(Oregon) Governor (Kulongoski) prepares for state shutdown | Oregonian

[Ediacara]

Governor prepares for state shutdown

08/01/03

JAMES MAYER

SALEM -- Gov. Ted Kulongoski wants to know what happens if big chunks of state government have to shut down in September because lawmakers can't balance the state budget.

The governor "reluctantly" signed a stopgap spending measure Thursday that allows the state to keep operating through August, the second such bill he has signed since the 2003-05 budget cycle began July 1.

But he made it clear he doesn't want to sign a third one.

He directed Gary Weeks, head of the Department of Administrative Services, to come back in two weeks with a plan for how to close many government operations if the legal authority to spend money runs out.

More at the Oregonian

[salin]

1. Wow.

Is there a precedence for this? I remember California "shutting down" for a few days - and I remember a rural Michigan school district shutting down a month or two before the end of the school year. But I have never heard of closing down whole sections of the state government. Has it happened anywhere - on this scale - before?

[Rollins]

2. What about my job?!?!

Went back to school to get my social work degree which I finished this past June. Was counting on a State job here in Oregon but damn things do not look good.

Many state workers have recently retired to get better pers so the current staff is over worked yet they are hiring few new workers. Have went to 2 interviews and both jobs were given to state employees. 3 new jobs in my area opened up Wednesday then this happens.

What a crazy time we live in!

[SharonAnn]

3. Tennessee for a few days in 2002? And see this from NY TImes

Paul Krugman's article "A State of Decline" pretty much tells it like it is. Irresponsible tax cuts but not spending cuts. People want services but the GOP doesn't want to lay it out for them as to what the revenue needs will be and what the taxes will be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/01/opinion/01KRUG.html
"From smog to silicon, from the sexual revolution to the tax revolt, the future has usually arrived in California first. Now the Golden State is degenerating into a banana republic. Can the nation be far behind?

The recall isn't just a case of hardball politics. It's also a grand act of evasion: in the face of a severe fiscal crisis, voters are being invited to focus not on hard choices but on personality. Replacing Gray Davis with someone more likable isn't going to pay the bills.

And California's slide into irresponsibility, in which politicians refuse to acknowledge any connection between the government services the public demands and the taxes that pay for those services, is being replicated all across America.

..."

[DeathvadeR]

4. Heres an Idea.....

Secede.....

[0rganism]

6. It's been tried already

Nor would secession resolve this current budget crisis, were it to occur. What's happening is privatization fanatics in rural Oregon declaring economic war on urban Oregon. Sad, but true.

[depakid]

11. And the irony of that

is that the rural constitutents have duped the worst! They are the ones loosing their local health clinics- a lot their don't even have murses anymore. Hope ya don't get sick- or old- Eldercare in many of those communities has turned to squaler. I almost feel sorry for most of the rural libertaian types who vote Republican. They are going to suffer enormously.

But I don't feel at all sorry for the Greshamites (the great east county unwashed) who put corrupt Republicans like Karen Minnis into office and then piggyback on to our own county school funding measure. If I had it my way, not ONE DIME would find its way to her district.

I also don't feel sorry for a lot of people in Hillsboro- who you may have been reading about in Doonesbury. Year after year,they vote in a far right wingnut named Republican Charles Starr, who as the year's Education System Chairman, promptly issued a statement that public schools are run by "socialist ideologies, and are a place from which parents and children should flee."

Of course, since he's a Republican, our "newspaper" gave him an official pass, in what must have been the most skilled apologia I've ever read. If it were up to me, I'd have his head photoshopped on a pike and run it on the front page for a week!

Others are more forgiving- Here's a letter in today's Oregonian responding to more of the seemingly endless Republican lies.

Rep. Tootie Smith's (another wingnut) statement that Oregon's children will receive an education that is competitive with any child's in the nation ("School funding debate comes down to $250 million," by Julia Silverman of The Associated Press, www.oregonlive.com, July 28) is ludicrous.

My wife, daughter and I ran from the "train wreck" called Oregon schools in June. We are starting a new life in North Carolina.

My wife's elementary library teaching position was eliminated in Hillsboro. My daughter's first grade class had 31 students and her second grade would be more crowded. Both their schools were losing physical education, music, library, art, band, sports, and so on.

They both lost 17 days of class time in 2003 and were set to lose class time in 2004.

In our new home of Mooresville, N.C., my daughter will have 18 other children in her class as well as physical education, music, band, art, library and computers. She will have 190 days of school this year, nearly four weeks longer than in Oregon!

My wife's intermediate school library is state of the art. Her position as librarian is so cherished that her school district would lose its accreditation without a librarian on staff at each school. Her salary will be higher than in Oregon, too!

[qb]

5. At least their National Guard members have job security

in Iraq.

[Aaron]

7. Wow - That guy doesn't take any crap

I don't remember Kitzhaber ever doing this. He used the veto a lot but this is something new entirely I think. Good for Kulongoski. The Repubs have been making deals with him and even gone so far as to shake hands or verbally promise to pass the agreed upon budgets and then when they get back to the legislature they try to change the terms.

[Parche]

8. Kulongoski

He has been doing a great job so far
I voted for him
Unfortunately he has to work with the republican controlled house
and senate that cant work up a balanced budget, and they have
had over 5 sessions to do it in.

[Bandit]

9. They don't call them "Red Ink Republicans" for nothing.

Hold them accountable Oregon.

[GregW]

10. I've met the Gov a couple times ...

Once last year at a Bradbury fundraiser (with the Big Dog!) and again a few months ago when he toured my facility in the Springfield/Eugene area. He seems a real genuine guy and I like him a lot. Certainly better than bozoids like Perry and Bush.