PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, DECEMBER 30, 2016
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
The color orange
There are few things as promis-
ing as the dawning of a new year. As
the calendar fl ips from December 31
to January 1, everything will be re-
set. We make resolutions in an effort
to be better. A new year holds the
promise of adventures and experi-
ences as well as milestones and cel-
ebrations.
Spring is the season
when nature starts to bloom
anew, but for the people,
New Year’s Day heralds all
that is bright and new and
unexplored. For most peo-
ple anyway.
There is no getting
around the fact that not everyone
will celebrate a new year, because for
them it will look much like the pre-
vious year. Many people will con-
tinue to struggle with fi nances, liv-
ing situations and more. People who
don’t live the great American life-
style don’t always have a choice. They
should not be judged. For those in
need who ask for help should receive
it, not just from some bureaucracy
but from their fellow man.
We judge when we are intolerant
of other’s life style, life choice or ide-
ology. That intolerance begets isola-
tion, bias and injury.
Our world has become a soci-
ety in which too many people feel
they’ve been given the permission to
attack, verbally and physically, those
who are different. That includes the
bullying of children, whether it is
in person or cyber. It is not nearly
enough to just express the sentiment
that everyone should get
along—that’s too sim-
plistic. It takes action
from all corners; society
must make intolerance
shameful.
We can take the tools
of other messages—rib-
bons—to take a stand,
locally, against intolerance. Tying
orange-colored ribbons to our trees,
wearing orange-colored ribbons
on our chests will create curious-
ity and questioning from neighbors,
friends and strangers. When asked
what the ribbon is for we can say it
is to promote tolerance amongst and
between people, here in Keizer and
around the globe.
Judging less and tolerating differ-
ence is a good resolution for each of
us to make. It will make the new year
better and more promising, even
here in our little corner of the world.
—LAZ
editorial
Hate and divisiveness
By PRITAM K. ROHILA, Ph.D.
Acrimony and nastiness have been
hallmarks of the recent presiden-
tial election campaign in the United
States. Divisive ideas, which were be-
ing propagated by hosts
of a handful of talk radio
and cable TV channels,
became mainstreamed.
Opponents were de-
monized, and differ-
ences among Americans
were accentuated. Sus-
picion, anger and hate
became widespread.
The Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC) recorded a 14 percent increase
in the number of hate groups in the
country in 2015. In its 2016 report,
released in late November, it counted
almost 900 incidents of harassment
and intimidation in a variety of set-
tings, all directed against immigrants,
minority individuals and related in-
stitutions. Even children, disabled in-
dividuals and houses of worship were
not spared.
New York Police Department has
noted a 115 percent increase in hate
crimes in New York City. According
to the Los Angeles County Commis-
sion on Human Relations, in parts
of the county, there was a 24 percent
rise in hate crimes, mostly targeting
minorities, and there was 69 percent
increase in hate crimes just against La-
tinos.
The FBI reported 5,850 hate
crimes in the United States, last year.
Muslims and Muslim-appearing in-
dividuals were targeted on 263 occa-
sions, the second highest number on
record, trailing only the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks backlash. Many
Muslim women have experienced hi-
jab-grabbing incidents. In some cases,
even Muslim police offi cers were vic-
timized.
It is ironic that all this is
happening in a nation where
the Statue of Liberty, the in-
ternationally-renowned icon
of freedom, has welcomed
immigrants from all over the
world, and a nation that has so
frequently highlighted human
rights violations in other parts
of the world.
Let us hope that the divisiveness,
which has marked the recent elec-
tions, does not pit some Americans
against other Americans and minori-
ties in the country continue to enjoy
rights and protections enshrined in
the U.S. Bill of Rights.
Regardless of who occupies the
White House, and which political
party dominates Congress, we must
continue to uphold and abide by the
many international covenants we have
endorsed, and the basic rights and
freedoms enshrined in the U.S Con-
stitution.
In the spirit of reconciliation and
brotherly love, we must combat divi-
siveness and bigotry, as some churches
across the country did with their
communion services on the election-
day this year, and as two of the nation’s
largest Jewish and Muslim advocacy
groups recently did to form an un-
precedented partnership.
guest
column
(Dr. Pritam Rohila, of Keizer, is a
retired neuropsychologist. He can
be reached at pritamrohila@yahoo.
com.)
The economy needs attention now
By LAWRENCE KUDLOW
President-elect Donald Trump’s
transition continues to go smoothly.
Actually, better than smoothly—
confi dently. More than confi dently
—transcendently.
And to top it all off, the
Dow is up 9 percent since
the election, while eco-
nomic-sensitive small caps
have jumped nearly 16
percent. These are signs of
Trump confi dence.
Hard-nosed
invest-
ment manager Ray Dalio,
founder of Bridgewater Associ-
ates and a nonpolitical guy, expects
the Trump years to be as transfor-
mational as the years of President
Ronald Reagan and Prime Minis-
ter Margaret Thatcher. He says the
Trump era could “ignite animal
spirits” and “shift the environment
from one that makes profi t makers
villains with limited power to one
that makes them heroes with signifi -
cant power.”
That’s as good a summary as I
have found.
Since the election, I have argued
that the Barack Obama/Hillary
Clinton war against business will
come to an end and that America
will once again reward success, not
punish it. And while the left has de-
monized Trump’s Cabinet appoin-
tees as a terrible group of successful
business people, free-market capital-
ists such as myself regard this group
as very good indeed.
Why shouldn’t the president sur-
round himself with successful peo-
ple? Wealthy folks have no need to
steal or engage in corruption. Their
business success demonstrates that
they know how to achieve goals and
convince skeptics that good deals
can be made to the benefi t of both
sides. Isn’t this just what America
needs?
