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.

Here’s a contrast for you:

• According to the Wall Street Journal, Democrats “are going bold,” heading toward the 2020 presidential election, so much so that they even are risking significant splits in their ranks.
• Again, according to the Wall Street Journal, many states – including some led by Republicans — are offering tax cuts or tax rebates to citizens as the economy continues to percolate along in those states, if not nationally.

These developments, technically unrelated as they are, illustrate two very different views of government.

Democrats tend to want more government, even if that heads toward socialism and makes citizens subservient to big government

Republicans tend to want less government, believing that tax money “belongs” to the payers, so should be directed to specific, results-tested programs or turned back to taxpayers.

Here is more information on the two issues.

THE DEMOCRATS, according to the Wall Street Journal:

“Tear down the border wall. Pay slavery reparations. Upgrade every building in America. Tax the assets of rich people. Pack the Supreme Court with four new liberal judges.

“The newest class of Democrat presidential candidates has been swinging for the fences in recent weeks by embracing or entertaining a head-snapping list of policy ideas that were either rejected or ignored by the party’s previous standard-bearers.

“In the first months of the nomination race, big plans and audacious ideas have so far proved more attractive than pragmatism and caution, even as candidates have carefully avoided committing themselves to all the legislative details of the “Green New Deal” climate change proposal or upending the 150-year-old structure of the nation’s highest court.

“Oh, it’s impractical. Oh, it’s too expensive. Oh, it’s all this,” Senator Cory Booker (Democrat-New Jersey) told voters on his maiden trip to Iowa this month when asked about the plans promoted by House liberals to fight climate change. “If we used to govern our dreams that way, we would have never have gone to the moon.”

Some Democrat leaders agree that candidates need to be careful not to say anything now that could haunt them in the general election, if they become the nominee.

“There’s an old sports term, ‘leading with your chin’ — which is not a good idea,” said James Carville, a Democrat strategist who helped run Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, which was decidedly centrist. “You need to be cognizant that whatever you do leading up to the general will follow you.”

THE REPUBLICANS, according to the Wall Street Journal:

“State finances are enjoying flush times and some states are sending that bounty back to taxpayers.

“Arkansas this month lowered its top personal income-tax rate by 1 percentage point to 5.9 per cent and South Carolina has proposed an income tax rebate to all residents who file returns. In Florida, the governor has proposed lowering property and sales taxes. The givebacks come even as all three states proposed increased spending on education and other priorities.

“Ten years after the recession, many states have the choice of what to spend revenues on rather than what programs to cut. The National Conference of State Legislatures found in a fall survey that 48 states expected to meet or exceed their revenue expectations.

“At the same time, states are continuing to put away more money in their rainy-day funds which can be tapped during recessions. Between fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2018, those funds grew nearly $33 billion in total according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.”

So, how about Oregon?

Well, I am no longer at the State Capitol in Salem as a lobbyist, so I am not as close to budget and tax issues as I once was, but I do track subjects in the Legislature just because – I guess – I am a political junkie.

There is absolutely no chance the Oregon Legislature – where Democrats are in charge by super-majorities in both the House and the Senate – will consider tax cuts. They want higher taxes on a variety of payers.

It appears the “new money,” if it arrives, would go primarily, and separately, toward K-12 education and health care, both worthy goals. But, for me, there has not yet been enough discussion about whether the taxes should be paid and, if the new money exists, how it could be used to the best advantage.

Democrats are in charge in Salem, so it follows that they should be able to follow their own logic. I just hope they go deep on the pros and cons of tax spending issues.

Plus, it is likely that Oregon’s s-called “kicker law” – it specifies that, when taxes exceed estimates by more than two per cent, the money should be returned to payers – will kick. No idea yet whether the kicker will be allowed to work, though it might be a heavy lift to change it.

One proposal is to re-direct the money into the “rainy day fund,” which, to me, makes some sense.

Yet, the re-direction should only happen if the action occurs in public with a solid rationale behind it.