Op Ed:
Oregonians Threatened
By Bush-Slashed Benefits
While Saxton Equivocates

Bush-Cuts Beat State Policy Into Weapon vs Oregonians

Photo: AP

(SALEM) - Inevitably state programs are now subject to slashed national funding, camouflaged as `educational advance" and `national security". This continuing Bush-political-cult manipulation forces them into malign failures to fill essential needs.

The latest slasheroo targets workers caught in the precarious economy, forced into Oregon welfare programs --often distressed parents with children, desperately seeking a bridge back to `normality."

New Federal rules require 50 percent of adults receiving state checks to have a job or be preparing for one --after October 1st. By Legislatively-determined program definition and plan, only 16 percent in Oregon will satisfy this new requirement.

Oregon faces a precarious dilemma placing would-be Oregon Governors in the first painful issue-bind of this divisive campaign. GOP-candidate Ron Saxton makes it only too clear what he will do in this dilemma: Equivocate, seek information, support the Bush-demanded change.

`I think we ought to do everything we can to meet the 50 percent requirement, he said.

The other two --incumbent-Democrat Gov. Kulongoski and `Independent" Ben Westlund-- offer solutions demanding detail before we vote.

Westlund said Oregon`s welfare system needs additional state support, not available without wholesale tax reform. Gov. Kulongoski seeks action from Oregon`s Congressional delegation to preserve state flexibility in running these programs. `...focus the debate back to children and not just totally around employment," the Governor said.

(We seek further information from them as we did from Saxton, before the holiday -- with no response. Quotes from OREGONIAN front-page story "Oregon braces for new welfare rules" Monday.)

More than 43,000 Oregonians now benefit from welfare cash assistance; 31,631 are children. $90 million Oregon dollars are demanded now. If `modified management" prevails, many more millions will be needed --funded solely by Oregon.

WHO PAYS and HOW is at `the heart of the matter" in this Oregon election for Governor --let nobody ever tell you otherwise. Basic economic concepts and political principles are being tested in Oregon -- and YOU cannot escape.

Responsibility, that is -- NOT personal consequence to your own family. For which you should be grateful -- and ready to consider who can handle this current crisis, as he must when we seat our choice in Salem.

Bush-"balanced"-priorities are resulting in radical impacts, some intolerable and others highly invasive of state judgments by those who know best what their own people need. It started long ago, was magnified by Leave No Child Behind, is continuing with numerous others, and demands Oregon action on our own collapsed economic funding. badly failed by our tax system manipulated for too many years.

Oregon welfare programs are built on different ethical and management principles than the `improved" one now forced upon this state and others caught in the same moral, compassionate operating pattern --wisely tailored to our needs by Legislative decision.

Federal funding is slashed from support; State decision on its own dilemmas are neutered and negated. Political pressures forces Oregon funding `to pay the piper" since those essential needs must be met.

If not, those thus-devastated must depend only on local and regional efforts already overwhelmed. Are YOU ready, in your community ? What do we do ?

MUST we `Obey and Bow" ? OR count more kids-on-the-street and more stricken families forced from homes; while parents seek jobs they can`t continue until competently prepared and taught ?

NOT if we repair the damage-done in Oregon by years of manipulation and malign influence, shaping corporate taxes, tax-breaks, tax give-aways, and slashing our own essential programs. The `cruel tool" has been applied for far too long by swarming lobbyists, lavishly bestowing `campaign contributions"; OR withholding them if necessary; for more than twenty years.

Corporate tax-remediation is not only unavoidable but crucial, demanded, essential, and inevitable -- and, now, being so recognized by a growing number of Oregon business leaders.