Good Thinking blog

Dear Friends,
The 2010 Special Session finished ahead of schedule and with a balanced budget that maintains essential services. Our focus during the 25 day session was to help Oregonians recover from the prolonged economic recession. We worked toward this goal by enacting legislation that fosters job creation and economic growth. At the same time, we helped Oregon’s struggling families by extending unemployment benefits and ensuring protection from foreclosure and unfair lending practices.

In terms of measures designed to accelerate economic growth, two bills in particular deserve special mention. During the final days of the Special Session, I carried to the House floor HB3698-B. This bill establishes the Building Opportunities for Oregon Small Business Today (BOOST) fund. BOOST increases the availability of working capital to Oregon small businesses that will create jobs and hire Oregonians to fill them. The measure provides four year, low interest loans of up to $150,000 for Oregon businesses that meet the eligibility criteria. Funding for the program will come from additional tax amnesty collections anticipated by the Oregon Department of Revenue.

These loans will offer much-needed working capital for small businesses for the purposes of job retention. The bill also provides grants of up to $2,500 per new employee to eligible Oregon businesses that hire new full time employees who had been unemployed in Oregon for at least 60 days. Employers aren’t eligible until jobs have been in place for 6 months, and the total amount of grant per applicant is limited to $50,000. The loans and grants could get to businesses as early as May, far more quickly than tax credits or other types of incentives.

BOOST’s companion bill, SB 1017, aims to streamline procedures to allow more small businesses to qualify for loans from the Business Oregon’s Business Development Fund (OBDF).  Administered by Business Oregon, the fund provides direct loans that leverage private capital and provide incentives for businesses to expand or locate in Oregon. These newly enacted policies will help Oregon’s small- and mid-sized businesses access necessary capital during these difficult economic times when many private lenders aren’t in a position to do so.

As you may know House members were restricted to one personal bill for the Special Session. For my part, I introduced legislation designed to spur innovation in our public schools. Given the limitations of the special session, the bill received only an informational hearing. But I anticipate continuing the dialogue with various stakeholders, with the possibility of refining the bill for submission in the next regular session.

As a member of the chief budget writing committee, I experienced first-hand sobering testimony from state agencies working to assist families struggling in this extended recession. In addition to the bills I’ve already noted, here are a few more that deserve notice for their positive impact on jobs and on families trying to get ahead:

• HB 3627 – Entrepreneur Investment Act: Helps ease the financial obstacles of investing in a new business and will encourage the development of new small businesses throughout our state.
• HB 5100 – Oregon Opportunity Grants: Allocates $9.7 million for Oregon Opportunity Grants distributed by the Oregon Student Assistance Commission to college students.
• HB 3680 – Business Energy Tax Credit: Reforms the BETC, protecting the jobs the program has created while adding stringent new controls that will rein in costs and prevent abuses.
• HB 3675 – Energy Efficiency: Authorizes implementation of EEAST, which provides low cost loans to individuals for projects to increase energy efficiency in homes and small businesses, creating jobs and reducing energy costs.
• HB 3674 – Clean Energy from Forests: Supports biomass as an alternative energy technology, helping to create new jobs for Oregonians while obtaining energy from our forests.
• HB 3646 – Build America Bonds: Benefits Oregon by helping us invest in local communities and create more jobs. The bill allows the State of Oregon to take advantage of Build America Bonds (BABs) and expands the type of programs the Oregon Facilities Authority (OFA) may finance.

Lastly, we currently face an estimated $2.5 billion budget gap in the next regular session. In the interim, we need to have a serious discussion about how to best protect essential services and at the same time, ensure the private sector is positioned for growth.

That’s why strengthening Oregon’s Rainy Day Fund is one of my top priorities. In 2007, House Democrats led the passage of Oregon’s first Rainy Day Fund. In fact, I was privileged to carry that bill to the floor of the House after fewer than 90 days as a legislator. That fund has helped us withstand the worst of this global recession and we must strengthen it so that it is an even more effective buffer against boom and bust economic cycles. One idea is to deposit funds collected in excess of the revenue forecast into the Rainy Day Fund. If such a law had been in effect in 2007, we would have had $1 billion more in the fund and would have been in much better shape to provide stable funding for core services, including K-12 education, health care, and public safety. In order to enact the budgetary changes needed to build a robust Rainy Day Fund, hard work will have to be put into educating Oregonians so more people understand that giving up a few dollars in good times can help protect core services in bad times.

I welcome your comments on these issues and invite you to attend one or more of my constituent coffees starting in late-March. Together, we can begin the work needed to meet our shared responsibility to leave no less for the next generation than was inherited from the last.

Kind regards,
Rep. David Edwards