1-28-2010 (Thursday)

Good morning folks. It is Thursday and I am back on the train. I just decided that I did not want to drive today so I pulled into Wilsonville and here I am. I enjoy the driving but I was not feeling it today.

Pretty big things going on in my corner of the world. The Presidents state of the union address was last night. I didn't think that he said anything extreme or really thought provoking. If anything I think he has chickened out on his ideas of change and has begun to act just like any other politician and that is sad to me. But, I guess I should have realized that when he asked Joe Biden to be his VP. If anything said "Hey, I am going to say change but really it will be the same old, same old." The presence of Biden should have clued me in. Now granted I did not want the kind of change that McCain was pushing with Palin but I wanted something more then we have gotten from Mr Obama. I hope the next two years may allow for some of that.

In Oregon, the fallout from Measures 66 & 67 is building. It really felt like someone had died yesterday. Because everywhere I turned on Facebook there was someone expressing sadness at the bills passing. Now I realize that there were some pretty heated things being sad and statistics being thrown back and forth about job loss and such. But, the sad reality is that it really did not matter if these bills passed or not. Because in Oregon right now there would be, will be job loss. I think the biggest thing that the bills did was to decided from where that job loss was going to happen either the public or the private sector. The other big thing these bills did was to highlight the differences in what the people of Oregon think is good politics and isn't. When I looked at the county listings of the vote outcome it was pretty obvious that along the I-5 corridor and through the Willamette Valley these counties voted yes. But east of them and south it was a no vote. What this means is that the population centers of the state are controlling the future of the state. While I realize that this is frustrating for people I think that is Democracy and when the populace has a vote well sometimes you have to eat a crap sandwich.

I have also heard a few people mention, one on the radio, that they wonder about voter fraud. I hope that isn't the case. I like the vote by mail system in Oregon and I do not want it to change. I do not think there was voter fraud and until I hear actual evidence of such a thing I am going to continue thinking it was a fair vote that played out along party and population lines.

All of that being said. I think Oregon will get through this. The wheel keeps turning and life moves forward. Big business will stay and return to Oregon. We will get out of this recession and the jobs will come. I am confident of that. I do not think our state is going to go the route of California or Arizona. So hang in there Oregonians there is always sunshine after the rain but we all know that sometimes the rain lasts for several years.

1-27-10 (Wednesday)

Well...in what I think is a surprising result Oregon voters decided to pass measures 66 and 67. This is the first time in 70 years that Oregon has voted in a tax increase. In fact 9 times in the past Oregon has said no to a sales tax. So I think there are more then a few of the so called experts that are shaking their heads over this one. Now as I mentioned yesterday, only time will tell if this is going to be a net gain or loss for Oregon. While the supporters of the measures feel that this is going to be a gain because of the tax revenue it is going to generate that anti people feel that the amount of private industry jobs that Oregon is going to lose because of this will make this a net loss. I have no idea and I am not even going to attempt to make a prediction on it.

Tonight President Obama gives his State of the Union address. I am not overly excited by this. I think the primary reason for me is that because Mr Obama has been out speaking so much I am not feeling a need to listen. With other Presidents it was rare to hear them speak so I would sometimes view it just because I wanted to see how they spoke publicly. But with Mr Obama that is not anything I haven't seen before. As a matter of fact, along those same lines of public speaking I saw a clip of President Obama last night speaking to a class of 6Th graders, somewhere in America I am not sure where, the clip was on the daily show. What was interesting to me and what Jon Stewart mentioned was that the President was in a 6Th grade classroom with the presidential podium set up and two 'TELEPROMPTERS' set up!! One to his right and one two his left!! I mean come on! You are in a grade school class room!! Do you really need to have teleprompters? I am beginning to feel more and more just like the old Who song says "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" I know people will disagree with me and it isn't that Obama is the same as Bush. It is that he is becoming the same business as usual politician that infects this country. The conservatives are excited right now about Scott Browns victory in Massachusetts. I would argue that given a year or maybe as little as six months he will be sucked into the machine will be spat out the same politician as the rest of them.

It doesn't matter what party they are from. The lobbyists for the corporations and the corporations run things in Washington D.C.. I am beginning to feel more and more that the only real safe haven for people is what can happen for them at the state level. Maybe what we need is a return to federalism and a step back from the large umbrella of national government. I do feel that I am in favor of the new spending freeze idea. I just hope it works.