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 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 legislators return to the State Capitol in Salem for another legislative session, it is a good time to post a reminder about the questions lawmakers should ask as they consider any new, proposed piece of legislation.

I wrote yesterday about my proposal for reforms for the Legislature that would have a chance to produce better law, one of which would be to require all legislative committees to be bi-cameral. Won’t happen, but based on the strength of one committee that includes members of the House and the Senate – the Joint Committee on Ways and Means – the idea is worth trying.

Now, I add the list of key questions, which are frequently ignored as legislators consider the thousands of bills that are introduced every session in Salem.

While not magic answers, asking and answering these questions would produce better government.

So, here they are:

What is the specific problem for which a proposed policy or action is deemed to be the solution?

This question is seldom raised or even discussed. Yet, it should be. Too often, the introduction of a bill is done for just that reason and none other – getting it printed. Legislators then tell constituents they have acted on their behalf. Action, in this case, is just getting a bill printed and that process alone costs thousands of dollars of staff time.

Is there an appropriate role for government to play?

This is an even more basic question that tests another often-ignored issue: Whether there is the role of government? Government should not insert itself into every issue. So, the best answer to this question could be no. It rarely is.

If there is a role for government, what does the state expect to get for the money it spends? In other words, what is the expected return on investment?

Return on investment often is a foreign concept in the halls of the legislature. But the concept should be considered in the sense of subjecting government programs – old ones and new ones – to a key test: What results do they achieve? If they don’t produce results, they should be discontinued.

How will government action affect the private sector, especially individual and corporate taxpayers on whom the state or the country depends to fund government?

This, too, is seldom discussed, at least at the initiative of legislators. Lobbyists for some consumer groups raise the question. So do lobbyists for business. But both often fall on deaf ears. Yet, legislators rely on taxpayers to help keep government afloat.

If legislators are committed to moving on a bill, they should at least consider if there would a better way to act than originally proposed.

If elected officials would ask and answer these questions with a constructively critical eye, we’d see better results in Salem.

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.

To give the new U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi her due, she did rise to the top level in the House a second time.

In doing so, she surmounted concerns by some in her Democrat party that she was too old and too old-school to be in the top job. That concern came from, among others, a number of new Members of Congress who were interested in new leadership and, on the campaign trail, had pledged not to vote for Pelosi.

Didn’t matter.

In view of her second ascension, the Washington Post labeled her the most influential woman in politics these days. I suspect Senator Elizabeth Warren didn’t like that characterization as she, too, wants to be preeminent.

On policy, Pelosi owes her speakership to the left and she will tilt that way. She did face a revolt on the left over a rules change to impose “pay-as-you-go budgeting,” which liberals think will hamstring their spending plans.

Under Pelosi’s tenure, one certainty is the end of pro-growth legislation. The trend will be toward higher taxes, more regulation and more harassment of business. The new House rules have already cashiered “dynamic scoring” that forced the Congressional Budget Office to think about how a proposal affects the economy.

Dynamic scoring isn’t some GOP effort to prove taxes “pay for themselves,” but a tool that informs lawmakers of economic costs and trade-offs and can improve policy.

True to past form, on the first day of Pelosi’s new term as Speaker, she prompted the House to pass several bills she said were designed to stop the government shutdown. She knows President Trump won’t sign the bills because there is no money for “his wall,” or at least not enough to appease him.

Appeasing Trump, frankly, is more difficult every day because he doesn’t negotiate like most conventional presidents. There is a new floor every day until he gets what he wants.

As for Pelosi’s spending bill, here is what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said: “I’ve made it clear on several occasions, and let me say it again: The Senate will not take up any proposal that does not have a real chance of passing this chamber and getting a presidential signature. Let’s not waste the time. Let’s not get off on the wrong foot, with House Democrats using their new platform to produce political statements rather than serious solutions.”

In her second stint as Speaker, don’t expect, the Wall Street Journal says, “a new era of progress in Washington, D.C. Fair warning. The main Democrat goal will be investigating, not legislating.”

Further, from my post in the cheap seats out West, I have this perspective on the government shutdown. It is this: Other than at least a limited concern for federal employees, I am not sure that a wide range of citizens is worried about the shutdown.

That includes critics of government who tend to believe that government is too big anyway.

Of course, the shutdown is starting to have real downsides that will have a direct affect even on government critics. So, I say, cut a deal. Just arrive at the middle between Trump’s demand for $5.6 billion and the House’s proposal for about $1.5 billion.

Pelosi should display real leadership and work to produce this kind of deal in the middle instead of just playing off Trump, though, on the other hand, he deserves all the derision he gets.

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 the next legislative session starts in Salem in a matter of days, I have come up with a list of reforms that would make the legislative process more open to the public.

And, who knows, the reforms might even produce better law.

I suggest these reforms based on my 25 years as a state government lobbyist, plus my 15 years before that as a high-level manager in state government. In some cases, I may have mentioned one or another reform in past blogs. This time, I put all of the reforms together.

Reform #1: Make every legislative committee a JOINT COMMITTEE.

