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 to 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 press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that it what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions like. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This, remember, is one of three departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.

The others are the Department of Pet Peeves and the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering.

The items below could fit in any of the departments, but, remember, I get to choose which departments are open and which are closed.

So, here are “Just Saying” items:

THE STATE OF OREGON BUDGET: State government leaders are preparing for another special legislative session later this summer and, this time, the subject will be the state budget, which must be in balance by the end of the two-year budget period next June.

Beyond health issues, the virus means a lot less revenue in personal and corporate income taxes, as well as lottery revenue.

The Oregonian newspaper included this paragraph this morning in a story on the subject:

“In a 13-page framework, the budget co-chairs — Representative Dan Rayfield, Senator Elizabeth Steiner Hayward and Senator Betsy Johnson — said they tried to ‘protect essential investments in public education, health care, child welfare, housing, economic development, and other critical areas during this unprecedented public health and economic crisis.’”

JUST SAYING, why is the word “essential” used in the co-chairs’ report? Shouldn’t all government programs be “essential.” If they are not “essential,” why fund them in the first place?

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel wrote this morning that the presidential campaign has begun in earnest. Her words:

“Yet that (the campaign) began to change this week, with a contrast of the sort that could redefine this race. On Tuesday Biden released his $2 trillion climate-change plan—one of the few times he’s produced a detail on anything. It is radical—no surprise, since it is the product of a task force co-chaired by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“Biden vows to outlaw all use of coal and natural gas to generate electricity within 15 years. He’d ban oil and gas production on federal land and offshore. He’d drive to ‘zero emissions’ cars. He’d apply ‘aggressive’ new ‘appliance- and building-efficiency standards.’ He’d create a new ‘Environmental and Climate Justice Division’ of the Justice Department to mete out ‘jail time’ to corporate officials whose businesses ‘continue to pollute’ communities.”

JUST SAYING that, given Strassel’s report, not to mention other issues, the best approach for Biden may be to remain sequestered in his basement.

The fact that he gives standing to Ocasio-Cortez to propose anything is stunning. On the extreme far left, she operates just like Donald Trump on his side of the political spectrum, if he has a side at all. She rarely reads anything. She doesn’t know what she is talking about, yet she talks. She does not have the best interests of America at heart.

She should stay in New York where her main claim to fame is that she convinced Amazon not to make a huge investment in a headquarters location there – and her advocacy prompted Amazon to take its million dollar investment and 50,000 jobs elsewhere.\

SPEAKING OF OCASIO-CORTEZ (AOC): She made more waves the other day when she want after a Latino businessman who has made, not just money, but jobs for real people.

Here’s the way columnist William McGurn wrote about the issue in the Wall Street Journal:

“None of it matters to AOC and her comrades. In the same way it is futile to try to persuade mobs tearing down statues to distinguish between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, the progressives targeting Goya (the Latino businessman) aren’t interested in facts or debate.

“They aren’t interested because they don’t build, they only tear down.”

JUST SAYING that McGurn is right about Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk. Like Trump, “they don’t build, they only tear down.”