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THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, FEbRuARy 15, 2022
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
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GUEST COLUMN
Oregon has new money, old problems
8
:02 a.m. Wednesday: State economists Mark
McMullen and Josh Lehner begin updating the Leg-
islature’s tax committees on how Oregon’s economy
and state revenues are faring. These economic and reve-
nue forecasts are released every three months.
8:05 a.m.: State House Speaker Dan Rayfield, D-Cor-
vallis, responds to the forecasts by issuing a statement
calling for investing more in schools, workers’ skills
training, small businesses, child care, family assistance
and mental health care.
8:09 a.m.: During the economists’ pre-
sentation, McMullen notes the continu-
ing high inflation and warns, “Inflationary
booms traditionally do not end well.”
8:12 a.m.: House Majority Leader
Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, issues a state-
ment calling for investing in child care,
DICK
housing and homelessness programs, and
HUGHES
health care.
8:28 a.m.: Senate Republican Leader
Tim Knopp, of Bend, issues a statement saying the state has
more than $900 million in extra revenue and should spend
$60 million of it for Oregon State Police to combat crime
and $50 million for forest thinning to prevent wildfires.
8:34 a.m.: Gov. Kate Brown issues a statement urging
big investments in housing, child care, workers, business
and community safety.
8:47 a.m.: The economists give the bottom line to the
tax committee members. The Legislature will have $804
million more to spend during the 2021-23 budget period
than was estimated three months ago.
So, dear readers, did you find it interesting — as I did
— that the governor and legislative leaders were spend-
ing the surplus even before it officially was announced?
They’re given a heads-up about the forecasts’ content.
The forecasts themselves are nonpartisan, incorporating
data from varied sources and advisers.
Not surprisingly, the politicians’ responses, and others
that followed throughout the day, fell along ideological
lines. So did the questions that Democratic, Republican
and Independent members of the tax committees asked
the economists during the 90-minute videoconference.
Among the folks also issuing statements about how
to spend the money were Senate President Peter Court-
ney, D-Salem; Senate Majority Leader Rob Wagner,
D-Lake Oswego; Stacy Chamberlain, president of Ore-
gon AFSCME; and Reed Scott-Schwalbach, president of
the Oregon Education Association.
House Republican Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson, of
Prineville, went the other way, saying: “More money
for the state is not the same thing as good news for
Oregonians.”
Higher prices: Inflation helped bring in some of those
extra tax dollars. Inflation also could consume much
of them, as Republicans noted. On Thursday, the U.S.
Department of Labor said that inflation was the highest
since the 1980s.
By the way, when we bought our house for $56,000 in
Jennie Dalgas/Wonders Early Learning Center
The lack of child care can impede job growth.
1983, our mortgage interest rate was 12.125%. We were
thankful the rate wasn’t higher.
As FiveThirtyEight.com reported on Thursday, infla-
tion has a variety of causes, sometimes including such
government spending as the pandemic relief payments.
However, Democrats and Republicans alike get it wrong
when they point partisan fingers at single causes.
And as McMullen alluded to, there are legitimate con-
cerns about a potential recession ahead.
Fiscal wisdom: Sen. Lee Beyer, D-Springfield, chairs
the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee. He con-
cluded Wednesday’s meeting by saying: “Nice to have
more money and sometimes bad to have more money.
The appetite for expenditures grow(s) and the real trick
will be on the revenue-fiscal side … to use that money
wisely, I think, on one-time expenses.”
Finding housing: Housing availability and afford-
ability are a crisis throughout Oregon. Beyer pointed out
that housing costs are lower in Ohio, where Intel’s plan
to build two huge chip factories has rattled Oregon politi-
cians and business leaders. Economist Lehner noted that
housing is a greater issue in Eastern Oregon than in much
of rural America.
Oregon legislators are talking about spending more on
housing programs and ways to prevent homelessness. But
I haven’t heard much about addressing the high costs of
acquiring land, especially in the Portland metro area, and
the development fees charged by local governments.
The economists’ written report states: “Oregon has
underbuilt housing by 111,000 units in recent decades.
Unfortunately the industry is running into supply side
constraints. In general these include the lack of financing,
particularly for land acquisition, development, and con-
struction loans, which contributes to the low supply of
available land and buildable lots. Layered on top of those
are local land use, zoning and parking requirements, per-
mitting processes and design reviews, and the like which
are generally well-intentioned, but can reduce the timeli-
ness and number of units being built. Furthermore labor
is tight, particularly for an industry that has seen zero pro-
ductivity increases in recent generations.