The example for this is the current Joint Committee on Ways and Means, the entity responsible for preparing a balanced state government budget for the next two years.

The joint character of the effort – joint in terms of membership by both Democrats and Republicans, as well as by members of the House and the Senate – means that legislators have no choice but to work together earlier in a legislative session to achieve consensus.

Think how much time and effort could be saved by requiring the otherwise faint notion – working together.

All other legislative committees are organized in “one house,” not two, so most compromises on major issues do not occur until late in the session.

Reform #2: Require the governor and the legislature to prepare a “current tax” budget for the next two years.

As it is now, governors now produce a “recommended budget” which often includes new taxes, not state spending based on current taxes.

If it were up to me, I’d require a “no-new-taxes” budget so it would be clear how much government would cost for another two years if legislators did not do anything – no new taxes, no new spending cuts.. I’d require this, first, from a governor, then expect the same from the legislature through its Joint Committee on Ways and Means.

Reform #3: Require the governor and legislators to draft specific plans for new taxes they want to impose, including those who would pay the new taxes, what the new money would fund, and WHY those who will be asked to pay the new taxes should accept that reality. 

Under current approach, new taxes are buried in the overall budget and, though the come up for consideration in the House and Revenue Committees – yes, separate, not joint, committees – the rationale for the new taxes is often understated, if stated at all.

Plus, in the upcoming session of the Legislature, Democrats are in charge everywhere – in the Governor’s Office, by a super-majority in the House, and by a super-majority in the Senate.

So, those in charge do not have to round up any Republican votes. They just have to hold their super-majorities.

Reform #4: Require the governor and legislators to prepare a specific plan for the cuts they would propose to make in state government so it is not just business as usual for another two years.

This final reform – listing specific spending cuts – does not get the profile it should in a legislative process. In this blog, I am not advocating for specific cuts; I am just saying that the governor and the Joint Ways and Means Committee should spend more time adjusting state spending.

A by-product of this type of effort could be that it would generate more support for tax increases if it was patently clear what those proceeds would fund.

Oregon has earned a reputation over the years for having a legislature that is generally committed to doing it business in the light of the day. Hearings on bills are always advertised in advance. If committees might take action in a meeting, that, too, would be advertised in advance. If legislators have conflicts of interest, they are expected to announce those conflicts in advance and, if the conflict is direct enough, they might even recuse themselves from voting.

All of this is better than what occurs in Congress where it is hard to follow the process through to a conclusion. And, with some lack of modesty, I suggest that the reforms I have outlined above would make a decent law-making process in Oregon even better.

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.

I suspect that few people will care about how I feel about President Donald Trump as he crosses the mid-point of his first term in the Oval Office.

But, for those few who do care, my view is that Trump has been a disaster because he ignores nearly all of the conventions of being the free world’s leader.

Conventions aren’t bad. If that is all you do as president – observe the conventions – that is bad. But, if conventions are a means to an end in which you achieve some of your objectives in politics, good. If, by observing the conventions, you express your priorities, as well as oppose those who disagree with you without intentionally establishing those disagreements as personal, good.

Trump observes none of these important conventions:

• If you don’t agree with Trump, he’ll label you stupid, often in harsh, over-the-top words.
• He builds resentments, capitalizing on those resentments, to assert that he always knows best.
• If you happen to be in a room with Trump, know that he always thinks he is the smartest person there regardless of issue or subject.
• If you hear Trump talk – or read his tweets, his main method of communicating – you will likely hear at least one non-truth per minute. [The Washington Post has estimated that Trump tells at least 15 lies per day, so it is clear truth doesn’t matter to Trump.]
• If you work for Trump, but don’t operate as a yes-person, you’ll soon be fired – often, as we have seen recently, the act of firing occurring via a Trump tweet, not a personal conversation.
• If you care about government processes that produce a product – one of my favorite phrases – then you will be disappointed by Trump who always flies by the seat of his pants. No observable process. Normal political conventions be damned.

Okay, if you care about policy results, through whatever conventions, if any, Washington Post columnist Mark Thiessen produced this list of Trump accomplishments in 2018. Unfortunately, Thiessen uses the word “he” to refer to Trump as if he alone deserves singular credit – which is what Trump usually wants, but does not deserve.

Here’s the list:

• He has secured the release of 19 people, including 16 Americans, from foreign captivity.
• He delivered for the “forgotten Americans.”
• He worked with Democrats and Republicans to pass important legislation.
• He has ushered in a golden age for women in the CIA.
• His push to expand domestic energy production bore fruit.
• In the six months after the Singapore summit with North Korea, he has made no concessions to Pyongyang.
• He struck Syria again and eliminated the last vestiges of the Islamic State’s physical caliphate.
• He’s continued his tough line with Moscow.
• He pulled out of Obama’s disastrous Iran deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on Tehran.
• He stood by Brett M. Kavanaugh and even in the worst moments never wavered.

A day later, Thiessen listed these disappointments in the most recent Trump year.

