PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

As a sometimes-skeptic of state budgeting processes, one honed over nearly 40 years of involvement in the processes, I often tend to move more to oppose than support those processes.

But, recently, there have been two developments that provide cause for cautious optimism.

One was a decision by the two legislative leaders, House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, and Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, to ask the Joint Ways and Means Committee to develop a “current taxes” budget. They did in contrast to Governor Kate Brown who built $897 million of proposed new taxes into the “Recommended Budget for 2017-19” that she unveiled last December 1.

The Ways and Means budget allows legislators to make a reasoned decision on the need for new taxes to avoid potentially deep cuts in the two-year budget.

Here’s the way the Oregonian newspaper put it in a story on the Ways and Means budget:

“Oregon’s top legislative budget writers unveiled a plan Thursday to close a looming $1.8 billion shortfall by making cuts across state government — a plan they hope lawmakers and voters will reject as unacceptable.

“The 2017-19 budget proposal lead to teacher layoffs, university tuition hikes and kicking people off the state’s Medicaid program, Sen. Richard Devlin, D-Tualatin, and Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene, said during a press conference.         

“The magnitude of their proposed cuts was not a surprise. Democratic leaders in the Legislatur said earlier this month they hoped the $20.6 billion budget would help build political will to overhaul the state’s tax system. In a joint statement Thursday, Devlin and Nathanson described their budget as “one we believe Oregonians will reject.”

“We do not believe the resources allocated in this document are sufficient,” Devlin said.”

Now, a critic of these processes could point out that economists expect the state to have nearly $1.3 billion more in tax and lottery revenue in 2017-19 compared with the current two-year budget. But that’s not enough to cover rising costs, particularly from the state’s Medicaid program and personnel costs such as raises and public pensions.

Now, on to the second piece of good news.

Last week, the two legislative leaders, Kotek and Courtney, reported that they had invited representatives of business and labor to meet in Salem to consider whether the 2017-19 “no new taxes budget” was appropriate.

Here’s the way they put in a joint news release:

“We met together with representatives of the business community and labor unions Wednesday evening. The discussion was productive. Everyone agrees that the current budget environment is not acceptable. We also share common goals for Oregon’s future. 

“As the presiding officers in the Oregon Legislature, we felt a duty to initiate discussions. The two groups agreed to continue to meet. We left the meeting encouraged that both sides will work together in good faith, and hopeful that we can find a path to move Oregon forward together.”

Good.

It’s about time political leaders in Oregon – it could be argued, by the way, that Governor Kate Brown should have been the one doing the heavy lifting – called competing interests together to discuss the state budget.

This comes, of course, after the huge defeat of the public employee union tax increase proposal at the polls in November. Business interests came together as never before to raise about $30 million to kill the tax, which had been proposed, stupidly I contend, on sales, not on profits.

The measure went down to defeat 58 to 41. It had the endorsement of Kotek and Brown (not Courtney), which meant that at least Kotek would have had to ask, humbly, for business participation in the next steps.

She did, though not sure humility was involved. And so did Courtney.

Now, we’ll see whether there is any room for middle ground on spending and taxes in Salem. To find it, both sides – business and labor – will have to “give” as well as “get.” That, after all, is the nature of political compromise.

Here’s one view holding out hope for success.