Gov. Kate Brown delivered the keynote speech at the Associated Oregon Industries annual policy forum yesterday. Speaking to a Republican-aligned audience of about 100 business and public policy leaders, the governor was out of her comfort zone.
Gov. Kate Brown delivered the keynote speech at the Associated Oregon Industries annual policy forum yesterday. Speaking to a Republican-aligned audience of about 100 business and public policy leaders, the governor was out of her comfort zone.
She articulated an agenda focusing on affordable housing and education and sprinkled her talk with what came across as token references to businesses. During the question and answer period, her responses were scanty on specifics.
Brown did express “clear support” for a minimum wage increase and called on employers to work on “pressing” transportation legislation. She said a transportation package would have to wait until the 2017 legislative session, a veiled jab at business proposals to circulate a clean fuels repeal on the ballot next year.
Efforts to torpedo the Clean Fuel law helped kill a transportation package last spring.
A hot button forum item was the “gross receipts tax,” a proposal to raise taxes on corporations to the tune of $2.6 billion dollars annually. Backers aim to put the measure on the 2016 ballot. Asked by an audience member if she supported the measure, Brown said: “There needs to be a discussion about revenue. It needs to be careful and thoughtful.”
Employer mandates, including sick leave, pending legislation around flexible scheduling and “more rights for the Bureau of Labor and Industries” are causing businesses a lot of grief, said Julie Parrish (R-West Linn). “Anymore of this and they say: ‘we’re going to leave, not just the state but the country.’ I have to take that seriously.”
Brown said a new leader for Business Oregon, the state’s economic development, agency, will help businesses across the state thrive. Sean Robbins, the agency’s former director, stepped down last summer.
Businesses have to contend with a prevailing message that “big corporations are evil,” said Jack Isselmann, a senior vice president at Greenbrier Companies. “How can we improve our messaging?”
“I’m not an adviser to big corporations,” Brown said.
No, Oregon’s liberal Democratic governor is not an adviser to big corporations. But when Brown speaks to a business audience, she needs to be able to make a forceful business case for her agenda, revenue increases included. She also needs to articulate a business-driven case for the spate of worker related bills that are coming down the pike.
If not yesterday, perhaps next month, at the Oregon Leadership Summit.
Because if Brown doesn’t make the case, the opposition will make it for her.
“Measure 66 would be a picnic compared to what is shaping up now,” said Cliff Bentz (R-Ontario), during a panel discussion held after the governor’s speech. Bentz called the gross receipts tax a “penalty on big corporations” and asked: “Is it a crime to make money? That’s not the way you do tax policy. The theme that corporations are bad sells. But it doesn’t help us because that which you tax leaves.”
