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Legislative Report 7-05
April 8, 2005
Priorities
For the past few election cycles a common theme expressed by nearly all
legislative candidates has been “Schools First”. Many, if not most of these
same candidates also express support for economic development, more prisons,
greater emphasis on the needs of seniors, doing something about the
methamphetamine epidemic, more and better trained law enforcement personnel,
lower tuitions at our colleges and universities, as well as lower taxes and
fewer regulations for business.
It is a part of human nature, I suppose, that we tend to focus on the issues
that are important to us and ignore or downplay the issues that might be
important to someone else. Unfortunately, when advocates pit one program
against another, we all suffer. The reality, of course, is that there isn’t
enough money to make anyone happy. So what do we do?
The bumper sticker advice is that government should establish priorities and
fund the highest priority first and dole out whatever is left over to the
lower priorities. If there isn’t enough money to go around, government
should simply cut or eliminate programs.
The obvious problem is that what might be very important to you might not be
important at all to your next door neighbor. That is exactly the same
problem that every legislative body from your local school board or city
council to Congress or to the Oregon Legislature faces every day. What is
important to northwest Oregon and the communities along the Columbia River
is likely not to be of much interest to other regions of the State.
Sometimes we seem to forget that although democracy is a wonderful form of
government, it does tend to get a bit messy at times. For a bill or budget
to become law it must receive at least a majority in the House of
Representatives and in the Senate and then must be signed by the Governor.
To paraphrase a political truism, the bill or budget that becomes law may
not be the best possible, but it is probably the best that can muster the
support of a majority of the House and Senate and not be vetoed.
As chair of one of the subcommittees on Ways & Means I am responsible for
ensuring that each budget request that comes to my subcommittee is given a
fair and impartial hearing. The recommendations that come from my
subcommittee will then be considered by the full Ways & Means committee
which will then send the budget to both chambers of the legislature. The
House and Senate will then each have the opportunity to publicly debate the
pros and cons of each proposed budget bill. At the end of the day, Oregon
will have a budget for the next two years. And few if anyone, including me,
will think their priorities have been met.
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