• His comment about “sh—hole countries” blew up negotiations for a deal that would have given Trump his border wall.
• His offensive tweets continued to undermine his presidency.
• His misuse of power turned critics into martyrs.
• He drove away suburban voters and caused the GOP to lose control of the House.
• His graceless handling of Sen. John McCain’s funeral was a new low.
• His handling of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder harmed America’s moral standing.
• His news conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was an embarrassment.
• His policy to separate migrant children from their families at the southern border was an avoidable tragedy.
• His planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a gift to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
• His pullout of all U.S. troops in Syria will take America’s boot off of the terrorists’ necks.

Again, Thiessen gives ALL the credit – or debit – to Trump. The truth is that the debit should go to Trump AND the minions who simply take his orders as if they are God-given, which, again, is what Trump wants.

In Trump’s first two years in office, there are, indeed, some accomplishments. But, often, the way Trump gets things done, without much presidential character, mars the results.

If you are incoming U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, you decide, for some reason, to prepare an opinion piece criticizing the president you will need to find a way to work with over two years leading up to the next presidential election.

Here is what Romney wrote:

“To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow “our better angels.” A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring.”

As we enter a new year, develop your reflections on the guy in the Oval Office.

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.

I cannot help but start the new year with a collection of words from Dave Barry, a humorist who, this time, has prepared a “2018 Year in Review” for the Washington Post.

If you want to have a few laughs over “stuff” in 2018, skim Barry’s piece in the Post.

To save you from that full errand, here is a collection of his prescient comment on the past year.

“We can summarize 2018 in two words,” Barry says: “It boofed.”

“We’re not 100 per cent sure what ‘boofing’ is, despite the fact that this very issue was discussed in a hearing of the United States Judiciary Committee. All we know for certain about boofing is that it is distasteful and stupid.”

“What made this year so awful?” Barry asks. “We could list many factors, including natural disasters, man-made atrocities, the utter depravity of our national political discourse…” Instead, we’ll cite one event that, while minor, epitomizes 2018: The debut of “Dr. Pimple Popper.” This is a cable TV reality show featuring high-definition slo-mo close-up videos of a California dermatologist performing seriously disgusting procedures on individuals with zits the size of mature cantaloupes. You might ask, ‘Who on Earth would voluntarily watch that?’ The answer, in 2018, was: MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. That is the state of our culture. We can only imagine what new reality shows lie ahead. We would not rule out ‘Dr. Butt Wiper’ or ‘People Blow Their Noses Directly Onto the Camera Lens.’”

So, here’s more from Barry:

• As you recall, we, as a nation, spent all of 2017 obsessing over 2016: The election, the Russians, the emails, the Mueller probe, the Russians, the Russians, the Russians. … That was all we heard about, day after soul-crushing day, for the entire year.

So when 2018 finally dawned, we were desperately hoping for change. It was a new year, a chance for the nation to break out of the endless, pointless barrage of charges and countercharges, to move past the vicious, hate-filled hyper-partisan spew of name-calling and petty point-scoring, to end the 24/7 cycle of media hysteria, to look forward and begin to tackle the many critical issues facing the nation, the most important of which turned out to be……the 2016 election.

• World tensions rise when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un states that he has a nuclear missile launch button on his desk. This leaves U.S. Commander in Chief Donald Trump with no viable military option but to fire up his Random Capitalizer App and tweet, “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his,” thereby leaving no doubt as to which leader is more secure regarding the size of his button.
• The intellectual level of the national discourse soars even higher when it is reported that, during an Oval Office meeting on immigration reform, the president referred to some poorer nations as “s-holes.” This upsets many people, especially the frowny panel-persons of CNN, who find the word “s—hole” so deeply offensive that they repeat it roughly 15 times per hour for a solid week. Washington is consumed by a heated debate over what, exactly, the president said; the tone and substance of this debate are reflected in this actual sentence from a Washington Post story: “Three White House officials said Senator David Perdue and Senator Tom Cotton told the White House that they heard ‘s—house’ rather than ‘s—hole,’ allowing them to deny the president’s comments on television over the weekend.” (This is known in legal circles as the “s—house defense.”)
• In non-s—hole news, the residents of Hawaii experience an exciting Saturday morning when they receive the following message on their phones from the state’s Emergency Management Agency: “BALLISTIC MISSLE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Hawaii’s governor, David Ige, is quickly informed that it’s a false alarm but 17 extremely tense minutes go by before he gets the word out on social media. Asked later about the delay, he says — we are not making this quote up — “I have to confess that I don’t know my Twitter account logons and the passwords.” This statement arouses powerful feelings of longing among high-level Trump advisers.
• The fiasco leads to the resignation of the head of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, who immediately accepts a position as director of pet transportation for United Airlines.
• With yet another government shutdown looming, Congress, whose irresponsible spending practices have put the nation on the road to fiscal disaster, faces a choice. It can either:

1. Continue to spend huge amounts of money that we don’t have, or
2. Not.

After much late-night drama, Congress agrees on a compromise deal under which it will continue to spend huge amounts of money that we don’t have. This display of leadership solves the budget problem permanently until March, when Congress will once again tackle the complex problem of government spending.

