Greg Walden votes against Oregonians

Paulie Brading

In today's big "O":

" Congress' recent failure to renew federal forest payments to Oregon counties under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act is sobering. Oregon counties will permanently lose more than $200 million a year. According to the Governor's Task Force on Federal Forest Payments, in 24 of Oregon's 36 counties, revenue losses will average 26% of their discretionary general funds and 44% of their road funds. Schools will lose $32 million each year, the equivelent of two days of school for each student in Oregon."

Remember, Greg Walden voted NOT to renew federal forest payments to Oregon counties.

"If cities and counties can't provide needed services at the local level, demand will fall back on the state general fund, creating more competition for an already stressed state budget. As the governor's task force just observed, state lawmakers "will have to choose among schools, health care and highways at the state level and public health, safety and roads at the local level."

Remember, Greg Walden has all but formally declared he's running for the position of Governor of the state of Oregon in 2010.

Republican Lane Shetterly is chairman of the Task Force on Comprehensive Revenue Restructuring. Randall Edwards is Oregon treasurer and a member of the task force are the authors of today's article in the big "O".

The task force is made up of 30 members from across Oregon with a wide range of view points.

If you want to follow the work of the task force go to: www.leg.state.or/comm/lro

Remember, Greg Walden stated a full month after he voted NOT to renew federal forest payments on July 1st, 2008 that, "We can and should fund county payments, and in doing so ensure that the federal government maintains the committment to rural communities it made a century ago." That statement was made on the day Walden called for off-shore drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf beyond 75 miles offshore. He also stated, "states would control all energy development between 0 and 75 miles from the shore, giving unprecedented powers to the states."

Walden's trickery cannot go unchallenged. His twisted logic on big oil cannot go unchallenged. Walden's exploitation of careful misinformation cannot go unchallenged. Greg Walden wants to be our next Governor.

In the end, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves if Walden continues to serve in office in the state of Oregon. His vote against federal forest payments isn't a simple blunder. His vote was a calculated choice to support the American empire of big oil. Hold Greg Walden responsible.

  • Steve Bucknum (unverified)
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    Last time I was over in Wheeler County, about 3 weeks ago, I found out that they will be closing the Road Department for lack of funds later this year.

    Here in Prineville we are doing better. But, to balance the budget, we will be charged $10 per month on the water/sewer bill for a police services surcharge - apparently legal after an Oregon Supreme Court decision on a similar charge in Jacksonville. Other new charges are being levied against businesses in spite of the current recession/depression. Even with these new fees, the City has cut about 25% of its budget compared to last year.

    Have the Republicant's finally succeeded in reducing government to the point where you can strangle it in the bathtub?

    And, I hold Greg Walden entirely responsible for this. If he hadn't gone out of his way to call up other Congressmen/women and lobby against this bill, it would have probably passed.

    After the elections this fall, Greg Walden will be the ONLY Republicant left from Oregon in a Statewide or Federal elected position. Perhaps in two years the Democratic Party might care enough to spend a little time focusing upon raising money, even matching funds, for a real run against him? -- And no, I don't think he will run for Governor for the very reason I state above - He's going to be the ONLY Republicant left standing in Oregon with a Federal level elected position, so he won't run for one he knows he will lose, he will try to defend the one he has.

  • true facts (unverified)
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    The fate of 'rural Oregon' has been given attention on this site. The conclusion is, apparently, they deserve it. First, because it easy to scapegoat the rubes. You know, residents of Lane, Washington and the other 31 of 36 counties who receive funds from the program Walden has killed rather than have Big Oil pay one red cent for the oil it has extracted. That was what Walden rallied his forces to do. If you think, however, that his ethics are not in play for all of the US you are mistaken. It is the chosen few that matter. Household income of less than five hundred thousand you don't exist.

  • skywaker9 (unverified)
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    The good news, we can kick the bums out this year. See why at: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/16/11399/5864/783/552483

  • meg (unverified)
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    when logging declined, the payments also began to drop. What do you want? Money for nothing and the Checks for free? Cut Tree's and the money will flow.

  • springfielder (unverified)
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    I guess I'm the only one who cared enough today to follow the link.
    And it's a bad one.

    I believe it should be: http://www.leg.state.or.us/comm/lro/

  • Steve Bucknum (unverified)
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    Meg writes,

    "when logging declined, the payments also began to drop. What do you want? Money for nothing and the Checks for free? Cut Tree's and the money will flow."

