TO THE EDITOR
FOOLING THE MASSES
In any war, truth is the first victim. Lies of
the invaders are intended to build support for il-
legal and murderous actions. They fool the
gullible, and there are many gullible.
I see it in my hometown Illinois newspaper,
which now carries near its front page masthead
the red-white-and-blue statement: “Project Iraqi
Liberation.” That lie is matched by those who
describe the killing of a young woman from
neighboring Washington by an Israeli bulldozer
as an accident.
I mourn for innocent Israelis killed by retal-
iatory suicide bombings. I mourn for destitute
Palestinians whose homes are demolished and
their lives taken by land-grabbing Israeli mili-
tary. I mourn for obedient U.S. troops who die
in the sands of Iraq. I mourn for Iraqi civilians
who die in urban bombings by a U.S. technol-
ogy whose shots too often go awry.
All of us are victims of our leaders’ conspir-
acy to kill. No one is innocent. We all become
killers when we blindly refuse to mourn death
of the truth.
George Beres
Eugene
THE INTERSECTION
America now stands at the intersection of
restoration and decline, and the choice before us
in the 2004 presidential election is which street
we wish to cross. The enormity of our decision
cannot be overlooked.
The signs of decline are easy to see. Though
we are a nation still generous at heart, we’ve be-
come distracted in mind by celebrities and
sports, wealth and possessions. For many, real-
ity television and home video games have insid-
iously replaced living.
Our malady of mindlessness is further diag-
nosed by the fact that a majority of American
adults polled admit to not having read a book in
their adult life. The prophecy of Ray Bradbury’s
Farenheit 451 is being fulfilled: We are, in
essence, burning our books by simply not read-
ing them.
Hope for our restoration lies in rescuing our
indignation from many years of indifference
and indulgence. We must then withdraw our
time from the banks of Hollywood and Sony,
and reinvest it toward active citizenship.
We must become inspectors for America,
seeking out and destroying our own weapons of
mass destruction: hunger and disease, poverty
and joblessness, homelessness and hopeless-
ness. Our search must be constant, our dedica-
tion complete, and our deadline infinite.
We must begin to acquaint ourselves with
those who’ve chosen to contend for the presi-
dency. We forget so easily; we must remember
the poor choices given to us in 2000 and work
now to assure at least one better choice in 2004.
There is just too much at stake.
Dr. Todd Huffman
Eugene
SALES TAX REVISITED
The state legislators are once again talking
about a sales tax for the state. The Democrats
have a different plan to solve the state’s prob-
lems, but they don’t have a majority to work
with.
I have been a lifelong opponent of a sales
tax, but lately I’m having second thoughts about
it. A sales tax dedicated to education could be a
solution to our economic problems, guarantee
excellent funding for our future education
needs, and help a little with the crazy buying
spree that most of us indulge in.
A sales tax going into the general budget
would be absolutely idiocy. It would just be
used to give other tax breaks for the rich, not
fund education sufficiently, and provide more
money to be given back as a “kicker.” The legis-
lators have a proven track record in this area.
Surplus money from the sales tax would be
used to build a rainy day fund and expand the
state’s reputation as an “education state.” The
legislators would be done with this ongoing dis-
pute and could settle down to argue about cov-
ering other needs or giving tax relief. We should
settle the education problem first, and argue
about the rest later.
Bob Cassidy
Eugene
MOLESTING CITIZENS
This Interagency Narcotic Enforcement
Task Force appears to be indulging in that
childish arrogance we call “being spoiled.”
Perhaps they have too much time on their
hands, deploying 59 officers and the National
Guard to stop a victimless crime that was not
even committed. Oops! Intelligence anyone? Is
this how we want our police relating to us? We
are paying them for this civil fiasco!
This sort of authoritarian belligerence leads
BY TONY CORCORAN
PERS Strings
Painful remedies are unavoidable.
