May 26th, 2010 Senate floor speech text - Budget crisis

Mr. President:

Just three short months ago, many of us took to this floor and warned that this legislature needed to act during February's Special Session to reduce state spending and avoid a potential fiscal catastrophe if revenues should plummet in 2010.

Those pleas were rejected by the majority. The huge tax increases of Measures 66 and 67 would"stabilize" the budget situation, they claimed. Our fiscal challenges had been addressed. Increased spending and increased taxes would lead the state through the budget crisis.

I didn't believe the claims then, and I certainly don't believe them now. Yesterday's dire revenue forecast proved that our fears were justified. We're short another 1/2 a billion dollars. A huge hole blown right through the middle of K-12, human services, and public safety programs.

We have to face the facts. The tax and spend approach failed.

So the question we have before us is simple: what path do we take to rebalance the budget? Do we accept the Governor's approach of straight across the board spending cuts? Or do we do the job that our constituents elected us to do and come back into a special session to set priorities, make tough decisions, and protect the programs that are absolutely essential to our state's economic future? We could be holding our children and their education harmless....but we're not. We could be protecting public safety programs and local judicial systems...but we're not. We could be reducing unnecessary bureaucracy in Salem...but we're not.

At least not yet. I urge my colleagues to join with me to call the legislature back into session. As responsible, duly elected Senators, let's step up to the plate, and work together to fix the budget crisis in a responsible, common sense manner.

We owe that much to our constituents, to the taxpayers, and to the state of Oregon.

Thank you.