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:
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
"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.