P
ERS is killin’ me. Ginny Burdick, our sturdy senator from Portland,
tells me I’m no fun anymore: “You just meander mindlessly muttering about DC’s
and DB’s, risks, replacement ratios, 6 percent pick-ups, 8 percent guarantees — and
lawsuits — and what the hell is an actuary, anyway?”
There’s been huge pressure in the capitol for a PERS solution since January; if there’s
no new plan by the first week of May, there will be no savings for the next calendar year —
because the actuaries, those griffins of monopoly capital, have to know by May in order to
defog their crystal balls by July,
We’ve completed the easier stuff: the 8 percent cap, the new mortality tables, the new
PERS board. We just can’t agree on the successor plan; conservative House Republicans
are demanding a vote on an insufficient “defined contribution” (DC) plan, instead of a more
stable “defined benefit” (DB) plan. We had a meeting with the governor and all the leaders;
Teddy tells House Majority Leader Tim Knopp at least three times: A DC plan won’t cut it.
Tim decides to run it out anyway. (It’s this kind of partisan thinking that got Kitzhaber his
150 vetoes when both chambers were Republican — might not work as well this session.)
The longest debate has been over current savings. The dam broke last Thursday with a
compromise plan from the governor’s office to the House PERS Committee. Players in the
discussions and negotiations leading to this plan included:
• Tim Knopp, House PERS Committee chair,
• An ad hoc group made up of local government and school employers, and their lobby-
ists (headed up by Jim Green of the school boards),
• This employer group was joined by some of the “progressive” business types — the
Portland Business Alliance and the Oregon Business Alliance. This entire group was repre-
sented by Bill Gary of Harrang Long (my all-time favorite name of a law firm), a guy who’s
been around the PERS scene for a while.
• The PERS Coalition: teachers, police, firefighters, social workers, librarians, school em-
ployees, higher ed classified staff and faculty — the actual workers, as they’re known — rep-
4 APRIL 24, 2003
resented by another seasoned veteran of the PERS scene, Greg Hartman,
• Margaret Hallock, the governor’s labor staff, former head of LERC and a for-
mer economist for the state,
• Freshman Representative Greg McPherson, the man I call “Synchronicity.” Think
about it: We have the biggest PERS catastrophe in history and along comes a smart
Democrat corporate pension lawyer. Although he’s a rookie, Greg has a unique insight on
Salem: His father, Hector MacPherson (a Republican farmer who created our original land
use laws) and his grandfather, also Hector, served in the Oregon House. In all our discus-
sions, Greg has the unfair advantage of being the only one who has actually written a re-
tirement plan, except for,
• David Hendrickxs, our vowel-impaired legislative counsel, who has done nothing this
session but write retirement plans. (A special provision of any new retirement plan gives
Dave free room-and-board on any ward at the Oregon State Hospital in perpetuity), and fi-
nally,
• Me, because I chair the senate committee dealing with PERS.
T
he hearing room was packed last Thursday; Margaret walked the committee
through the proposed changes to SB2003. The plan creates huge current savings
but at a cost to current PERS members and even to some folks who retired after
1999. The plan goes beyond what the PERS Coalition believes could survive court challenge
— they’re in shock. After her testimony, I walk up to the microphone: “This is a huge hit to
people in the system now and folks who just got out of the system. … having said that, it’s
the right thing to do.” I’m firmly convinced.
Margaret and Greg and I, none of us had any authority to speak for the employees; but
we felt we were there on their behalf, protecting their interests as well as we could, because
they could not move. The system was in crisis and had to be fixed; but many public employ-
ees — who’ve seen their wages, their benefits, their very jobs, relentlessly attacked by the
conservatives for years — viewed this as simply another part of an ongoing ideological war.
It wasn’t. But I’m still getting the stink-eye from union lobbyists and even some former co-
workers, and it hurts. I knew it would happen. It’s killin’ me.
Sen. Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove represents portions of Lane and Douglas counties in Senate District 4,
which includes the UO area. He can be reached at sen.tonycorcoran@state.or.us