Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Loss of logging revenue and, now, threatened reductions in fishing are driving Oregon and Linn County’s economy downward, Monica Johnson said.
Johnson, 25, of Eugene faces Jim Feldkamp in the Republican Party primary for the Fourth Congressional District. Peter A. DeFazio is the Democratic incumbent.
She has been a lifeguard and swim instructor since the age of 18. She took a one-year break and worked in the hotel industry, cleaning rooms and serving tables. She returned to working as a lifeguard.
“I liked it a whole lot better, and it paid about the same,” Johnson said.
She has been “kind of active” in the Republican Party, volunteering for petitions.
Johnson is a 1999 graduate of Monroe High School. She attended two years at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., where she studied applied physics.
The most important issue facing Linn County and other parts of the Fourth Congressional District is “loss of logging revenue,” whether it’s in the form of the financial aid that’s expiring in November or reduction in logging, she said. She would like to see more logging.
“I believe DeFazio is not going to do anything to try to alleviate the plight of the Oregon logging industry,” she said.
“A similar thing is happening with the fishing industry,” Johnson said. “They’re getting regulated out of business.”
Protections on sea mammals have allowed their populations to threaten the fishing industry as they eat too many fish, Johnson said. “I’m not saying we should kill them all, but my idea is to sell FEA tags.”
With salmon fishing out of business, the coast “will still have a bit of tourism,” she said. “But they’ll lose half of their jobs.”
Coastal tourism will suffer too because much of it is driven by fishing, she said. “It’s definitely going to be devastating.”
Johnson noted that near Klamath Falls, a judge is trying to spill the water from Klamath dams for the fish. That will leave Klamath farmers without irrigation water.
“The only thing I’ve heard DeFazio come out on is illegal immigration,” she said.
“I agree with him on that. He doesn’t want to give amnesty. He acknowledges that it is a problem, but I haven’t heard anything out of DeFazio about environmental and economic issues.”
The effect of the logging restrictions is obvious, she said. It can be seen in the run-down and abandoned buildings when, she said, those restrictions went overboard.
“I don’t want to do what we did in the ’20s,” she said of wasteful logging practices. “That was horrible,” but the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
Johnson said she would advocate for a reduction in regulations on logging, she said. Oregon’s economy hasn’t performed like the rest of the Unite States.
“Oregon does OK but not nearly as well as the rest of the (national) economy,” she said. “When (the national economy) goes down, Oregon gets hit harder.”
Johnson believes the federal government should not be involved in many of its activities, including forestry, education and labor, Johnson said.
“It’s trying to do too much and (doing) things it shouldn’t be doing,” she said.
Republicans have control of the federal government, but “just because they’re Republicans doesn’t mean they’re conservative,” she said. “I have a libertarian approach on domestic issues.”
Johnson said she isn’t familiar with everything Feldkamp wants to do, but after he won the primary and faced DeFazio two years ago, “he started speaking like a presidential candidate, not a congressional candidate.”
He got vague and didn’t bring home how things would affect Oregon. He should have kept it local, she said. “I know he was a political novice.”
Feldkamp has a good resume, Jshe said. “He lost last time, but he did better than anyone else against DeFazio.”
As far as constant funding crunches faced by government at all levels, “there’s a lot of govermental services that should not be getting funding anyway,” Johnson said. “I favor small government. I’m 25. I know I’ll never see a penny of Social Security. We need to get that fixed.”
“Medicare is the problem with the health care system,” she said. It has led to higher charges by doctors. “I’d say let’s go to health savings accounts,” with catastrophic insurance coverage becoming the norm.
“Underfunding isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I think that people are expecting too much from their government,” she said. “The church’s job is to be nice, not the government.”
To stop illegal immigration, the nation needs to enforce the laws or go back to the way it was before “quota laws,” Johnson said. “First, we’ve got to enforce our laws. Once we decide how we’re going to enforce them, then we can decide waht to do with the ones who are already here.”
About 5 percent of the population is illegal, she said. Fourteen percent of the population is on welfare. Many illegals are making more than $10 per hour. Welfare people can take those jobs and help diminish the 5-percent unemployment rate.
Johnson is certain that pulling out of Iraq right now would be the wrong move, she said.
“I’m gonna take the view of we were in Japan seven to 10 years after WWII. All we had to do was rebuild the country,” she said. “In Germany, we were there 40 years.”
In Iraq, the United States must rebuild both the country and government, Johnson said. “I’m not sure if what we’re doing is the right thing, but pulling out is the wrong thing.”
Until Iraq has a stable government and economy, the United States should not leave, Johnson said.
Dealing with illegal immigration will help deal with the meth problem, she said. “I think actually some of the illegal immigration problem would do quite a bit.”
Some 85 percent of the meth here comes from Mexico, she said. “That means that regulation of ephedrine is only going to affect that 15 percent.”
Fixing the illegal immigration problem will eliminate probably 50 percent of the meth problem, Johnson said. Instead, the state gives preferential treatment to illegals.
“Why is the county and state funding Oregon Health Plan for illegals?” she asked.