• In domestic sports, the Eagles defeat the Patriots to win their first Super Bowl, and huge crowds of joyous Philadelphia fans celebrate by destroying downtown Boston.
• Secretary of State Rex Tillerson learns that President Trump has fired him when, during an official visit to Africa, he is ejected from his State Department plane at 35,000 feet.

No, seriously, Tillerson learns of his firing via a presidential tweet which says: “Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service!” So mid-air ejection would actually have been more dignified.

• Speaking of incompetence: Congress averts yet another government shutdown by passing, with President Trump signing, a bill under which the government will — prepare to be shocked — spend a truly insane amount of money that it does not have.
• Meanwhile President Trump, faced with — among other problems — a continuing immigration crisis, increased Russian aggression in Syria and a looming trade war with China, launches a barrage of assault tweets at what is clearly the biggest threat to the nation: Amazon.com. Trump is forced to back down when the retail giant threatens to suspend the White House’s Amazon Prime membership and cancel delivery of a large order placed by the Defense Department, including six nuclear submarines, two aircraft carriers and a missile defense system with a five-star average rating from other nations.
• The biggest story by far is the wedding of American ex-actress Meghan Markle to Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, who is in the direct line of succession to the British throne behind Prince Louis of Cambridge, who is behind Princess Charlotte of Cambridge, who is behind Prince George of Cambridge, who is behind Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, who is behind Charles, Prince of Wales, who is 70, but any year now could get his shot at becoming the anachronistic ceremonial figurehead of one of the world’s most second-rate powers. With the stakes so high, the media giddiness level soars to Defcon 1; the wedding cake alone gets more media coverage than Africa and global climate change combined.
• In entertainment news, Roseanne Barr sends out a tasteless, idiotic tweet and immediately has her network show canceled, thereby illustrating a key difference between being a sitcom star and being president of the United States.
• In other domestic news, Sen. Chuck “The Human Bandwagon” Schumer, citing studies showing that every living American adult except Mitt Romney has tried pot, introduces a bill that would decriminalize marijuana at the federal level and “create a massive bureaucracy tasked with wasting millions of dollars on things like bong-safety regulations.”
• Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announces his decision to retire, creating an important opportunity for the nation’s political leaders to demonstrate that, although the public might have a low opinion of them as a group, it is nowhere near low enough.
• Meanwhile Seattle becomes the first major U.S. city to ban plastic straws and utensils in all restaurants. San Francisco, sensing a threat to its status as front-runner in the Progressivelympics, responds by banning food and beverages in all restaurants.
• In a coordinated nationwide response to Trump’s repeated attacks on the press, sternly worded editorials rebuking the president are published in more than 300 newspapers with a combined editorial-page readership estimated at nearly 14 people. For his part, CNN’s Jim Acosta courageously confronts White House press secretary Sarah Sanders over this issue, despite the very real risk that he will have to feature himself prominently in his report on this harrowing incident.
• In business news, Apple becomes the first publicly traded U.S. company to be worth $1 trillion, thanks to its shrewd business model of constantly coming out with costly new products that require costly chargers that are completely different from all the costly Apple chargers you already have, and sometimes spontaneously mutate overnight in such a way as to require even newer and costlier Apple chargers.
• Washington is atingle with a level of excitement that can only result from a clash of two high-voltage personalities: Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, both having served in the Senate since shortly before the Big Bang. The committee holds two hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, the second devoted to explosive allegations contained in a letter that was delivered back in July to Feinstein, who, what with one thing and another, failed to mention it until September.

1. The senators have no idea what, if anything, actually happened.
2. Nor do they care.
3. The truth is utterly irrelevant to them.
4. They all decided long ago how they were going to vote, based entirely on political calculations.
5. Given exactly the same testimony but different political circumstances, every single senator would passionately espouse the position diametrically opposite the one he or she is passionately espousing now.

• The nation braces for what political analysts agree will be the most important mid-term elections since the dawn of time. Voters prepare for the big day by binge-watching Netflix, because regular TV has turned into a gushing sewer of political attack ads apparently created by and for dimwitted 4-year-olds.
• For their part, the Democrats appeal to voters with a three-pronged message:

Prong One: The Democrats are the party of fairness, diversity and inclusion.

Prong Two: Anybody who disagrees with the Democrats about anything is Hitler.

Prong Three: But more racist.

• The election goes smoothly, except of course in Florida, which should seriously consider outsourcing all of its government functions to a competent organization, such as Montana. As usual the most confused county in Florida is Broward — often called “the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency of counties” — which to this day is not 100 per cent certain how it voted in Dewey vs. Truman.
• Meanwhile the ongoing saga that is “The Jim Acosta Story, Starring Jim Acosta as Jim Acosta” takes a thrilling turn when Jim gets into a dramatic struggle with a White House intern over a microphone.
• In business news, Amazon, after a much-publicized nationwide search, announces that it will locate new headquarters in Arlington, Va., and New York City, in return for tax breaks, infrastructure improvements, four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and replacement of the Statue of Liberty with a 340-foot-tall statue of Jeffrey Bezos naked.
• Meanwhile in a devastating blow to the U.S. humor industry, Michael Avenatti announces that he will not run for president. His departure narrows the potential Democratic field to pretty much every Democrat politician ever, including Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, somebody called “Beto” and the late Hubert Humphrey, all of whom believe Trump will be vulnerable in 2020, as confidently predicted by the many expert political observers who also confidently predicted Hillary Clinton’s presidency.
• All this happens as congressional Democrats prepare to take control of the House of Representatives, where they plan to implement an ambitious agenda focused on the No. 1 concern of the American people, which of course is …The 2016 elections!