    Meg, really, money for nothing?

    In my County, the Federal Government owns half the land. They do not pay one cent of property tax. That lack of payment cost YOU money Meg. It forces not only my County but all of Oregon to have an infrastructure paid for by all of us covering the entire State - which is half owned by the Federal Government.

    Who is getting something for nothing? It is the Federal Government which gets all sorts of services provided by Oregon that they don't pay their fair share to get.

    When the County payments got cut, the money going to the school funds in these Counties was cut. Under Oregon law, equal payment must be made to the districts across the State. So, the cuts of the school money are back-filled from the legislature - Oregon's money!

    Your money!

    Meg - there has never been a clearer example of how we are all interlinked in Oregon.

    It's not just about trees, its about a commitment to fairness and justice.

  • Bill Bodden (unverified)
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    The good news, we can kick the bums out this year.

    We can try, but Walden will most likely prove again to have a solid majority over the Democratic candidate whoever he or she is. Somebody was supposed to be running on the Democratic ticket, but I haven't heard anything from or about him for several weeks.

  • meg (unverified)
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    To gain support for national forests, President Theodore Roosevelt agreed in 1908 to share 25 percent of the revenues from selling timber with the counties where it was cut for schools and roads.

    Eighteen counties in timber-rich Western Oregon got an even better deal. Since 1937 they shared half the revenue from logs cut on a patchwork of lands bought back by the federal government after the Oregon & California Railroad went broke.

    The money far outstripped what federal lands would produce in taxes. Josephine County Assessor Mike Schneyder estimated taxing public lands at the same rate as private forests would bring in little more $100,000 a year locally. The county got $12 million last year from timber payments.

    "Who is getting something for nothing? It is the Federal Government which gets all sorts of services provided by Oregon" And what are these services?

  • Josh Reynolds (unverified)
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    Paulie

    I thought the bill had the votes. Oh that's right, it was under special circumstances where you needed 274 votes to pass. My other question is how was this bill going to do in the senate? It didn't have a chance. Was Walden playing games, absolutely but don't let DeFazio off the hook either if you are being honest here. He was playing games as well. I think you have two folks trying to position themselves for the 2010 election.

  • truthtime (unverified)
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    Meg,

    it seems it is you who wants money for nothing and checks for free. Its a fantasy that just cutting more trees will mean more money for counties and that there will be not costs to pay.

    Logging in Oregon has declined steeply since 2004 due to the crappy housing market and Bush-caused recession. Private landowners know a thing or two about making money off logging, and they've reduced their cutting drastically due to low timber prices and a weak market with slow demand.

    And its gotten drastically worse over the last 18 months. As Jay Ross, CEO of North Pacific Lumber told the Portland Business Journal (July 4 edition), 'The forest products industry can't shut down capacity fast enough to match the decline in housing.' Lumber companies all over Oregon have seen their revenue drop drastically due to the housing slump and poor market conditions that are expected to continue.

    Despite the recent news reports that 'Oregon's timber harvests continue to plummet' (Oregon Dept. of Forestry press release, July 8) and declined by 12% last year, logging on federal lands in Oregon actually rose 5%. That's despite the obvious market signals that we should be logging less, not more.

    Its naive to think that we can log our way out county troubles. Its not responsible to connect schools, law enforcement and road maintenance to the boom and bust nature of the timber industry. If we do, it will in fact be a federal subsidy (cheap logs made available during a flooded market with low demand) at a very real cost to clean water, salmon fishing, and other values Oregonians and Americans place on their public forestlands. It is also widely known that cutting fire resistant old growth trees actually harms forest health and increases fire risk. And that logging after fires harms forest recovery and increases fire risk. There's no free lunch - we can't just flip on a switch to get more county money from logging without very real costs to pay.

    You've got to get over the failed idea that we can hitch county budgets to logging levels like some third world country would (and the way Oregon did in the excesses of the 1980's). It only works if federal logging levels are maintained at unsustainably high levels despite market conditions, and despite the values of sustainability that the majority of the public holds.

    This is why the Revenue Restructuring Task Force is so important. We've got to start thinking outside the box if Oregon is going to be sustainable economically like other western states who also have vast tracts of federal lands that don't pay local property taxes. They make due, but somehow we've been stuck in a rut in Oregon even though the writing has been on the wall since 1991 for reduced federal timber sales and associated logging revenues.

