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As I travel, meet and talk with
my constituents in Senate District 28 several
items always come to the top of our discussion
lists. Most people express continued concern for
a standard litany of issues: the degradation of
our traditional American culture; the need for
fewer regulations and obstacles for business;
freer markets with fewer tariffs; and a return
to our American constitutional roots.
Stop and think for a minute.
People want more freedom, smaller government,
lower taxes and yet every year the legislature
meets and passes hundreds of new laws. Why do we
need all of these laws? An Ancient Roman Senator
and historian, Tacitus, made the claim, "The
more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the
state."
I think he understood humanity's
fallen nature correctly.
The 2018 legislative
“short-session” scuttled perfectly legitimate
efforts aimed at reigning in Oregon’s
governmental enterprise. Bipartisanship became
the media watchword while the Democratic
leadership silently pursued their own
progressive political agenda. For those of us in
South, Central and Eastern Oregon, this is just
a glimpse of what will happen in 2019 if there
are no substantial changes in Oregon’s House,
Senate or Executive offices.
This well-orchestrated short
session circumvented attempts at meaningful
change. It also sandbagged citizens by limiting
their participation in condensed committee
schedules. Therefore, substantial policy issues
were forced through without transparency or the
time necessary to pursue alternative solutions.
Despite these challenges, I and my Senate
Republican colleagues effectively stopped
numerous hyper-partisan, tax and spend
boondoggles from becoming law in 2018.
In particular,
two bills which I adamantly opposed were
HB 4001
and
SB 1507.
These two Cap and Trade bills were only used for
political posturing and represent the worst of
the Democrat’s agenda. They both have
insurmountable problems. First, they would
burden taxpayers with a minimum of $700 million
dollars in extra taxes, annually. Second,
neither would make a discernible difference in
global greenhouse gas emissions.
Additionally,
without any Republican support, the Democrat
majority passed
SB 1528,
which will create a whopping 30% tax increase on
Oregon’s sole proprietors, small and family
owned businesses and LLC’s. This partisan tax
scheme will force 192,000 small businesses to
pay $258 million in 2018 taxes while protecting
large multinational corporations who are able to
game the system.
Another bill
which I supported,
HB 4016,
never made it out of committee. Environmental
groups and tribal interests spoke against this
straight-forward and common-sense fix for the
Klamath Irrigation District (KID). This bill
would have allowed temporary transfers within
the KID district boundaries to other land within
their boundary. In KID these place of use
changes would have allowed the district to
remedy original mapping and boundary errors
without exceeding the water right in the
original claim.
As I have written
in the past, I was a Chief Sponsor of
HB 4005
which passed. This bill is intended to help
grapple with the high costs of prescription
drugs and the harm that patients and consumers
experience by exposing the details behind cost
increases for pharmaceutical products. This bill
only requires reporting for drugs costing more
than $100 per month that increase by more than
10% on an annual basis.
I sponsored
HB 4100
which also passed. This bill enforces property
rights for facilities that provide
equine therapy or counseling activities in areas
zoned for exclusive farm use (EFU). This will
allow specific therapeutic service providers to
continue utilizing our abundant natural
resources, domesticated livestock and
nonclinical rural environments for creating
healthy, wholesome and meaningful interactions
for their clients.
Another
common-sense bill which I sponsored was
HB 4008.
It passed, making calculations of projected
future earnings based on race or ethnicity of a
plaintiff inadmissible. Since, we believe that
all people carry enormous potential and are each
endowed by our creator with certain inalienable
rights, it seems only logical that any civil
calculations for projected future earnings
reflect those beliefs.
I sponsored and
supported
HB 4036,
which passed. This bill allows home-schooled and
public charter school students to participate in
various types of interscholastic activities,
including sports, band, choir and technical
education programs. School Districts can
determine the costs and may charge participating
students within limits set by the bill.
My deep appreciation for the
lessons of history and the dangers of
unconstrained government, will continue to
inform my perspective. Only a constitutionally
limited government can enable its citizens to
reach their fullest potential by defending them
against the bureaucracies’ perpetual tendency
toward fiscal irresponsibility.
Oregon’s unrelenting drift toward
collectivism will eventually swallow us, our
families and our businesses without
liberty-minded citizen’s and leaders standing up
for our individual freedom. Legislators need to
be constantly reminded of the ancient words from
Tacitus, “The more corrupt the state, the more
numerous the laws.”
Best Regards,
Dennis Linthicum
Oregon State Senate 28
Capitol Phone:
503-986-1728
Capitol Address: 900 Court St. NE, S-305, Salem,
Oregon 97301
Email:
sen.DennisLinthicum@oregonlegislature.gov
Website:
http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/linthicum |
