You were correct about OR being a "swing state". The Moveon ads about healthcare probably had something to do with the administration stopping by to tout their bogus healthcare:
Bush officials stop in, draw protest
registerguard.com
By Sherri Buri McDonald
The Register-Guard
As top Bush administration officials visited Eugene on Wednesday to tout the administration's health care ideas, they were greeted by a lively crowd of local residents who used the unusual tour to protest President Bush's economic policies.
In their planned event, the senior officials met privately with 10 small-business owners at the Rexius Forest By-Products corporate office in west Eugene.
Meanwhile, about 50 people chanted and carried signs objecting to White House policies.
Business owner Rusty Rexius (from left), Treasury Secretary John Snow and Small Business Administration Administrator Hector Barreto smile along with staff members at seeing a "Big Duck" piece of artwork in front of Rexius Forest By-Products' office in west Eugene on Wednesday.
Protesters in front of Rexius' office hold signs criticizing Bush policies and his team's visit.
Photos: Chris Pietsch / The Register-Guard
Treasury Secretary John Snow and Small Business Administration Administrator Hector Barreto arrived in Eugene on Wednesday afternoon, the last of five stops during a two-day tour through Washington and Oregon. Both states may become swing states in November's presidential election, and observers see the tour as part of an effort to get Pacific Northwest residents to warm to the Bush ticket.
Critics have been quick to condemn the entire tour as a publicity stunt and a waste of money, while the administration says the event is a way to get in touch with sentiment outside Washington, D.C.
Snow and Barreto had been traveling with Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, as part of a "jobs and growth" tour.
Along their travels, the Bush team has praised Bush's tax cuts as a way to reinvigorate the economy and spur job growth.
The entire group made an appearance in Portland on Wednesday morning. Snow told that audience that President Bush "inherited a recession" from President Clinton, according to Bloomberg News. His statement has sparked controversy. The National Bureau of Economic Research committee that unofficially sets the timing of recessions pegged the start of the last decline as March 2001, after Bush took office. Some members of that committee, armed with revised data, are considering shifting that date to December 2000, Clinton's last full month in office, but no decision has been made, Bloomberg said.
Only Snow and Barreto made it to Eugene for the discussion on making health care insurance more affordable for small business.
In that meeting, Barreto and Snow talked up legislation that would establish so-called "association health plans," which would enable trade groups to pool members nationwide to bargain for better rates from insurance providers. Barreto said such plans could help small businesses cut their premiums by as much as 20 percent.
Another program they talked about, health savings accounts, was already created as part of last year's Medicare reform law. These are tax-free savings accounts that can be used to pay medical costs by employees or their family members. Barreto likened these to health care IRAs.
"When people are spending their own money, they tend to be more intelligent about how they spend it," Snow said.
But such upbeat comments have won scant favor among the critics who have dismissed the tour as a ploy aimed at helping get votes for Bush.
Local protesters and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Springfield, complained that staged events didn't get to the heart of Oregonians' needs: jobs, affordable health care, and even basic necessities such as food and shelter.
Oregon has suffered one of the highest jobless rates in the country for the past several years. The state's December rate was 7.2 percent, well above the national average of 5.7 percent.
Since President Bush took office, Oregon has lost 48,200 jobs, including 26,400 manufacturing jobs, DeFazio said.
He likened Bush's Commerce, Labor and Treasury secretaries to the "Three Blind Mice feeling their way around economic issues and totally missing the concerns of average working families and local businesses.
"The Bush Cabinet's 'happy talk' is at odds with the everyday realities Oregon families have to face," he said.
Before Snow and Barreto arrived, a local workers' rights group staged a press conference near the Rexius office in the stark, cold kitchen of FOOD for Lane County.
Dan Bryant, minister of First Christian Church in downtown Eugene and a member of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, said the Bush economic team needed to hear from more than just a select group of 10 business people.
"We're thrilled that they're here, but we're very concerned that they're hearing from only one small segment of our community," Bryant said.
"I think we're all concerned about unemployment and job growth, and we want to make sure the secretaries get the message that the economy is not working here in Oregon," Bryant said.
In the meeting with Snow and Barreto, one business owner suggested that socialized medicine - government-run health care programs - might solve the nation's health care crisis. That's an idea the Bush administration rejects.
"I think society has spoken that health care is a right," said John Anderson, president of Eugene-based Truck 'n Travel, a 100-employee truck service center.
"I think the health care industry is completely broken," said Anderson, whose costs to provide health insurance have increased 150 percent in the past seven years.
"I've come to the conclusion that the only way to control health care (costs) in this country is to socialize it," he said.
"Boy, we hope that doesn't happen," Baretto said. "We know what government is capable of and not capable of."
In an interview after the meeting, Baretto said the United States is respected worldwide for its health care system. "We don't want to throw out the best system in the world," he said.
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