Kitzhaber's "Jobs Plan"

John Kitzhaber is campaigning on what he calls his new economic vision for the state.

When I first clicked through to the link, I thought to myself: "Interesting. Kitzhaber is a government guy. He spent eight years drafting off of the Intel-created economic boom in Oregon to dramatically expand Oregon's government. If even HE is starting off his campaign by talking about jobs and the economy, then perhaps this will indeed be a different election cycle."

Silly me.

Go read the "plan.' The front page is titled "Jobs for today, jobs for tomorrow - A strategy for Oregon's economic prosperity." He spends precisely two paragraphs giving platitudes about the need for a robust Oregon economy, and then immediately reveals what he believes the whole purpose of the private sector is in the first place: "... to adequately support the public infrastructure on which stable, long term economic growth and prosperity depend."

He proceeds to go on for nine paragraphs about how our "public systems" were created in the 19th and 20th centuries and need to be "transformed" by "challeng[ing] the structures and assumptions of some of our most cherished programs," and "... jettisoning our current state budget process which is inadequate for the kind of transformational change we need; and replacing it with one based on transparent, long term performance-based investment allowing us to set clear priorities among the difficult fiscal choices which will define the next biennium."

This is the FRONT PAGE of his JOBS PLAN!

The 24 page plan itself is just a collection of the same kind of bromides we have heard forever from the central planning culture in Oregon. All the usual genuflections to "family-wage jobs," "energy efficiency" (through subsidies for inefficient energy projects, of course) and government training programs. There is nothing in this thinking that is remotely innovative or new. It is government focused, and even when he talks about natural resources, like forests, he can only imagine using them for "carbon sequestration" and "woody biomass" energy projects.

Perhaps most revealing is his section on how to "Create the Fundamental Conditions for Long-Term Job Creation and Prosperity." This is really the crux of the matter: how do we create the environment for a robust private sector?

According to Kitzhaber, this happens through public sector programs: re-thinking the delivery of education, restructuring health care (even though he is the achitect of our current health care budget disaster,) "progressive land-use policies," and meeting our "goals of greenhouse gas reduction."

This is the kind of thing you get when a public sector guy tries to pretend he understands the private sector. It's like asking a fish to explain the sky. He can only think in terms of government.

Kitzhaber wants to pretend that this is "transformational" thinking, but in truth, there is nothing transformational about even the public sector elements of his plan. Oh sure, he calls for "ten year budgets," but that wouldn't transform anything - it would just calcify the status quo more deeply and increase the damage of any bad decision or incorrect planning assumption.

No, truth be told, for Kitzhaber, this is just a very poor attempt to pretend he actually understands and will be focused on the #1 issue everybody cares about right now, the economy.

He has that fatal conceit of many politicians - that we are no more clever than he. He assumes if he writes a big plan for economic prosperity, that we will be fooled into thinking he "gets it." He thinks we won't read it and immediately recognize that it is nothing more than the same old public sector stuff that got us in this mess in the first place.

Actually, he probably isn't being deceitful at all. Kitzhaber, I think, so badly misunderstands the private sector, wealth creation and economic vitality that he honestly believes this kind of thing is the prescription for prosperity.

And that is perhaps the scariest part of the whole plan.