We need a parmanent rainy day fund now!

Going forward we need to find additional money that can be put into the rainy day fund. The average economic expansion is about 6 years or so. During those good years we need to save about 2-3 billion for the next downturn. This downturn left a 4 billion hole in the budget, this doesnt cover all of it, but it would help to make the cuts dramatically less severe.

We rely on income taxes in Oregon, these taxes are very cyclical and drop sharpely during a recession. We thus need to save during the good times so that we can cover the bad times. Any well run household saves money to cover a rainy day, its time that Oregon is allowed to do the same thing.

We could do this by reforming the kicker to allow up to 50% of it to be put into the rainy day fund until this 2-3 billion level is reached. We can make a good case for stability with a proposal like this.