    Let's move on and talk about some more sensible ideas than just 'log more' and 'drill more.'

  • Kurt Chapman (unverified)
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    Paulie, your deliberately misleading diatribe continues. Like any good carpetbagger, you have moved into southern Oregon and want us all to believe your way is the "best" way. Let's at least be intellectually honest and admit that the dems put a poison pill in the enabling legislation by placing a hge burden on Oil to pay the Timber Payments.

    There may well be a technical problem with how Oil Leases are paid post 1996 or whenever. Fixing it on the back of Timber Payments is political cynicism at its worst. the bill was designed to give dems fodder to write such drivel when Walden and several others voted "NO". Please understand, the repubs do it all the time too. It is wasteful and needs to be called out whenever it occurs.

    Timber cut WILL get us out of this mess. 25 years ago you couldn't swing a dead cat in southern Oregon without hitting a raw log mill. Today, by my count there are fewer than 6 mills that handle commercial grade raw logs from Roseburg South - Roseburg Forest Products, Rough & Ready in Selma, Boise and TImber Products in White City and SUperior in Glendale. If I've left any out I apologize. Today there is more harvestable, renewable timber in Souther Oregon than there was in 1968. Yet the environmental obstructionists still fight ever single timber sale. There was enough salvage board feet alone from the Biscuit Fire to fund the southern counties for 4-5 years. Now that dying, dead and decaying timber is just sitting waiting for the next lightening strike.

  • oh gem (unverified)
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    An error in legislation which DeFazio attempted to correct allowed billions of dollars worth of oil to be extracted from federal land without paying ONE CENT. There was not an attempt for retroactive payment. Purely and simply to begin making payment. Thats all. Inasmuch as some three trillion dollars have been obligated to secure Iraq's oil for Big Oil (remember, these companies will allow Iraq to have 25% of the profits from THEIR OWN oil) it seems fair to some to treat folks in Oregon as if they are natives of Iraq. It is called Disaster Capitalism. Bush and his friends are entitled to take it all? Oh Meg. Now it is time to Privatize all services. All roads will be toll roads. All law enforcement by Blackwater. Want fire protection? Buy your subscription to a private fire pro- tection entity. What will be the source of revenue for these profit making, doubtless foreign, entities? Taxes. So, Walden's hatred of government has the self fulfilling prophecy of destroying what the public sector provides to the public and acts as an ATM for the already well healed. Socialism for the rich. Bootstrap capitalism for about ninety-five percent of the rest. Don't you love it,Greg?

  • Steve Bucknum (unverified)
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    Meg writes, " And what are these services?"

    Federal employees living in Federal housing on Federal land get their children educated in schools Oregonians pay for, drive on roads Oregonians built and maintain, have electrical power down easements over our land, use Oregon's courts and justice system, file their papers and get married in our court houses, receive child care from Oregon licensed Child Care facilities, carry Oregon driver's licenses, use mental health and children's services facilities paid for by Oregon, and in short participate in the full range of everything else anyone who is an Oregonian participates in - without paying property taxes.

    Do you think there are no Federal employees in these forests? Just here in Crook Co., we have over 100 living full time at one Forest Service Ranger station, plus more than double that with seasonal fire fighters. They account for half the children at one of our schools.

  • meg (unverified)
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    without paying property taxes?

    They pay Income Tax They buy Gas. They buy Food. They Pay Fee's County Assessor Mike Schneyder estimated taxing public lands at the same rate as private forests would bring in little more $100,000 a year locally. The county got $12 million last year from timber payments.

  • a real gem (unverified)
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    Please notice this simple fact. I know that it is obvious but for a few it needs to be emphasized. Meg, who is an apparent Walden supporter, does not address the one, huge glaring fact. County payments were cancelled by Greg and his BIG OIL advocates because he did not want his industry to PAY ONE RED CENT in royalties for oil extracted from Federal land. So. It is clear that Meg has a few hundred thousand shares of Exxon Mobile and is looking out for her own interest. That tax free condo in the Pearl, perhaps. That is why the root for Greed is the same as rust. The corrosive effects of the ME First crowd is too much.

  • Steve Bucknum (unverified)
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    I'm going to respond to Meg here in a few lines, but for the rest of you - lay off some. She lives in Josphine County with Grants Pass as the County seat. That is another rural area where the Republicants have been feeding people mis-information for years. She probably lives either south or east of Grants Pass, as that is as far as the Second CD goes.

