Governor Kate Brown’s latest mask mandate went into effect on the same day she activated 1,500 Oregon National Guard members to assist hospitals. Their deployment begins this Friday. The Governor also issued an extension of her unconstitutional mortgage foreclosure moratorium through the end of the year.

Senator Dennis Linthicum (R-Klamath Falls) issued the following statement:

“The Governor’s decision to activate our brave men and women of the National Guard is little more than COVID kabuki. It reveals her preference for panic theater rather than actually helping the situation.

“The Governor continues to assault our constitutional system of checks and balances while running roughshod over the liberties of Oregonians. Whether it is the mask mandate or the foreclosure moratorium, the Governor lacks legal and constitutional standards for her decisions. Democrats want to perpetuate a sense of panic because they want a permanent pandemic to push socialist policies that could not be implemented without frenzied hysteria.

“The Governor is promoting policies for free housing which has been a long-time progressive agenda item. By a stroke of the pen, the Governor has declared it illegal to be responsible for bills and debts. This government intrusion into private contracts is a violation of longstanding constitutional protections of contracts and individual property rights.

“To make matters worse, Governor Brown’s insistence that we continue to pay people extra not to work is causing a labor shortage throughout the state. Businesses are hiring but can’t find workers because it’s often more lucrative to collect beefed-up unemployment checks. The long-term consequences of these overreaches are predictable and devastating: less housing, higher prices, and high unemployment while jobs are abundant. It’s time for the government to get out of the way and incentivize responsible citizens to get back to work and manage their own lives and housing needs again.

“The pandemic has given the extreme left their utopian dream of totalitarian control. They have declared everyone a victim, housing free, work optional, grades unnecessary, and masks mandatory. It is time for these repugnant and unsound policy initiatives to end!”


--Staff Reports

Post Date: 2021-08-17 10:16:30

Last Update: 2021-08-17 10:22:18