Why I'm Running

Statement

We've made good and remarkable progress. But change is always fragile in its beginnings. It requires persistence to ensure that the roots can establish themselves and can continue to grow to bear fruit tomorrow. We have rebuilt the foundation and started to frame in the House of Oregon but there remains much work to do for it to fully accommodate all of our people.

That is why today I am asking my fellow Oregonians to allow me to serve one final term as your governor. I have an agenda for the next four years that is at least as ambitious as the last.

*We have put in place most of the policies and structures we need to achieve our 40-40-20 educational goals -- now what is required is adequate funding and consistent implementation over the next several biennia.

*We must continue to implement our health care reforms and extend them to the private market, improving health outcomes while saving millions of dollars not only for state and local government but also for private sector employers across the state. On our current course we could get more than 90% of Oregonians covered by quality health insurance by the end of 2016.

*We must redouble our efforts to meet our carbon and greenhouse gas reduction goals while accelerating the transition to a sustainable clean economy that creates living-wage jobs while reducing our carbon footprint and replenishing and restoring our natural resources.

*Finally, while we should be proud of the nearly 100,000 jobs we have created, most of those jobs are at the top and the bottom of the economic ladder, leaving out the kinds of middle-income jobs so critical to creating prosperity and long term economic stability. So our great challenge is to ensure that the next phase of Oregon's economic recovery reaches all Oregonians and ends the income stagnation that continues to erode the middle class, exacerbates inequality and the opportunity gap, and for the first time threatens a generation of Oregonians with the prospect of a declining standard of living.

That forms the outline, but of course there is more. I want to use this campaign as an opportunity to get into the details and engage Oregonians from every part of the state in the discussion -- and the shared work ahead.

I asked the Earl Boyles School to allow me to kick off this campaign here because it represents the fundamental reason I am running, and the organizing principle of what we should be focused on as a state and as a state government: the future.

The future as represented by the innovative way this school connects early childhood with ongoing education and the ability to grow, succeed and prosper.

The future as represented by the way it breaks down barriers between services to focus on needs and outcomes, not traditional bureaucratic silos.

The future in which we recognize that what we must accomplish as a state is not the government's job, or the private sector's job or the non-profit sector's job -- it is our shared responsibility as Oregonians.

But most of all, the future as represented by these children, who look to us to care for them, to prepare them, to keep them and their families safe and healthy, and to leave them an Oregon worthy of their hopes and dreams, and better than we found it.

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