Wednesday Roundup

So many things to read, so little time. Here are a few things that caught my eye this morning:

Jay Bozievich, writing on Oregon Catalyst, gets the Duh award of the day for pointing out the elephant in the room: Oregon government is growing faster than revenues that support it, and something must be done to rein in costs:

So, to review, we have base salary rates that increase above the rate of inflation, health insurance premiums rising at double-digit rates, and PERS rates well over 20% of base pay and increasing. Is it any wonder that the cost of government is increasing at 6% or more when labor is such a high percentage of the budgets?

The problem is that the tax base to pay for this rate of increase is growing at less than half that rate. The tax base for Oregon is our state economy and unfortunately it is not growing at a rate that can sustain the cost of government growing at 6%.

One measure of Oregon’s economy is total personal income. The growth of total personal income in Oregon is just over 2%. Even if we increase the percentage of the income taken to support government, that amount will still grow slower than current expenses unless we do something about the expense growth rate.

And frankly, I don't give a rat's patootie whether the Oregon Education Association likes it or not. As the Oregonian said in yesterday's editorial about the OEA endorsement meeting:

In our view, no responsible, electable candidate for governor could fully satisfy the teachers union today and still win the office in November. It can't be done. Not if the teachers union holds to its general position that nothing ails Oregon schools that more money would not solve. Meanwhile, most Oregon taxpayers and many elected officials have decided that as long as public pensions and health-care costs eat through a big share of every new dollar that goes into schools, they aren't willing to send more money.

Is there a more dysfunctional governmental body in Oregon than the Multnomah County Commission? Or should I say, the girls on the Multnomah County Commission? And yet, Multnomah County voters keep bringing them back. How do you say, "Get a clue" in Klingon?

How many times this election season have we heard of someone filing for reelection, then backing out after the filing deadline to leave the seat for a buddy? Arden J. Olson, an attorney with the firm Harrang Long Gary Rudnick, notes that sort of manipulative move in a Lane County judgeship this year. His solution? A panel of people (probably appointed by the governor) to select some choices for each position, with the governor making the final selection.

All I have to say to that is: hell no. The selection of judges needs some help in Oregon, but imagine if a panel appointed by Ted Kulongoski developed a few choices for Ted Kulongoski, and then Ted Kulongoski appointed one of them? I shudder. To avoid manipulation like that noted above, maybe we could force the offending party to retire immediately, and replace him or her with a special election any time such a thing happened?

The subject of abortion has been in the news recently because of the South Dakota law. Even though some of my pro-life friends would disagree, I have some sympathy for the argument in favor of a rape exception. However, here's a common argument in favor of abortion, as written in a letter to the editor of today's Oregonian: "Women in all states deserve the right to control their bodies." Agreed. If it's just your body we're talking about. When you refuse to acknowledge the fact (not religious belief, but fact) that another life is involved, and you callously dismiss that life in favor of your own short-term comfort, I tend to discover that the sympathy I mentioned above is suddenly difficult to locate.