Chris Dudley's 67-Point Plan to Make Everything All Better in Oregon's Correctional System

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon--

As soon as Chris Dudley heard that Oregon’s correctional system was experiencing a budget crisis, he immediately set to work, just last week, creating another plan with nearly as many points as vowels, and if there is anything Chris Dudley knows about his multiple-numbered plans, is that a lot of people like them, and he’s in the business of telling people what they like to hear….

He was particularly glad to have this opportunity to slap a plan together, even on such short notice, because this is the one area in which he has some actual experience for the job he's applying for....

Dudley's years in the NBA put him in constant contact with a broad assortment of criminal elements, rubbing elbows both on and off the court, you can just about name your poison in that mob....

His lengthy experience in helping a handful of basketball players leverage endorsement deals may not mean much as far as qualifying Dudley for the job of Governor, but it must mean something, and that's good enough for a lot of people....

Dudley has a proven track record of creating multi-numbered lists of Things To Do While in Oregon that sound really smart to a lot of people, though it's not clear why Oregon piqued his interest at this time instead of the states he has closer ties to....

...and he's just about tall enough to be his own watch tower; there ought to be some savings there....

These points all add up to a lot of reasons that are just as good as any other to vote for Chris Dudley....

Here are all of the issues Chris Dudley has considered so far, as of Tuesday, September 28, 2010, as evidenced on his campaign website:

Dudley Issue Overview

Job Creation
Taxes
Spending Control/Budget Reform
Public Employee Health Care and Retirement Benefits
Privatizing State Liquor Sales
"Rainy Day" State Savings
Higher Education
K-12 Education
Land Use/Property Rights
Rebuilding Public Trust
Energy
Natural Resources
Health Care
Transportation

Don't see the issue most important to you here? Email Chris at Chris@chrisdudley.com

Somehow Oregon’s correctional system was left off of the website list, but Oregon voters can sleep well knowing that very soon, Chris Dudley will have a new list, and that list will have more numbers than all of his other lists combined, and even if they aren’t budget or revenue numbers, the numbers will be right there in the title of the plan where they are easy to see, and that’s what counts anyway….

Here are the first ten points in Chris Dudley’s 67-Point Plan to Make Everything All Better in Oregon’s Correctional System:

1. Let’s have a discussion about this
2. We need to plan carefully
3. This will be all better by 2014
4. Yet another reason to lower capital gains taxes
5. Oregon needs a more business-friendly climate
6. Right after privatizing the OLCC, we’ll privatize the prisons
7. I will appoint a new Correctional Director in the Office of the Governor
8. I will appoint a new Corrections Commission to figure this one out
9. PERS is the problem, and I’ve already solved that problem in one of my other plans
10. The Corrections budget problem has no impact on any of my other plans; they are all still as good as they ever were.

On taxing and spending, smaller government and Oregon parochialism

by Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon-- Ever since the rise of Ronald Reagan, no matter what the real issue is, most political arguments have to deal with the phrase "taxing and spending" and the attitudes behind the phrase.

There are many who see government at any level in no other terms. Tax and spend. Tax and spend. This mantra is far more a matter of attitude than it is sound economic or political thought, but it's also a matter of civic engagement.

Ronald Reagan was a master of engaging the intellectually non-engaged, that portion of the electorate who clove to the concept that all political and economic thought could be boiled down into an issue of "taxing and spending", and that government itself is the problem.

Even the village idiot would oppose taxing and spending, if that was the argument, and often the village idiot votes.

The non-engaged could buy into that idea and then continue down the self-indulgent path of non-engagement, and the result was the election of Ronald Reagan, who as Governor set in motion the destruction of California's then-world-class educational system, but I digress....

One certainly cannot expect to sustain a civilization under pressure if everything boils down to three of the most unremarkable words in the English language:

Tax...and...spend.

This mantra is used interchangeably and blindly across all levels of government, local, state and federal, its users generally ignorant of or unwilling to distinguish between the different roles each plays in the American system.

While much has changed since the days of Ronald Reagan, mindset has not.

Now Oregon must compete in a vast global economy, in a world where people are fighting for their very lives, where nations, states and large corporations are not hamstrung by Reagan-thought or by Oregon's unique parochial isolationism.

Geographically, we are the most isolated state in the nation, save Alaska and Hawaii. That fact has a great deal to do with why we are at this place in the history of the state.

Economically, we have a cobbled-together revenue structure that has never made much sense, that was never designed as a system, that is hyper-sensitive to events in the national and world economies, and that no other state has chosen to emulate, for obvious reasons.

Those that argue that the answer lies in small government are unwilling or unable to point to an example of right-size government anywhere in the world, or in the history of the  world. It is a false argument.

It's time to create a revenue structure that will function as a system, that makes Oregon truly competitive, that is not so vulnerable to events taking place outside of the state, and that's where the argument and the work should be.

Pioneer days are long over.