Pages tagged "election"

  • Lower Taxes, More Services

    Posted on News by · April 20, 2022 7:00 AM · 1 reaction

    All things considered, former Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek is thought of as the frontrunner for her party’s nomination for governor. But people are starting to notice that she is not being endorsed by other prominent Democrats in the state, many of whom worked closely with her to advance the far-left agenda that’s left Portland and the entire state in shambles.

     

    Former governors John Kitzhaber, Ted Kulongoski and Barbara Roberts and longtime Senate President Peter Courtney are either staying neutral or endorsing state Treasurer Tobias Read.

     

    A recent newspaper article quoted one former Democratic legislator as saying she won’t support Kotek because she wants “somebody in that office who has integrity.” Another liberal former legislator, who also served as a Multnomah County Commissioner, correctly characterized Oregon as a high-tax state with low services and acknowledged that what the state’s leadership is doing isn’t working.

     

    Well, of course it isn’t. That’s become incredibly obvious.

     

    The truth is, Kotek is beholden to many of the same interests as Kate Brown, who has the distinction of having the lowest approval rating of any governor in the entre United States.

     

    But they aren’t completely the same. For example, Kotek is even more liberal than Brown and openly admits a much.

     

    Brown and Kotek have worked hand-in-hand to help create a culture in Oregon over the past several years where state employees feel entitled. Their unions donate millions of dollars to Democrats’ campaigns. Rank and file union members canvas and phone bank for those unions’ preferred candidates. Between all of that, they’ve created the ultimate political machine.

     

    The unions’ candidates get into office and are eager to raise taxes to fund pay raises for the same public employees who campaigned for them. That cycled repeats itself year after year, with no end in sight.

     

    Starting around two years ago, the COVID pandemic revealed where this is all going. State government essentially shut down. Even long after private businesses were allowed to re-open, state agencies were still unresponsive to citizens and not even trying to provide services.

     

    What we need is literally the opposite of what we’ve been getting. Instead of higher taxes and fewer services, we need lower taxes and more services. This can be accomplished by prioritizing what the state is doing and eliminating the duplication of efforts and mission creep among and between its agencies. Those agencies need to get back to performing their core functions.

     

    What’s ironic is that Kotek herself admitted in that article that “I don’t think things are working the way they should be working.” How, Tina?

     

    The state has had years of record revenues and piles of money from the federal government, countless tax and fee increases and ballooning agency budgets. Your party has had supermajorities in both chambers. What, exactly, do the people of this state have to show for it all?

     

    You guessed it—high taxes and low services. We can do better, and I know we can.

     

    I’m not running for governor to keep things the way they are. But make no mistake—Kotek is.

     

    We will have the chance to change course in just a few short months. Are you ready to do things different? Because I am.

     

     

    *If you’d like to find out more about or support the Brandon Merritt for Oregon Governor campaign, please check out our website at https://www.merritt22.com/

     

  • The Right Approach

    Posted on News by · March 02, 2022 7:00 AM

    There’s a very crowded field of candidates running for governor, and they cover the entire political spectrum. They come from different backgrounds and have various levels of education and experience. Over the next few months, we’ll all be bombarded with ads telling us all about where some of them stand on the issues.

     

    All of the candidates also have their own visions of what they intend to do if elected to that position. But what does being governor actually entail on a daily basis? It’s not all about making speeches and doing photo ops. The governor serves as the chief executive of the state government and oversees all of its agencies, boards, commissions and literally thousands of employees.

     

    To me, the single biggest qualification anybody could have for governor is the ability and knowledge needed to effectively and efficiently run a large organization.

     

    Some people openly scoff at the thought that government should be run like a business. And even though the public and private sector don’t necessarily run the same, they do share some commonalities. One is that customer service should matter.

     

    Right now, a lot of people don’t feel that customer service is a priority for Oregon’s state agencies. There are many recent examples to support this position. Oregonians have had a hard time getting basic services out of the DMV during the COVID pandemic. Thousands of them were unable to get their unemployment benefits for months on end, or even get ahold of anyone at the Employment Department to find out what was going on. Even the state’s attempt at providing rental assistance was marred by incompetence that kept people from getting the help they needed.

     

    The truth of the matter is, any company that treated its customers the way the state of Oregon treats its taxpayers would have been out of business decades ago. The state keeps raising taxes, the way a business would raise its prices, but the services don’t get any better and agencies aren’t any more responsive. So who’s responsible for this? It starts at the top, in the governor’s office.

     

    I’ve spent most of my career turning around companies and nonprofit organizations that had been struggling. As part of that, I have to analyze their organizational and operational structures and advise them on what steps to take to build back their customer or donor base.

     

    I’m proud of my track record of helping clients improve and streamline their operations and return to a point of profitability.

     

    Some of the gubernatorial candidates will boast that they’ve served in elected office, including the Oregon Legislature. Being a legislator is not the same as being an executive, and being a career politician is not necessarily a qualification for running an organization. If anything, it means they’re more likely to be beholden to the special interests and lobby groups that are funding their campaigns.

     

    We all know deep down inside that Oregon is in trouble. The good news is, it can still be helped. It’s not too late.

     

    Most of those problems aren’t external, they’re simply the result of bad management practices. Those practices can be changed. Oregon needs a new CEO.

     

    Our current governor is term limited. That’s a good thing, as her chronic mismanagement of state agencies has made her the least popular governor in the entire country.

     

    We’re going to have a new CEO next year. I think that person needs to be someone with the right approach, and that’s why I’m uniquely qualified to be governor.

     

    I’m going to be making my way across the state to share and spread that message. Help is on the way.