The Oregon Economic Climate

The Oregonian reports that not only was unemployment up slightly in Oregon, but the real numbers were even worse than that. The real unemployment rate in Oregon is 19.6% if you include people who are in fact unemployed but who do not meet the official definition. Yikes!

The Hippocratic oath for doctors is "Do no harm." The same should be required of politicians. For Oregon and most of the rest of the country the economic policies of the Obama Administration have been very harmful. It isn't "bad luck" as the President tried to lamely argue yesterday; it isn't Bush; it isn't the stinky Republicans in the House - it is fundamentally bad policy that has increased the damage.

To a lesser degree Oregon's own Democrats are implicated too. Although Oregon historically has gotten a cold when the rest of the country only sneezes economically, it is possible for states to run counter to an economic recession, as Texas, North Dakota, and even New Jersey have shown. Cuddling up to expensive electric charging stations for electric cars, building windmills, and insulating schools all make good PR shots but from a substantive standpoint, they mean nothing. Knowing how business works and removing government-made obstacles is crucial to starting on the road to recovery, but that would mean giving up taxes and reducing spending.

The bottom line is that Democrats in power make sure in a recession that their union buddies are protected as much as possible because that's their power base. For the rest of us it's just smoke and mirrors while the cold economic winds blow. Bundle up - we've got another year to go.

www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2011/08/think_oregons_95_percent_unemp.html