Getting down to it on “Independent” Betsy Johnson

Time to decode Betsy. Or as she’d say, “Cutting through the crap.”

Betsy Johnson is on the ballot for exactly the same reasons that business titans Trump, Perot, Yang, and Bloomsberg got there--support from billionaires. For Betsy, that’s massive funding from Nike, Columbia, and Timber Unity, to name a few. How does she view the CEOs who run these companies?

From an August 22 Rolling Stone interview:

On the debate stage, Johnson told voters she views corporations as the “customer” and described the job of the governor as asking, “What do you need?” She insisted she will be “reaching out to them constantly saying, ‘What can the state of Oregon do … to anticipate your needs?’”

Pressed, Johnson didn’t back down. “They are customers,” she told Rolling Stone, lamenting that chipmaker Intel recently moved some of its business to Ohio because Oregon, in her view, wasn’t more solicitous. “I am embarrassed about that.”

In Betsy’s world, democracy should be bent to corporate interests but organizations that represent more than 20% of Oregon’s workers should be isolated as special interests .

Consider: Nike does not mass manufacture any shoes in Oregon. It could, except Phil Knight’s long ago research project at the U of O recognized the path to riches is to create a hollow corporation to exploit Third World labor for First World consumers. Columbia’s Boyle family follows the well-worn Nike path.

If both of these corporations dedicated themselves to producing their goods here, Portland’s homeless problem could be solved, the streets could be paved and there would be money left over. But if they did this, of course, neither Knights nor Boyles could afford to donate millions to Betsy.

As for Intel, it did not “move” because Oregon wasn’t more solicitous, and that’s according to Intel. They didn’t move; they expanded. Proximity to markets even for small items like chips is important. Too, Ohio has an abundance of water, which chip-making demands, and is more lenient toward pollution. And the cost-of-living in the Midwest is lower, as high-tech isn’t yet entrenched there.

Intel will also cite all the tax breaks but, as is always the case, they don’t pencil out over the life of the investment. They are icing on a cake, not the cake. CEOs consistently talk about the tax breaks because the more they talk about it, the more will be offered. But numerous studies have documented time and again that even at the margins they don’t really make a difference.

For Betsy, taking care of business is Job One. That means more growth for areas already overrun with growth, and growth drives housing costs up. Betsy has no interest in planning or managing growth; in her world that’s government overreach. Tom McCall is spinning in his grave.

How about her political position on climate change?

“In the recent debate, Johnson declared that “climate change is real” but accused progressives of seeking to punish “hard-working Oregonians.” Johnson insisted the state should increase logging to diminish wildfire risk. “The biggest thing we can do to mitigate climate change is not let the place burn down every year,” she said.”

Her contradictions abound. Increased logging causes less water retention and accelerates the disruption in Oregon’s weather patterns contributing to more, not less severe weather events. Sustainable forest management and adaptive forest management may be able to reduce forest fires, but, much like tax incentives cited above, it’s most likely too little and too late. Exceeding a 1.5-degree temperature increase will doom many more Oregon forests to burning. Logging them in advance merely accelerates the process of environmental destruction; it doesn’t stop it.

She has national friends, too. Taking funding from the Koch brothers might explain her efforts to block fracking in Oregon and her efforts to undermine climate pollution mitigation legislation. She is also proud of her A rating from the Russian funded NRA.

Like Trump and George Bush (II), Betsy was born on third base, getting a head start on her career with an $11 million inheritance from her timber baron father who was found guilty of defrauding local Central Oregon farmers in at least one timber sale.

When she says she wants to restore Oregon’s national reputation she is not talking about the Oregon that led the nation in developing plant-closure legislation, the bottle bill, land use planning and innovative growth management or recycling. Instead, she’s attacking free speech and peaceful protest, hinting she would disregard the 9th Circuit ruling granting homeless folks their right to their own personal property.

In the course of Betsy’s legislative career the balance of tax contributions to Oregon’s budget has gone from two-thirds being paid by corporations to two-thirds now being paid by regular old taxpayers like you and me. Do you think she’s on your side?

Clearly, the balance of power has swung too far from those who do the work and create the wealth to those who live off of it. Betsy will do nothing to help those left behind. She will not have those who help the homeless on speed dial; nope, that is reserved for her CEO “customers.” Are we clear now?