And most of these folks aren’t po-
litical. They won’t be afraid to reach
across the aisle for bipartisan solu-
tions. And that includes Trump him-
self. For many years, he was a Dem-
ocrat—just like Reagan, just like me.
In our new book, JFK and
the Reagan Revolution, Bri-
an Domitrovic and I ex-
plain how the two great
pro-growth tax-cutting
presidents—John F. Ken-
nedy, the Democrat, and
Ronald Reagan, the Re-
publican—used civility
and respect to communi-
cate key ideas in a biparti-
san effort that yielded terrifi c results
for American prosperity.
So far, this has been the Trump
way. Not only has he conducted
himself with great civility, beginning
with his Oval Offi ce meeting with
President Obama, but he has also
sought an inclusive approach wher-
ever possible, irrespective of party.
Yet with less than a month un-
til the inauguration, it is crucial that
Trump embark on immediate bipar-
tisan efforts to strengthen the econ-
omy. It was the number-one elec-
tion-year issue. And despite strong
post-election increases in business
and consumer confi dence—along
with the stock rally—the economy
is weakening yet again.
Measured year-to-year, real gross
domestic product is rising only 1.7
percent. Business fi xed investment,
or BFI, continues to decline. Pro-
ductivity is fl at. Consumer spend-
ing has barely risen in the last two
months, while both auto production
and sales are slumping. Nonfi nancial
domestic profi ts have declined year
to year for the last six quarters.
Of all these factors, the slump in
business fi xed investment is the most
harmful. If you go back in history
across the four long post-war recov-
eries of the ‘60s, ‘80s and ‘90s, BFI
averaged nearly 7 percent. In the
Obama recovery, BFI was only 4
percent. Over the past two years, it
other
views
has been fl at.
Using a back-of-the-envelope
rule of thumb, if the investment
performance of Presidents Kennedy,
Reagan and Clinton were in place
now, our economy would be grow-
ing at 3 percent rather than 2 per-
cent —a big difference.
That’s why pro-growth tax re-
form is so important. It is reported
that Trump will immediately move
to overturn costly Obama regula-
tions, especially on small business.
This is good. It will add to growth.
But the big decision will be
whether to repeal and rewrite
Obamacare or enact tax reform as
the fi rst order of legislative business.
Replacing Obamacare is hugely
important, both to improve our
health care system and remove the
economic drag of its taxing, spend-
ing and regulating. But business tax
reform, with low marginal corporate
rates for large and small companies,
easy repatriation and immediate
expensing for new investment, will
have an enormously positive impact
on the weakest part of our economy,
namely business investment.
That’s where we’ll see 3 or 4
percent growth, higher productiv-
ity, more and better-paying jobs and
fatter family pocketbooks.
If there were a way to combine
a two-year budget resolution with
reconciliation instructions (51 Sen-
ate votes) to reform health care and
taxes in one full sweep, that would
be ideal. However, if tax reform (be
it business or individual) comes sec-
ond and the start dates are postponed
until 2018, then businesses and con-
sumers will postpone economic ac-
tivity. That could make 2017 a much
weaker economic story than confi -
dence surveys and the recent stock
market suggest.
There’s a great transition going
on, but the economy needs imme-
diate attention. Tax reform is the key.
(Creators Syndicate)
An equation for disaster?
Americans have heard it more
than once: “I’ll bet he is turning
over in his grave,” when a matter
occurs that we know would greatly
upset a certain deceased person.
I think of Alexander Hamilton
when I think of a person from the
past who’d likely be rolling over in
his grave if such an event
ever happens.
What
would do it to him? The
outcome of the nation’s
Electoral College meet-
ing and vote.
From the founding of
our republic, members
of the Electoral College
have had a constitutional
responsibility to vote for a qualifi ed
person to be the president of our
nation. At the urging of Hamilton,
the Electoral College was made a
part of the Constitution to make
certain that every president—in-
cluding the 45th, now waiting in
the wings for January 20—must be
competent and capable to perform
the duties of the offi ce.
Hamilton and the other found-
ing fathers were cautious in their
faith of voters to be good judges
but had the foresight to realize that
sometime in the future, voters might
not select a candidate with the right
stuff suffi cient to be president. It has
been argued of late, in no uncertain
terms, that Donald J. Trump lacks
the temperament and ability, caus-
ing him to be unfi t for America’s
most important political job.
They met in Washington, D.C. on
December 19 and gave their votes
in suffi cient number to elect Trump.
Millions of Americans are disap-
pointed in them. I am one of the
disappointed and thereby fear for
our future. My reason, in brief, is
a deep and abiding anxiousness for
the fate of my nation in shoot-from-
the-hip hands. Further, my view of
the Electoral College is that it’s a
dismal failure and should
now be abolished in future
in favor of the popular vote.
A selective list of con-
cerns about Trump includes
the following: he listens
only to himself, his children
and son-in-law + he’s not
accountable or transpar-
ent + he’s committed to
making money fi rst and foremost
+ he’s not been able to elaborate
on his program and policy changes
and will allow the most backward-
looking to rule the nation + he’s
gene h.
mcintyre
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selected mainly super-wealthy per-
sons and military warhawks to his
cabinet + several of his appoint-
ments will dismantle federal de-
partments that help Main Street
Americans + he promises to end, by
substituting something “wonder-
ful,” the Affordable Care Act now
insuring former uninsured millions
of Americans + he promises to do
away with regulations on business
and industry that protect the envi-
ronment for all and keep Ameri-
can workers safe + he lacks a sense
of propriety + and he has all the
makings of an American president
who neither respects nor believes in
democratic principles and practices
= Angst.
(Gene H. McIntyre’s column ap-
pears weekly in the Keizertimes.)