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LYNN HOWE PANTS ON FIRE AT THE OREGONIAN - PolitiFact
Yet more sales tax shenanigans!
It’s true Esquivel has advocated for a sales tax, in exchange for lowering other taxes. But Howe takes this too far, by saying he’s going after bread-and-butter kitchen staples. The bill specifically exempts food items. Combine that with the dearth of information on what the bill, in its entirety, would have done and PolitiFact Oregon rates this Pants On Fire.
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County Commissioner Candidates sound off in public forum
October 06, 2010 By Chris Conrad - Mail Tribune
The four men vying for two county commissioner seats found themselves in total agreement on one issue at Tuesday night's candidate forum.
Jackson County needs jobs. A lot of them.
The candidates for the two commissioner races in the Nov. 2 election took to the stage at Central Medford High School to wax politic on subjects ranging from a proposed national monument to their future salaries. Read More.....
June 18, 2010
Charging that the stimulus bill, health care plan and government spending are suffocating business and jobs, Jim Huffman, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, said Americans have to understand that the federal government can't fix everything and shouldn't be "a dominant player in our lives."
Speaking to more than 100 people at a candidate's forum hosted by Jackson County Republican Women at the Medford library, Huffman, a law professor at Lewis and Clark College, said he has "a chance" at toppling longtime incumbent Sen. Ron Wyden.
Huffman said he'd work to build the economy and jobs through private, not government actions, bring fiscal restraint to government, restore use of natural resources with increased timber harvesting and restore the federal government to its stated constitutional role.
"Funding bike paths, taking over General Motors and telling BP to pony up $20 billion to a fund that the president will hand out — these don't fit the enumerated powers of the government in the Constitution," said Huffman. "And there's no sign the president and Congress see any limit."
Huffman, who is making his first run for public office, also faulted the Supreme Court for widening the purpose of laws, such as the Clean Air Act, which now regulates carbon dioxide emissions.
"If the executive can do what he wants, it's an abuse of power and violates separation of powers," Huffman said. "It needs to be fixed. Everyone understands the impact of abuse of power on individual freedom and liberty, he added. "Individual liberty becomes at risk."
Huffman said his opponent's ratings are stalled at 51 percent and added that a widespread mood of unhappiness with federal and state governments gives him the momentum to elbow his way to the same level.
"Wyden is vulnerable. He has voted for a lot of things that the majority object to, such as the stimulus," said Huffman, adding that most of that money "went to bail out state and local governments, not for infrastructure, where it would have created jobs."
In his speech, Huffman avoided hot-button social issues, but when pressed by an audience question, he said "I'm a rule-of-law guy" and all immigrants must play by the rules — and the federal government must enforce them at the border, even if it has to use Transportation Safety Administration workers, "most of whom have their hands in their pockets at airports."
Citing the toll of drugs on children, Huffman said marijuana should not be legalized but he offered caveats that enforcement is "very difficult ... a challenge."
On gay marriage, Huffman said, "Oregon has got gay marriage resolved as good as it can get, with civil unions, and we've solved the real problem, which is that government must treat everyone equally."
Huffman called himself "socially moderate ... a candidate who gets classified as pro-choice because I believe government shouldn't get in the middle of peoples' private lives."
After much applause, he added that he opposes government funding for abortion or late-term procedures.
Huffman said he'd work to loosen federal timber harvesting restrictions, noting "environmentalists get everything they want" and if normal harvesting were resumed, it would take 60 years to catch up on the backlog, during which time, "our future is massive wildfires."
On the Gulf oil spill, Huffman, in an interview, said it shows "the federal government can't solve any problem" and "I'm worried we're going to overreact to this and back off from efficient and safe oil production."
Huffman decried the increase in the national debt, saying it went from $3 trillion in 1980, when Wyden first went to Congress, to $13 trillion now and if Wyden is re-elected, will be $22 trillion at the end of his next six-year term.
"It's unconscionable. If you're in business, it means a higher tax future. You can't invest. We could end up where Greece is. Oregon is heading in that direction, over a cliff," said Huffman. He said a lot of it is traceable to entitlements, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the new health plan.
"We've got to bite the bullet (reduce spending) and it's not going to be easy," he said.
Huffman, who grew up on a farm in Montana, said farmers used to worry about only weather and markets, but now they have a third worry, "regulatory uncertainty."
"The federal government has created a climate of regulatory uncertainty, a vast amount of it and the federal government should mind its own business."