Once again, Barry knocks it out of the park. Good to have a little humor at the expense of political figures who conduct themselves as if they are the most important people in the world.

Better for them to heed the words of incoming U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, former candidate for president of the United States. He wrote this in a piece in the Washington Post:

“To re-assume our leadership in world politics, we must repair failings in our politics at home. That project begins, of course, with the highest office once again acting to inspire and unite us. It includes political parties promoting policies that strengthen us rather than promote tribalism by exploiting fear and resentment. Our leaders must defend our vital institutions despite their inevitable failings: A free press, the rule of law, strong churches, and responsible corporations and unions.”

NOTE: There is no better way to start the new year, 2019, than to run this post again. I ran it first on Christmas Day when I said it is important for all of us to remember the real purpose of Christmas. Family fun, presents and Christmas lights are great. But the real meaning of the day and season is memory of when Christ came to earth as a baby to provide a way of salvation for all of us, if we CHOOSE to accept him. Now, as we start a new year with a number of foreboding realities in front of us, including a broken political system and substantial uncertainty about the economy, remembering the option we have – to choose God and his son, Jesus, is important.

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.

I attended a presentation earlier this fall where the speaker made what, for me, was a very salient point.

When you consider just the size of our galaxy, he said, not to mention hundreds of others, you have to come to a belief that it did not all happen by chance and that God created it. Note the words “you have to come to a belief.” I suppose, on occasion, someone could come to an opposite belief, contending that everything happened by chance and that there is no godly order to the universe.

Some could question the speaker’s use of the phrase “you have to come to a belief” because that implies that there is not a choice. There is.

For me, I believe in God’s handiwork, but can I prove beyond a shadow of doubt that God is the creator? No.

What matters in all of this is that individuals must come to a position where they believe in God, a decision which involves things they cannot see or touch. They have to come to this decision on their own. The inverse is also true – individuals could come to a decision not to consider whether God exists or to reject any notion that he does, on their own.

Let’s go back to our galaxy for a moment or two.

It’s no secret that the Milky Way is big, but new research shows that it may be much bigger than we ever imagined.

The research, described in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics,” indicates that our spiral galaxy’s vast rotating disk of stars spans at least 170,000 light-years, and possibly up to 200,000 light-years.

It’s hard – I say impossible — to fathom just how far that is.

If you could ride a light beam from one side of the disk to the other, it would take 200,000 years to span the distance. If you could drive across and averaged 60 miles an hour, it would take more than 2 trillion years. That’s about 150 times greater than the age of the universe, which is estimated to be about 13.8 billion years.

There are many other reasons to come to a belief that God exists, but just this one, for me, defies judgment on some other basis than that a higher power – God – created it. To believe somehow that this galaxy – and all others beyond it – just came into being strikes me as fanciful.

In the book, A Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, the author makes, as the title says, “a case for Christ.”

Here is the way Strobel puts it.

“It’s like this. If you love a person, your love goes beyond the facts of that person, but is rooted in the facts about that person. For example, you love your wife because she’s gorgeous, she’s nice, she’s sweet, she’s kind. All these things are facts about your wife, and therefore you love her.

“But your love goes beyond that. You can know all these things about your wife and not be in love with her and put your trust in her, but you do. So the decision goes beyond evidence, yet it is there also on the basis of the evidence.

“So it is with falling in love with Jesus. To have a relationship with Jesus Christ goes beyond just knowing facts about him, yet it’s rooted in the historical facts about him. I believe in Jesus on the basis of the historical evidence, but my relationship with Jesus goes way beyond the evidence. I have to put my trust in him and walk with him on a daily basis.”

That’s true for me. I believe God created the universe, and, as well, sent his Son, Jesus, to us as a way to bridge the chasm between us and God and, thus, have a relationship with God. Jesus was, in fact, God on earth.

This appears to have been true for President Ronald Reagan. In a letter to his father-in-law recently uncovered by the Washington Post, Reagan wrote this, speaking of Jesus: “It was ‘a miracle’ that a young man of 30 years without credentials as a scholar or priest had more impact on the world than all the teachers, scientists, emperors, generals and admirals who ever lived, all put together.”

“Either he was who he said he was or he was the greatest faker and charlatan who ever lived. But would a liar and faker suffer the death he did?”

With Reagan, I believe in Him and that means that I will live with Him forever in heaven, another fact that requires belief, not proof. While here on earth, I can have a relationship with him that relies on his grace, not my own performance.