Legislators’ pay: Since the state’s founding, Oregon
has hewed to the concept of the citizen-legislator — part-
time lawmakers who come to Salem for a few months
and then return home to their regular jobs and resume
their community lives. The pay has been correspondingly
low, although it’s gone up in recent years, while the work-
load has expanded as Oregon’s population has grown.
Some people want to raise legislators’ pay, and provide
a child care stipend, so they won’t need another job. That
could diversify the 90-member Legislature, which is tilted
toward individuals who are retired or have family situa-
tions and good-paying jobs that allow them to be away
during legislative sessions.
Senate Bill 1566 would take the legislative salary from
$32,839 to about $57,000 and provide a $1,000 monthly
child care allowance for children under age 13. All the
sponsors are Democrats, except for Rep. Greg Smith,
R-Heppner.
House Speaker Rayfield is following the example of
his predecessor, Speaker Tina Kotek, and trying to hold
weekly media availabilities. On Monday, I asked him
about the salary proposal. Rayfield said he had not yet
read the Senate bill but described it as requiring a pretty
big conversation and having the goal of reducing barriers
to serving in office. He said it was not a move toward a
full-time Legislature.
By the way, while perusing Oregon Department of
Revenue manuals for help in preparing my 2021 income
taxes, I came across this item: “Oregon law exempts leg-
islators’ compensation for the performance of official
duties (legislative salary and expense allowance) from
Oregon income tax. This subtraction is available only to
members of the Oregon Legislative Assembly who served
during the tax year.”
Child care and public safety: Law enforcement
agencies across the country have difficulty recruiting
and retaining officers, especially women. Meanwhile,
research shows that female police officers are less likely
to use deadly force while being just as capable as male
officers in carrying out their duties.
One way for an employer to attract and keep employ-
ees is through family-friendly workplace policies, includ-
ing offering child care (as my wife’s employer initially
did in the 1980s). What would happen if Oregon invested
some of its newfound money in onsite child care for
front-line workers of all types?
dick Hughes has been covering the Oregon political
scene since 1976.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Make room
iving in mainland paradise as we do,
there should be no surprise it’s very
difficult for anyone to find affordable
housing.
Whether it’s from history or from
being brought up with “Star Trek,” I know
that the wants of a few never outweigh
the needs of the many. Our society is so
spoiled that we have forgotten it takes a
village to raise a child, and a community
to raise the parent.
Today, our understanding of engineer-
ing has made it possible to take an out-of-
the box look at our Heritage Square proj-
ect. We can make the building the jewel of
the Northwest if we, as a community, can
learn to put the needs of the many ahead of
the wants of a few.
Our population is growing. More peo-
ple will need a place to live. We must
accept the inevitable that our secret is out,
and we need to find room for our new
neighbors.
TROY HASKELL
Astoria
L
Accountable
n 1999, Patrick Harned lured a 7-year-
old neighbor, Ashley Ann Carlson, into
his parents’ basement in Astoria, where he
sexually abused her and strangled her to
death. After a lengthy trial, Judge Philip
Nelson sentenced Harned to life in prison
without parole because of the threat he
would pose to the community.
Gov. Kate Brown, without any notifica-
tion to the victim’s mother or the district
attorney’s office, issued a surprise commu-
tation of Harned’s sentence.
The 2019 law approved by the Leg-
islature made it virtually impossible to
try older teenagers, even those who com-
mit particularly violent crimes covered by
Measure 11, as adults.
For reasons I cannot understand, a
story in The Astorian (Feb. 10) describes
Brown’s commutation of Harned’s sen-
tence and the effect of this law as a “reas-
sessment in light of Oregon’s chang-
ing policies and attitudes toward criminal
justice.”
This sounds like political “newspeak”
from Brown’s office.
Brown’s decision to retroactively apply
I
the law to Harned is only possible because
of the unlimited power of pardon and com-
mutation available to her, even though she
is leaving office after this year and has the
lowest approval rating of any governor in
the nation.
Having served as your district attor-
ney from 1994 through 2018, I care deeply
about our community and the importance
of holding the few who do great violence
accountable.
Please consider writing Brown’s
office a letter telling her if you think let-
ting Harned — who just recently, while
in prison, had his name changed to Jes-
sie Davin Payne-Rana — out of prison is a
wise and fair idea.
JOSHUA MARQUIS
Astoria
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