    It's important to realize that we have a thinking/feeling/caring person with Meg, and she wouldn't be engaged here unless she was interested in the give and take. So, let's be "educative" and not offensive.

    Meg - Josphine County is 1,641 square miles in size, and it looks to have about half of the County in the National Forest. I don't know if the Oregon Caves National monument has similar logging compared to the National Forest areas. You have some protected wilderness. By contract, my County (Crook) is nearly twice as large as yours.

    Yes, property tax is less than what you'd get with the County payments. But property tax is only a piece of Oregon's taxing system, and I have generalized some. I sort of lump the timber severance tax onto property tax. There is also a business personal property tax. (e.g. office equipment, trucks, etc. are taxed as property).

    What your Assessor relates is the value of Oregon's tax deferred exclusive farm/forest use property tax. He forgets that there are taxable improvements (if only we taxed the Federal Government), e.g., its not just bare land. Buildings and other improvements are a large part of the taxation system. To only get $100,000 in property tax from what amounts to roughly 800 square miles and many buildings is obviously a under-estimate. But, again, I can see where Mr. Schneyder gets there by only looking at the EFU tax deferred rate for bare land.

    Meg - as a rural person I have only wanted fairness. I don't want a subsidy from the Federal Government just because we are rural. I want the Federal Government to pay their fair share. And nothing isn't a fair share.

    So, you've been playing a little "Yes, but" here (where others expound, and you shoot down). Let me ask you -

    What do you think is the Federal Government's fair share? What do you think is proper role of the Federal Government in the Counties (like your's and mine) where they own so much land? What do you think the solutions are for our Counties that are closing down (3), and cutting services (most)?

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    Kurt,

    Nice try on the carpetbagger swipe. My Southern Oregon roots began in Josephine County when my parents moved there in 1947 and my 84 year old dad still lives in the county. Guess who graduated from Grants Pass High School and so did my husband? Guess who's been driving over Bear Camp road shuttling trucks and boat trailers since before the legal age to drive. Guess who's parents opened the first Dairy Queen in Cave Junction? Guess who carried my dad's gas can when he was fighting fires all over Southern Oregon. Guess who learned to file a chain saw, and that was in the time when chainsaws were three times longer than they are today, so dad could send 3 kids to Oregon colleges? Guess who's first year of teaching was in Jackson County? Guess who knew the names of every guy pullin' greenchain at a certain mill where my husband worked in the summer between college? I robably spent time on 6 to 10 logging shows. Don't get me started about all the summers spent up on old skid roads shooting beer cans off stumps. By the way, over the years I've/We'ved lived in Benton, Lane, Washington, Columbia, Multnomah, Josephine, Jackson and Clackamas, Deschutes and Pendelton counties. Guess that me an Oregonian.

  • a real gem (unverified)
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    No intent on my part to intrude into the conversation that one person has with another. I do not know Meg, presumed to be annonymous except to Steve. The answer as to how much is the Federal Government's share has been answered. And Mr. Walden answered it. ZERO. Now, rather than add to this unfortunate fact with more facts let us simply be advised that parking lots filled with people sleeping and living in their cars is already happening. Without law enforcement or services where do you think the folks who are reliving a scene from the great depression will come? Wouldn't it be preferable to retain a livable Oregon than to bolster the income of the oil companies?

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    Paulie, small world.

    Kurt tried the same tact with me a few days ago on the same subject. You've got a few Counties on me but there's a large overlap. I've lived in Jackson, Josephine, Benton and Washington Counties. My dad's side of the family has a very long history in Jackson, Josephine and Curry Counties going back to the 19th Century. I attended 5th & 6th grades in Grants Pass while my dad taught Industrial Arts (and was the FFA advisor) at IVHS in Cave Junction during those same two years. Of course that doesn't make me an expert on logging. But I lived in and around it.

  • Steve Bucknum (unverified)
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    Proactively, I might add that I have lived in four Oregon Counties and my family has been here since the 1890's.

  • Kurt Chapman (unverified)
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    Paulie and Kevin,

    I certainly apologize if you believe that a carpetbagger is merely one who moves into an area and then thrys to change it and take advantage of what the area has to offer. So, you are life-long Oregonians. Good for you.

    I think that your buying into the "no cut" philosophy is all the more tragic then.

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    My personal stance is we need professional forest management back in the forests and we need to get forests out of the courts.

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