Albany Democrate Herlald - Merkley Talks Jobs at Town Hall

Op-Ed

By Alex Paul

Jobs, jobs, jobs.

In one form or another, that was the key talking point Sunday afternoon during a Town Hall meeting with Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley at the Albany Senior Center.

More than 50 people from Albany, Corvallis, Springfield and Eugene came to question and hear from the former five-term Oregon representative from District 47-east Multnomah County who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008.

"The biggest issue is jobs," Merkley said. "I am trying to get the Environmental Protection Agency to understand why biomass from our forests could be a significant source of energy and why it is better to burn wood than coal."

Merkley said many jobs could be sustained in the Pacific Northwest by thinning second-generation forests, which would also reduce the potential for catastrophic fire and tree-killing diseases.

Biomass would also help the United States wean itself from its dependence on foreign oil, Merkley said.

"We're spending $1 billion per day on foreign oil," Merkley said. "We are making other countries very rich."

Merkley said a key factor in creating jobs in Oregon and nationwide is access to credit by small businesses.

"Since the banking meltdown, there has basically been a freeze on lending in our country," Merkley said. "That's why I have supported the small business loan fund that would set aside $300 million for small business loans. Small business creates jobs."

Merkley said he supports legislation that would crack down on what he termed "predatory lending practices" of some banks that forced hundreds of thousands of homeowners into foreclosure.

"For the last year, we have seen 300,000 foreclosure filings per month," Merkley said. "It doesn't just affect the homeowner. It drives down the home values of every home in the neighborhood by $2,000 to $5,000."

The national debt was another concern of the audience and Merkley said the country as a whole was paring down the national debt until 2002. Since then, he said, we have been paying for two wars, extended Medicare programs and we have given "huge tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans."

Merkley said every piece of the national budget must be on the table if the country hopes to get control of debt.

"We must minimize our debt or we will end up like Greece and Japan, which has seen 20 years of stagnation," Merkley said.

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