Today at the Convention Center, Svend Auken—the First Vice President of the Danish Parliament—kicked off the Portland Plan with an hour long keynote speech.

It was one of the best hour long speeches I’ve ever sat through. Detailing life in Copenhagen, Auken told great stories about biking, building walkable cities, universal health care (“when you get sick, you just have to worry about getting well, not about paying the bill”), quality and free public education, and paid family leave. His daughter and her husband just got a combined paid year off to care for their newborn twins. Then they’ll go on a six week family vacation, then return to work. Hello!

It was an inspiration speech, and it certainly did the job—several people I spoke with afterwards (including city council candidate Charles Lewis) were clearly jazzed about moving Portland in the direction of Denmark and Copenhagen—or at least adapting their “quality of life” ideas for use here.

Auken got lots of laughs when he illustrated his city’s great biking rates—40 percent of business movement, like deliveries, are done by bike, and 35 percent of people commute by bike, he said—with a personal anecdote. In Copenhagen, it’s usually just women who use a bike basket. But as a member of Parliament, he has all sorts of files and paperwork to carry. So he has a bike basket. Which makes him, he said, a “metro.” As in, metrosexual… too cute, coming from this man:

Svend-auken.jpg

9 replies on ““That is Quality of Life””

  2. He addressed that. “The trick of taxation is to give something back.” Yes, they have high taxes. But people don’t have to also worry about how to pay for their kids’ college, or their medical bills, or what happens if they lose their job. It’s a trade-off, but one I wouldn’t mind exploring.

  4. Nice to see ol’ Svend Auken on your side of the planet. He is a charming fellow and an excellent politician.

    Citizens in Denmark and other Scandinavian countries with high tax rates, in poll after poll, year after year, decade after decade, consistently say that they are content with the tax rate. The current government forced a minor tax break through a couple of years ago, but not without a fight and not without protests from the public. Yes… protest against a tax break.

    It’s not hard to see why. Our taxes are a communal pool that ensure our universal medical care, free dental care for children – from their first tooth until they finish school – they keep the trains running, the roads maintained, the bike lanes clear of debris. Taxes send my children, free of charge, to school and university – from day care to PhD [college students are even paid a modest, helpful amount when they go to university] and taxes are used to help out my fellow citizens who need a safety net.

    This isn’t an “every man for himself” culture – we take care of each other and we are, in many ways, proud of our high taxes. This is a unified society. We’re all in the same boat and we sail together. If some of us have to row a bit extra to help out those who can’t row for whatever reason, we do it.

    It’s hardly a radical thought. Anthropologists have determined that pre-historic tribes lived in a similar, communal, societal structure, where sharing was paramount and everyone helped each other.

    Denmark and her neighbours have perfected the system for a modern age over the past century or so. Far from suffering from high taxes, we have benefited from them in the form of fantastic prosperity, quality of life and contentment.

  5. I often pay close to 40% per month in federal and state taxes, in a low paying helping profession. What do I get for it?
    Lots of nukes, tanks, soldiers and asshole, money hungry American’s to deal with. Yay yayayayay!!!!! Amy, would you ask if he would mind taking me with him back to Denmark?

    Also, residents in these progressive countries are always polled as the happiest in the world. Denmark has gotten lucky on some ideas, sure, but mostly they’re a great, happy country because the leadership is a grounded, morally sound bunch.

    America is on the way down, FAST! Sadly, regardless of how much our ‘progressive’ leaders accomplish (yet to be seen) here in Portland, we will all suffer the same fate – as a whole.

  6. I would be happy to pay such high taxes if it contributed to a community like the one he describes in Denmark. Trouble is, this is the United States and our government’s spending priorities are, shall we say, different. I’m already NOT happy surrendering a quarter of my paycheck in order to pay for our many military fiascos around the world.

  7. You should check out the immigration law in Denmark. It’s not friendly. These “progressive” plans only work in homogeneous environments. There would be no diversity and no one would be able to immigrate here at all. Are you willing to give those up?

  8. When a government works for the people, taxation can be a very good and desirable thing. Folks are happy, well cared for, and can lead stress free lives. The government works for the collective good in such cases.

    Citizens from war-mongering countries don’t like to be taxed since they get little to no tangible “goodness” in return for someone taking their money. Mostly what these people get is jingoistic flag waving and a constant fear-inducing drum-beat of “beware the other guy”.

    I can’t remember who said it, but seems about right. To paraphrase; Governments that fear the people tend to do the right things for their citizenry. Governments that induce fear into their citizenry can do whatever the dictator and ravenous SharkMen demand.

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