If you were wondering what crucial parts of the Oregon state budget will survive the projected $1 billion cuts this year, don’t look to Salem. Look to Backspace, where last night the Mercury and Bus Project held the first BrewHaha of 2009: March Sadness, a mock budget-cut throw down. Experts on eight pieces of the Oregon budget debated each other head-to-head in pairs and the audience voted which programs to keep and which to cut.
In the first round, Public Safety went down in flames against K-12 Education funding. No surprises there, Portland. But the next vote was much tighter, as Child Care rep Joe Baessler debated for funding against Affordable Housing. Baessler pointed out that 11,000 low income people in Oregon use subsidized or public child care. But Affordable Housing pointed out that while Washington spends $186 million every two years on affordable housing, Oregon only invests a measly $7.8 million. The result is a “cockamamie system of financing affordable housing in Oregon which relies on private enterprise.” And with private enterprise crumbling… well, Affordable Housing convinced enough hearts and minds to win the round by just a few votes.
That’s when the cuts really got tough. Senior Citizens versus Small Business.
“Vote down their budget and they WILL DIE,” said Meghan Moyer of the Service Employees International Union, which represents the estimated 17,000 home care workers for seniors and disabled people who will lose their jobs if the current budget cuts pass.
“I can’t believe you played the death card,” complained Tony Fuentes, a NE Portland small business owner. “We’ve got this big budget hole, how do we dig ourselves out of it? If we want to save future grandpa we’ve got to invest in small business.”
The vote was tight, but small business triumphed. Moyer was handed a hobo bindle and escorted from the stage. Host Steve Novick, for one, had little sympathy. “If the grandparents die, they’ll definitely be more shovel ready,” he joked.
In the end, K-12 Education triumphed over all the other budget items, remaining the only piece of the Oregon budget to not get slashed in Brewhaha 2009.
After Bus Project kids dumped a bucket of fake money over the school rep’s head, Novick took a minute to talk about solutions to the budget crisis. “Everyone’s heard of the kicker, right?” said Novick, receiving a chorus of “yes!” “boo!” and “evil!” in return. The kicker is a tax rebate businesses get from Oregon’s budget surplus and Novick stumped briefly for a House bill that would direct kicker checks to a rainy day fund instead of to businesses. Keeping that money in the state budget, said Novick, could help prevent the drastic cuts facing Oregon’s schools. “The Republicans took a knife to the most stimulating part of the president’s package,” said Novick, referring, of course, to education dollars, “They did a Lorena Bobbit on it.” (confidential to Lorena Bobbit, start taking notes now from Tonya Harding.)
Learn to photo, Sarah.
I never understand why people choose paying for the kiddies schools over keeping the kiddies alive.