Those who know me know that I cannot sing a lick. I couldn’t carry a tune in a wheelbarrow. Yet, the words of songs and hymns often capture my thoughts better than I could on my own.

Here is a good example.

Trying to fathom the distance
Looking out ‘cross the canyon carved by my hands
God is gracious
Sin would still separate us
Were it not for the bridge His grace has made us
His love will carry me

The cross that cost my Lord His life
Has given me mine
There’s a bridge to cross the great divide
There’s a cross to bridge the great divide

Good words, well-used: “God provides a bridge across the great divide. God provides a cross to bridge the great divide.”

Reflect on these and your own thoughts as 2019 dawns. And come to your own personal decision whether God exists and, if you believe he does, what that decision means for you.

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.

To almost no one’s surprise, Democrats in Congress – at least in the House – are pushing to propose a so-called “Medicare for All” proposal in the next Congress.

The reason, apart from political momentum coming out of the recent mid-term elections, is that the D lawmakers plan to capitalize on a Texas judge’s ruling against ObamaCare to jump start their push for a single payer system in the next Congress.

They don’t want to wait for another judge, or even the U.S. Supreme Court, to overturn the Texas ruling. They want to move ahead on their own, even with an uncertain end in Congress.

So, bring on the single payer system, another example according to humorist Dave Barry in his annual Year End Review, of “Congress Continue to spend huge amounts of money that we don’t have.”

I suspect single payer advocate Senator Barry Sanders doesn’t give a lick about too much government spending.

Sanders and other supporters of a single-payer health system are arguing that now is the time to start moving in a new direction from the Affordable Care Act, in part because they feel the 2010 health law will never be safe from Republican attempts to destroy or sabotage it.

“In light of the Republican party’s assault, a version of Medicare for all is necessary for the future,” said Topher Spiro, vice president for health policy at the Center for American Progress. “There are just too many points of vulnerability in the current system.”

The court decision in Texas that invalidates ObamaCare in its entirety came on the heels of sweeping Democrat victories in the midterm elections, a combination that has energized advocates of “Medicare for all.”

I have opined on health care policy so often that I am bit hesitant to do so again.

Still, it is important to consider health care issues from the standpoint that, even if it’s a long stretch, I continue to hold out hope that reasonable Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle – yes, there are some – can find a way to carve out the smart middle ground rather than just propose a full D or a full R program.

That should have happened by now, but in the Obama years, Democrats were so eager to put a pelt on the wall that they proposed the “Affordable Care Act” even though some of them had not even read the bill before they voted for it.

In retaliation, Republicans, when they were in complete charge of the Congress, could see no other approach than to kill the existing law.

No middle ground and we end up with nothing that works for most Americans.

Even as advocates fawn over it, the single payer system won’t work. For one thing, if Democrats in the House pass it, Republicans in the Senate, who are still in charge there, will just not consider it.

Why not do what I have advocated for years? Get smart people from both sides in the same room, sit around a circular table, and build a health care system that will last – and not further break the U.S. government dollar bank.

In a statement for hill.com, Representative Debbie Dingell, D-Michigan, said this: “We need to do everything we can to ensure every single American has access to affordable, quality healthcare. Medicare for all has the potential to do just that as it can reduce the complexity and cost with a single payer health care system.”

Yet, Dingell doesn’t say so, but the effort could very well create divisions within the Democratic Party, as leaders who want to protect and strengthen the health law are reluctant to completely embrace government-run universal health insurance.

The lawsuit in Texas is almost certain to be overturned, they argue, and their time is better spent making sure people with pre-existing conditions remain free from discrimination by insurers.

Oregon’s own senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said Democrats should focus on making sure the insurance landscape doesn’t revert to what it was before ObamaCare.

“The first thing we have to do is make sure people don’t lose what they have today — the pre-existing conditions protections — and going back to the days when there was health care for the healthy and the wealthy,” he said.

Well, with all due respect to my friend Senator Wyden, his first step is not the only step that should be taken.

To those who believe I don’t have ideas about health care reform, let me just reiterate what I think should be the underpinning of any new health care legislation: A government mandate that, in order to be alive in this country, everyone would have to buy health insurance.

Think of it like automobile insurance. In order to drive, you have to buy insurance and, if you don’t, you pay a price.

The same should be true of health care. If you want to live there, you should have to buy insurance, which would put all of us in the insurance pool – and the larger the pool, the better to spread the risk.

Of course, any smart legislator would have to design an element of any plan that would provide insurance – say, an extension of Medicaid or Medicare – to cover those who have no money to buy insurance.

A country like ours should be able to build a good system that has the potential to surmount the left, which says government should pay all, or the right, which says government should not be involved at all.

Find the smart middle.

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.

A news report on a proposal from Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson to create a new, less expensive state government procurement system deserves more than quick consideration – the kind it got about a week ago.

So, I write this blog to highlight what I consider to be a far-sighted proposal.

Richardson, whom I lobbied for years at the Capitol when he served as a state representative from Central Point, always has possessed a penchant for going beneath the surface to ask tough questions.

