they have to compete for employees and whether there is a union in the picture.

So it's complicated. But using tax breaks for businesses to increase employment -- and there is no other reason to do it -- has not worked. As you yourself point out, there has been no increase in employment in Oregon, despite the tax breaks. We're in a permanent recession. Business tax breaks are a scam to fatten the bottom lines of coporations which don't need the help. All they do for the rest of us is starve the public part of the economy.