The way I look at it, passing or failing, these two measures are trouble. Oregonians won’t win. It won’t matter how it turns out people are going to lose. I know that’s not what the commercials on television tell you but look who’s behind them.
The way I see it, if the measures fail or pass, jobs will be lost. I have friends who are really scared for their jobs. I have a brother-in-law who stands to lose a lot as well. I live in a state with leaders who dangle ballot measures like this in front of our noses, like a carrot and profess to be for the little guy, but never fully fund the little guy and instead, when times are tough, put ballot measures like 66 and 67 in front of us, pitting Oregonian against Oregonian. It’s wrong.
It is not my business how you vote. I don’t know your history, your bias’, or your motivation. But when this is all over we still have to work together. I hope that each of us will at least vote. When the numbers come out tonight, let’s not panic and listen as the media, and those who want us to fear, tell us the sky is falling. When we wake up tomorrow morning, we still must work together.
Do me a favor, don’t let this feeling you have inside right now, disappear when the election is over. Let’s go in and stop the state from continuing to use us. It’s time to look for new ways of funding our state. It’s time to fully fund OUR priorities and stop those who run this state, from dangling our kids and the most vulnerable citizens, like carrots in front of our faces to get more money.
Don’t let up. Don’t let them get away with this. It’s our money and it should be funding Our priorities. I’m so sick of this crap I could spit. If we all sat down and wrote out a list of our top priorities in state government I bet education and health and human services would be near the top. So ask yourself this as they read the final numbers tonight; “why do we let them do this to us?”
And tomorrow, ignore the sound bites but not your ability to get involved.
I hear the folks in Salem say they want us to be more involved in the process but I doubt that is true. If we were, if we truly were involved, none of this would be happening.
