GOP candidates for governor debate unemployment, taxes

By Steve Benham KATU.com Staff Published: May 2, 2010 at 8:48 PM PST Last Updated: May 5, 2010 at 11:03 PM PST
GOP candidates for governor debate unemployment, taxes »Play Video

Note: Scroll down to the bottom for links to watch the debate in its entirety.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Nine candidates vying to be their party’s nominee for governor debated on the best way to solve the state’s economic problems and put people back to work Sunday night on KATU Television.

The hour and a half debate was sponsored by the AARP and the League of Women Voters. With such a large group, KATU News anchor Steve Dunn kept the debate moving, candidates on track, and fired off questions on taxes, unemployment, education and climate change.

Front-runners and well-known candidates Chris Dudley, Allen Alley, Bill Sizemore and John Lim were joined by lesser-known candidates Clark Colvin, the founder of CSC Capital group, which helps to restructure corporations; William Ames Curtright, who is a research scientist and owner of a manufacturing company; Rex Watkins, owner of a small real estate management firm in Albany; Bob Forthan, who worked for the state for over 35 years in the Labor and Corrections Department; and Darren Karr, who is a small business owner with a background in business analysis and business management.

Dudley, who is ahead in several polls, including the most recent KATU News/SurveyUSA poll and a former Portland Trail Blazer, said that jobs are his number one priority.

“There are 250,000 of our fellow Oregonians who are out of work, unemployed right now,” he said. “I’m a believer that government doesn’t create jobs but rather government creates the environment in which jobs can be created.”

He said that can be done in four ways. The first would be to foster an environment that creates private-sector jobs through reduction in capital gains taxes and faster depreciation for capital investment.

Secondly, he said the government needs to control spending; thirdly, he said the state needs to do a better job in higher education. And fourthly, the attitude of government needs to change to be more business-friendly.

“Right now, our attitude towards business is a bad one,” he said. “We have a national reputation as a place not friendly for business and we need to change that.”

Businessman Allen Alley, who was a co-founder of Pixelworks, also said the state needs to look at lowering the capital gains taxes and needs to go back and look at the voter-approved Measures 66 and 67, which raised taxes on corporations and higher-wage earners in the state.

He said those measures “created a $733 million advertising campaign that Oregon is closed for business.”

He said he looked at bills that have been passed over the last 24 years – the reign of Democratic governors in the state – and found almost none of the 10,000 bills that were passed helped improve the private-sector environment.

“It’s been death by 10,000 paper cuts,” he said about how the state of Oregon’s economy has gotten to be in such bad shape.

He also said the state should rate bills on whether they create or destroy jobs.

Political activist Bill Sizemore said Oregon has essentially put up a sign at the state’s borders - through the laws it has passed that have increased tax rates - that says it doesn’t want businesses coming to the state.

“We’ve said that if you’re going to be prosperous; if you’re going to be successful; if you’re going to be a good business, then we don’t want you here,” he said.

He said people that run small businesses have asked him what he would do to help them if elected governor. Sizemore said he wouldn’t do anything.

“Good small businesses don’t want government to help them,” he said. “They want government to get out of the way so they can do what they already know how to do. They want government to quit taxing them, to quit regulating them, to quit reducing the amount of property that is available for commercial and industrial uses. … I’m going to get government off your back so you can do what you do best.”

Former state legislator John Lim said he wants to send Measures 66 and 67 back to the people so they can have another chance to shoot down the tax increases.

“This was a bad deal for Oregonians,” he said. He warned that businesses may move out of the state because of those measures.

He also said the state needs to support international trade.

“We are doing about $15 billion a year in international trade which we need to increase more,” he said. “As a person from Asia, certainly I can increase the international trade.”

The size of government must be reduced, he said.

“After (Measures) 66, 67, the government now wants to take even the kicker.”

In order to reduce unemployment, Clark Colvin said the state needs to make the state government smaller, get rid of personal and corporate income taxes and switch to a sales tax for the state.

“I have a proposal that I think would knock off between $6 billion and $7 billion of state expenditures annually which will help alleviate the debt of the state and also get investors and businesses to come into the state,” Colvin said.

Rex Watkins said he wants to privatize many state agencies as possible to fix an imbalance between state and private jobs.

“We could move some of those people (state workers) to the private workforce,” he said. “It may not change our unemployment numbers but it would reduce some of the legacy costs on our state which could reduce the tax structure that we would need to have.”

He said in order to get businesses to come to the state the tax system will need to change. He said he supports reducing capital gains taxes.

William Ames Curtright said he’s a “tea party guy.” He said government has almost transformed the country into a socialist state.

“The way I remember it, government wasn’t suppose to prosper, the people were suppose to prosper,” he said.

And like others he said the size of government has gotten too big and needs to be pared back.

“As we reduce the size of government, that’s doubled over the last four years, we’ll have a lot more opportunity for jobs,” he said.

Darren Karr was the only candidate to attack his opponents. He painted Allen Alley and Chris Dudley as elites and touted himself as the only electable candidate against Democrats John Kitzhaber and Bill Bradbury.

“Republicans need to win the general election and they’re not going to do it without the independent vote. Chris Dudley and Allen Alley do not have the independent vote. Independents want to vote for a moderate and they’re not going to get it from these two. … They’re both elite and independents don’t want to vote for the elites,” he said.

As far as getting the state back on its feet, he said “I’m going to slash taxes for businesses in Oregon, and I’m going to make Oregon the best state there is in the nation and in the world to do business in. And I can do it,” he said.

Bob Forthan’s ideas were the most bizarre of the group: “Sue grocery stores for being a monopoly. They make over $100 million a year in profits. And then I live in East County and they have huge lots. With those lots, have the individuals grow a cow or some crops. And then they would have someone to help them with the growing of the crops. Then I would pass a law where there’s a $2,000 maximum or minimum of salary for the residents of Oregon. That little salary would stimulate thousands and thousands of jobs.”

He also said he would build dome homes. “That’s going to be the future,” he said.

The Republican primary as well as the Democratic primary will be May 18.

Watch the Republican debate in eight parts: