Candidates get serious on kids.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

PORTLAND - The two leading gubernatorial candidates' philosophies about government were on full display Thursday.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski extolled the state's role in improving children's lives. Challenger Ron Saxton insisted that government shouldn't be looked to for all the answers.

The Democratic incumbent and the Republican challenger faced off in an Oregon Public Broadcasting studio early Thursday afternoon before a statewide TV and radio audience.

The debate was sponsored by three children's advocacy groups. A moderator asked questions about the candidates' records and ideas for improving children's lives, and that led to an hourlong exchange on subjects that included foster care, education, illegal immigration, the economy and the role of taxes and government in ensuring that young people's needs are met.

Throughout the event, Kulongoski forcefully espoused and at times defended his endorsements of targeted tax increases to pay for programs meant to help children.

He has called for an 84.5 cents-per-pack increase in the state cigarette tax to provide health coverage for 95 percent of Oregon's children, 117,000 of whom lack medical insurance. He also has called for an increase in the corporate minimum tax - now $10 a year - to pay for expanding the Head Start preschool program so all eligible children can enroll.

Kulongoski also wants to put the corporate tax kicker, projected at $200 million, into a rainy-day fund for education.

The governor said he did his best to lead the state through an economic recession that drained almost one-quarter of projected revenue from the general fund. Now that Oregon has recovered, he said, it's time to invest in the future.

"I made a commitment that I was going to recover Oregon's economy and that the available resources would be put into play and children would come to the head of the line," he said.

Just as he has in a set of ads now in heavy TV and radio rotation, Saxton pounced on Kulongoski for looking to taxes as a way to pay for services. He characterized the governor's ideas as pipe dreams, given Oregonians' unwillingness to send more money to Salem.

"You have to live with reality," he said. "The governor has proposed raising taxes over and over. And he has not been successful in getting any of those tax increases through.

"Anyone who thinks the solution to solving problems, whether it's more health care or better education, is to talk about raising taxes is just dreaming."

It was frequently Kulongoski himself who brought up the issue of the governor's willingness to look to additional tax revenue to pay for added services. And he said he wouldn't back down from that approach.

As examples of his common cause with Oregon's working families, Kulongoski cited expanded drug and alcohol treatment for parents who have lost their children to foster care, expanded preschool to include children whose families don't qualify for Head Start, and his proposal to combine work-study with government grants to ensure that all high school graduates can attend college.

Saxton's advocacy of cutting capital gains and inheritance taxes, and his refusal to pledge more money for the kinds of services he supports, speaks volumes about his allegiances, Kulongoski said.

"Ron has a corporate side to him. He likes big oil companies and big car companies and big drug companies. He likes the privileged few," the governor said.

Saxton said his fiscally conservative philosophies make him a more responsible choice for voters who are concerned about holding the line on more taxes and about getting the most out of the taxes they already send to Salem.

But he refused to cede ground to Kulongoski when it comes to using the governorship to ensure that the needs of young people are met.

"I absolutely believe it's critical that these children have the opportunity for someone to ... help them learn," he said. `That doesn't translate to `Government should hold them on their lap,' or that `Government should do all these things for them,' ' he said.

The Republican candidate went on to say that parents should be looked to first for such things, and government should step in mainly in cases of severe poverty, hunger or health issues.

Jonah Edelman, executive director of one of the debate's sponsoring organizations, said afterward that both candidates made it clear that education is their top priority and that they share a common interest in improving teacher quality through steps such as reviving the decade-old mentor-teacher program.

"The main difference, from my perspective, was that Gov. Kulongoski was willing to step up and be specific about how to pay for effective investments such as Head Start and children's health care, and Ron Saxton is talking unspecifically about efficiencies," Edelman said.

Efficiencies would provide only a small fraction of what's needed to pay for the kinds of improvements the two candidates have promised, he said.

THREE MORE DEBATES ARE SCHEDULED Oct. 13: Portland City Club, noon. To be carried statewide on delayed broadcast by OPB TV and radio.

Oct. 17: KGW-TV studio, Portland, 7 p.m. To be carried statewide on Northwest Cable News.

Oct. 24: KOBI-TV studio, Medford, 6:30 p.m. To be carried by KLSR-TV, Channel 34 in Eugene.