My interchanges with Richardson occurred when I lobbied him in his role as a key member of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, which, at the Capitol in Oregon, develops the two-year budget for state government. His deep dives did not always produce a workable concept, but at least they were dives – and that was often more than you could say for some of Richardson’s counterparts on Ways and Means.

Now, as the only Republican to hold a statewide public office, Richardson is going deep again in an issue related to state government’s multi-million dollar procurement policy.

Under this headline – Oregon is wasting millions of dollars — here is how the Oregonian newspaper described the Richardson proposal:

“If Oregon had used a web-based procurement program in the last biennium, it could have saved more than $1 billion, a state audit has found.

“The state’s purchasing system for goods and services consists of paperwork and old computer systems, which auditors said resulted in inconsistencies and ‘does not adequately analyze state spending data’” Of roughly $8 billion in spending per biennium, auditors said the state has data on approximately $1 billion or 12.5 per cent of the purchases.

“They estimated Oregon could have saved $400 million to $1.6 billion if it had a modern procurement system in place during the 2015-2017 biennium. For example, the state paid 17 different prices for one type of multifunction printer and 131 different amounts for surge protectors.”

Richardson then went on to make a key political point. He said “adoption of a statewide eProcurement system, if quickly implemented, could close Oregon’s 2019-21 budget gap of $623 million without raising taxes.”

My emphasis on the word “without.”

Richardson, without getting too political, was countering a proposal by Governor Kate Brown to enact various new taxes in 2019-21, both to close the supposed $623 million budget gap, as well as to give more money to priorities she avows for Oregon K-12 schools, housing and other subjects.

For her part, Brown has suggested the Legislature approve $9.7 million for the new procurement system. That would cover the cost to implement the system by mid-2021, although a Department of Administrative Services spokeswoman said there would be additional costs in the future such as licenses to keep running the system.

Richardson offered to help Brown put the new system in place more quickly.

I like Richardson’s proposal because it does what many state officials won’t do, which is to analyze, with a critical eye, current state spending. Often, the idea is just to continue spending from one two-year budget period to the next and, then, when that isn’t enough, score points from the left by advocating new taxes, including increased taxes on Oregon businesses.

To be fair, there could be a rationale for new taxes, especially if they are designed to spur improvements in such key areas as K-12 education quality, which itself is critical to citizens and businesses.

But, those tax increase proposals would be stronger if they followed critical looks at state spending first, not just spending as usual.

So, kudos to Richardson and his staff of auditors for coming up with an idea to improve the operation of state government.

Here’s hoping that Richardson’s proposal will receive a solid airing in the 2019 legislative session.

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.

Democrats are setting out to blame President Donald Trump for the shutdown.

Republicans are setting out to blame Democrats.

Guess what?

No one wins, at least in the mind of this citizen who also writes this blog, as well as many others who want government for the benefits of citizens.

I say that after watching TV yesterday to see Congress meeting, but not doing anything. Why are they there if they are not intending to do anything about the shutdown?

Of course, Congress needs the president to negotiate. It is not possible to negotiate with yourself and the president is in no mood to find middle ground. Negotiating with Trump is like negotiating with jello.

At least for that reason, leading House Democrats say they won’t negotiate with Trump until he lands on a position and stays there. That, in turn has prompted some Republicans to blame Democrats for pulling out of negotiations.

One bad turn deserves another. Stupid!

Leon Panetta agrees with me – or perhaps I agree with him. Remember Panetta?

He was budget director and White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and defense secretary and CIA director under President Barack Obama. He served eight terms in Congress representing California.

Panetta wrote a piece for hill.com and the Washington Post that suggested there are five lessons from previous shutdowns that no one – not Trump, not Congress – has learned.

He begins his piece this way:

“When budget negotiations broke down between President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress in late 1995, a shutdown of the federal government occurred during the Christmas holidays. Republicans in the House, under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia), insisted on greater savings and cuts from Medicare. Clinton refused.

“As the president’s chief of staff, it was obvious to me that the longer the shutdown went on, the more the public blamed the Republicans. On January. 6, 1996, the Republicans relented when Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas), the majority leader, passed the appropriations bills without the cut to Medicare and the House went along. But the political damage was done.

“Since that time, the leaders of both parties have recognized that shutdowns are a bad way to do the country’s business. And yet, time and time again, the lessons from those shutdowns are never learned. Today, parts of the federal government again are shut down during the Christmas season, and the same mistakes are being made — particularly by the president and the Republican majority in Congress.”

Of course, Panetta is a Democrat, so some will discount his analysis, especially as he participates in the same game he pillories — blaming someone, this time Republicans. But, in any event, here are his five never-learned lessons:

• Harming people never works
• The more you blame others, the more the public blames you
• Negotiations are impossible without trust
• Never negotiate in public
• If the president fails, Congress must lead.

Panetta ends his piece by asking this good question:

“In our democracy, we govern either by leadership or by crisis. If leadership is willing to take the risks that come with the responsibility of power, we can avoid crisis. If not, we will inevitably govern by crisis. There are no winners in a prolonged shutdown. As the midterm elections made clear — those who fail the nation will not only lose the trust of the people, they will likely lose the next election.”

