Outlook for Oregon Legislature not so rosy

The Eugene Register-Guard's David Steves writes about this troubling development in an article entitled "Digging for Common Ground":

Cross the building and sit down at Senate President Peter Courtney's round worktable, strewn with memos and spreadsheets, and listen to somebody with no use for waxing hopeful about the weeks and months ahead.

"I'm scared to death," said the Salem Democrat, the Legislature's longest-serving member. "I have not used the word 'optimistic.' I use the words 'fear,' 'tense,' 'scared.' "

[...]

Oregon's economic recession of 2001-03 is over, but the state continues to dig out from the fallout, namely the way state income taxes came in at levels well below what had been earmarked for education, health and human services, and public safety. With Oregon's recovery on a slow track, revenues for the 2005-07 biennium are expected to fall about $1 billion short of the $13 billion or so that analysts say is needed to fund programs at their current levels.

Making the task more difficult, voters have twice rejected temporary boosts in the income tax, and one-time money through borrowing or raiding reserve funds is not considered an option this time around.

The budget issues might be tough, but as Steve Law reports in today's Salem Statesman Journal, healthcare issues could be just as daunting.

"Health care is all over this session," said [Courtney,] the Salem Democrat and dean of the Oregon Legislature. "That is the issue, in my opinion, more than the budget."

Tens of thousands of poor people have been tossed off the state's once-shining Oregon Health Plan. The plan, a national model, boldly set priorities for health treatments, delineating which merited coverage and which did not. That freed the state to expand the number of people insured.

Now people who lost coverage are jamming hospital emergency rooms to seek basic health care. That's driving up everyone's health-insurance costs and burdening employers.

As the state GOP offers up a set of policies ranging from tax cuts to more tax cuts, it's going to be extremely difficult for the Oregon Legislature to solve the real problems that afflict the state. Though Governor Kulongoski is the consummate negotiator, look for this legislative session to be rife with conflict and turmoil as both parties seek to ensure they gain the upper hand.