Monday, January 12, 2009

First day of the legislature

I've been avoiding posting anything on my blog for a month for some reason. Not sure why, but every time I thought about posting something, I just didn't do it. I'm a pretty unreliable blogger, I guess.

The 2009 legislative session started today, and it is going to be a doozy. I heard some of the governor's state of the state speech, and it is obvious that not only does he have no clue what to do to bring Oregon out of this deep recession, but that the things he plans to do will make things worse than they otherwise would be.

He said we had to have the courage to raise revenue, even though times are tough. He asked: "If not now, then when?" How about never! We should NEVER increase the burden of government on the taxpayers. I thought his question was very funny, because clearly his answer is "Always!" he has proposed tax increases at every single turn, in good times and bad.

The most irritating part of his speech was when he talked about Oregon's new economy, how we are the unquestioned national leader in sustainability, and how that will lead us out of this recession. This is just fantasy.

The only reason we are on the map for "sustainability" is because the government is throwing dollars at every goofy alternative energy project and ridiculous energy saving scheme they can subsidize. It's wasted money. So his plan to get us out of the recession is to raise taxes and then waste the money. Yeah, that'll work.

And his biggest money wasting scheme will be coming soon, when he unveils his legacy legislation - the 'Cap & Trade' plan. I'll have much much more on this later, but it is basically a way to drive up the cost of energy and use the money extracted from energy users to fund all their sustainability projects.

It is a job killer. Why would we make energy more expensive in the middle of a deep recession?

And this is just the first day. Oh my.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oregon also touts itself as a "leader" in land use planning and no other state has followed us.

Oregon also touts itself as a "leader" in having a regional government (Metro) and no other region has followed us.

The only thing Oregon leads the nation in is unemployment and terrible ideas.

Oregon. We Love Morons.

Anonymous said...

Gov Kulo has a speech writer, of that there is no doubt.

But the question is, who is that person?

I read the speech (I did not see the lousy job Kulo did reading from his teleprompter, but I bet it was very painful), and the speech was something some high school Speech 101 student wrote, after googling "1001 ways to say nothing and still sound important".

What sad fools for leaders we have. Kulo. Adams. Too bad Bernie left.

Anonymous said...

Sad leaders, huh? You mean like the sad leaders of the thankfully almost-gone administration of Bush and Cheney? And let's not forget Rove, the puppeteer who moved GW's mouth.