Here are a few perceptions from me in my post in the cheap seats out West:

1. The easiest and quickest answer would to be to meet in the middle. Congress has about $1.5 billion in budget bills for the wall. Trump wants $5 billion. How about $3 billion? Too simple, you might say. Agreed. But meeting in the middle is what almost everyone does almost every day.  Think of union negotiations. One side starts high. The other starts low. The end always is somewhere in the middle.
2. Trump and the parties in Congress don’t know how to negotiate. Each side just wants to beat the other sides, not negotiate. And, then the public continues paying the bill.
3. In the way of a pet peeve, so-called “non-essential” employees will be subject to the shutdown, at least initially. Perhaps this is just a simple case of a bad label, but guess what? If a government position does not fulfill an “essential function,” why does that position exist in the first place? Just asking.

So, why aren’t the President and Congress negotiating from the standpoint of the public interest? Who knows? Both deserve equal blame.

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.

The headline on this blog is borrowed from a piece in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), a commentary which underscores the mercurial, unpredictable nature of the person who currently sits in the Oval Office.

As I write about Donald Trump again, I feel a little like Dana Milbank, a columnist for the Washington Post who has made a living for more than two years now, lofting huge criticisms at the so-called “leader of the free World” nearly every day – criticisms often warranted. But I wish an opinion columnist like Milbank would find other targets once in a while. He is literally making a living off Trump.

I don’t join – or want to join Milbank – though I believe Trump’s recent conduct deserves disdain.

So, I rely on a column by William Galston in the WSJ that describes Trump’s conduct in words that create a profound sense of uncertainty for the rest of Trump’s term or terms, however long that is.

Galston’s column used this subhead: Allies can’t work with the U.S. unless they can trust it to follow through on promises. Then, he went on:

“In a telephone call about Syria two weeks ago, President Trump reportedly told Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ‘You know what? It’s yours. I’m leaving,’ upending his administration’s strategy and setting in motion events that culminated in the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.”

Galston says Trump’s behavior reminds us of some ancient truths we often take for granted.

“When we make a commitment,” he writes, “those who trust it make decisions that they would not otherwise have made. They may risk their fortunes, their honor and even their lives, relying on our word. If we break it, they may lose everything. And when they do, we are responsible.”

At least initially, Mattis persuaded the president to hold off the Syria withdrawal for six months. National security adviser John Bolton then took the lead in crafting a Syria strategy with three objectives—defeating Islamic State, establishing a new Syrian government, and inducing the Iranians to leave. Taken together, these goals implied the presence of U.S. troops.

In September, Bolton and other officials announced this new policy and assured all parties that it enjoyed the president’s support. There was no reason to doubt their sincerity, which made Trump’s declaration last week even more shocking, according to Galston.

The withdrawal will abandon Syria’s Kurds, who have borne the brunt of the battle against Islamic State, to the tender mercies of the Turks, who view them as terrorists. It will expose Syrians in Idlib and elsewhere to renewed attack from Bashar Assad’s forces. It will leave the Israelis face-to-face with the threatening Iranian presence in Syria. It betrays everyone who relied on the word of the U.S. And it hands a major victory to Vladimir Putin, who sees Syria as the linchpin of his effort to restore Russian influence in the Middle East.

“It is possible, Galston continues, “to suppose that Trump does not understand the difference between the government of the U.S. and a family business, and so does not understand why his mercurial behavior inflicts so much damage. When you are in charge of the executive branch, you cannot do everything on your own. You need an orderly policy process and senior officials who can implement the results of this process. These officials cannot be effective unless they can credibly claim to be acting on your behalf and with your support.

“When your national security adviser announces that a policy enjoys your imprimatur, the world will take him at his word—unless you contradict him and pull back the policy. Silence implies consent.

“An orderly policy process is also a president’s best protection against nasty surprises. During such a process, all arguments for and against a proposed policy will be aired, and the likely reactions of different groups with a stake in the outcome can be anticipated. The president is then in the position to make a considered judgment that objections cannot easily destabilize.”

Trump doesn’t care about decision-making processes in a huge institution — the federal government and specifically the White House. What he says is THE TRUTH.

He made a campaign promise that the U.S. was going to get out of Syria, so, unexpectedly, he makes good on that promise without a shred of thought for how the departure would or should occur.  Often, to put a phrase on it, the how matters as much as the what.

Trump telegraphed U.S. intentions to ISIS which continues to fight U.S. soldiers, he literally risked the lives of those soldiers, and he didn’t care about a variety of U.S. international relationships.

Back many years ago, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy sent former Secretary of State Dean Acheson to show photos of the Russian sites to Charles de Gaulle. The French president did not look at the pictures. “The word of the president of the United States is good enough for me,” he said.

Can one imagine a world leader today taking President Trump at his word?

I can’t.

Footnote: Or, for another example, consider Trump’s curious actions in defense of “his wall.” If you were a Member of Congress, it would be impossible to negotiate a resolution with Trump, unless you capitulated to his every whim. It’s like negotiating with jello. Push it one way, it springs out the other way.