You may recall this time last week, blogger T.A.Barnhart covered Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber’s launch of his jobs strategy. Well, this week he’s been covering the strategy of Kitzhaber’s rival for the Democratic candidacy, Bill Bradbury. Here’s what he has to say on the issue:
By T.A.Barnhart
Last week, John Kitzhaber began the “serious” campaign season with his “Jobs & Economy” strategy rollout. Today it was Bill Bradbury’s turn. He introduced both his economic strategy — “Energize Oregon” — and his political strategy: “Fix it now.”
Bradbury rolled out his plan at Seven Planet, a small sustainable goods boutique almost in the Pearl. It was a small gathering, under 20 guests, with none of the elected and other officials who were in attendance at Kitzhaber’s launch last week. But that did not dampen Bradbury’s characteristic high spirits one bit.
- Photo by T.A.Barnhart
- BRADBURY AT THE LAUNCH THIS MORNING
The premier feature of “Energize Oregon: 8 Solutions to Get Oregon Working Again” is a proposal for a “Bank of Oregon”. Bradbury decried that hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars currently go out-of-state, deposited by state agencies in the big banks that not only caused the current economic crisis but now refuse to provide credit to needy businesses in Oregon. All state agencies would be required to use the Bank of Oregon for deposits, to keep the money working in-state
“It’s time to declare economic sovereignty from the multi-national banks that are in large part responsible for much of our current economic crisis,” said Bradbury. “It’s time to keep Oregon money here in Oregon, working for Oregonians. Every year we ship billions of dollars in Oregon taxpayers’ money to out-of-state and multi-national banks in the form of deposits.”
Calling the banks “a rogues gallery of bad actors”—opposing fees to repay TARP while handing out billions in bonuses; spending millions to lobby against regulation and oversight, and refusing to provide credit to businesses—Bradbury said he was “tired of rewarding them by continuing to invest Oregon money in banks that have little investment in us”.
He said he’d spoken to State Treasurer Ben Westlund last night and that Westlund, whose office would oversee the banks, had been amenable to his idea. (I have yet to get official word from Westlund on this.) The Bank would not replace private banks but partner with them to promote small and medium-sized businesses. Like North Dakota, a state that has such a bank in place, the BofO (nice acronym!) would also return a dividend to the state, based on earnings.
The other seven points of Bradbury’s economic plan include education, focusing on Oregon’s “distinct advantages” (which went unspecified but would match Oregon’s “resources and values,” said the candidate), innovation, regional partnerships (which would include investing regionally), making Oregon the world’s “sustainability capital” (de rigeur for anyone talking about Oregon and jobs these days), rural economies (apparently both of Bradbury’s daughters are or plan to be farmers) and Oregon’s “pioneering entrepreneurial spirit” (i.e, we should support small businesses).
Like Kitzhaber, Bradbury’s proposal was multi-listy: Along with “8 Solutions” he had “4 Criteria” — innovation, stability, immediacy and, importantly for Bradbury, simplicity. “You will notice that this plan is not a 50-page white paper with dense economic language,” he said. Simple can be good, but simple does not necessary fix complex problems. And simple almost certainly does not emerge from the legislative process.
In my opinion the gap between Bradbury and Kitzhaber is, for the most part, small. Both will address jobs as quickly as possible, and both recognize the need for significant changes in how Oregon government functions. The biggest difference is that where Kitzhaber pulls no punches and declares that significant structural change will be required in funding and delivering state services, Bradbury says the real need is to “face” our problems and take responsibility for fixing them now.
Which gets back to Bradbury’s apparent tactic for defeating Kitzhaber: his simple, “do-it-now” mantra versus Kitz’s mysterious 10-year-plans. Stay tuned.
The phrase “almost in the Pearl” is pretty funny. Where WAS it? It’s a pretty Pearl-centric point of view; dang yuppies think they’re the center of the world…
official statement from State Treasurer Ben Westlund, courtesy of James Sinks, his media guy at Treasury:
“I appreciate the objectives of this and any other ideas that could help create Oregon jobs. The State Treasury already is boosting local lending and investing in business start-ups through the Oregon Short-Term Fund and the Oregon Growth Account. Anything that attempts to bring jobs and spark economic development in Oregon deserves study and we are currently looking into it.”
and James assures me that Ben is getting better & should be back in the saddle, so to speak, very soon. that’s good news.
@Reymont: Barnhart is anything but a yuppie.
Here’s another state agency to take your money.
How about you take less of their money, make it easier to start and grow a business, and the jobs will follow.
We used to have a Bank of Oregon.
The idea here is not to “take anyone’s money”, it is to use the money the state is already receiving and investing out of state and instead invest it in Oregon banks and Oregon business.
I agree with keeping money in the state.
I disagree with our leaders’ overarching philosophy to raise taxes and regulations that discourage economic growth.
D’s gonna build his own roads & sewers, educate his own workforce and make sure he’s got all the other infrastructure, not to mention a community that afford his products, out of his own pocket. not to mention no one sells him defective products, steals his money or sells him poison food — all by hisownself! rock on! you go girl!!
A state bank would be great too for businesses and developers to get loans on low-parking or no-parking projects.
Currently, banks are highly reluctant to make business loans without an established minimum of parking spaces for fear the business won’t be able to attract customers. So the standard is set in Omaha but applied everywhere.
It’s a major market failure that increases costs for everyone by overconsuming land.
Instead of creating a new bank, couldn’t they just put the money in an existing one? There are half a dozen banks based in the state, most of which keep their money in the state not because they have to, but because that is what they know how to do… It would be great to go further than that of course, and set standards and goals and etc, but we’d all be a lot better off if they’d simply move the accounts from one bank to another.