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PAGE A4, KEISERTIMES, MARCH 3, 2017 KeizerOpinion KEIZERTIMES.COM Urban play stations The city is surveying utility pay- ers about their level of interest in and support of Keizer’s 19 parks. Respon- dents are asked if they would support an addition of up to $8 per month to upgrade and maintain them. Neighborhood and regional parks are a key offering of a city’s quality of life. People like parks and they help maintain property values. Parks, both big and small, are the recreation hubs in our neighborhoods. The lack of entertain- ment and recreation options in Keizer have always ranked high on the livability sur- veys. Kids, especially teens, are notoriously hard to keep busy and engaged. Let’s face it, sometimes it is hard to keep grown-ups busy and en- gaged. Parks can go only so far. What if you are a household without access to a mountain or coastal cabin? What if you not a school or club sportsman? What can we do for those who live in Keizer, want to stay in Keizer, but need something fun to do? We should get whimsical. We envision play stations through- out Keizer, along River Road, at the Civic Center, at Keizer Station and other public spaces. What’s a play station? It can be a huge checkers board. It can be perma- nent chess tables through- out the city’s core (how about three at the Mc- Gee-Newton focal point at the corner of River and Chemawa Roads. It can be an over-sized Tic Tac Toe game,. It can be brain teaser puzzles that make passers-by stop and try to solve it. Establishing components of an ur- ban play station can be part of any re- newed River Road Renaissance—if a our opinion No Uber, Lyft; fi x transit fi rst tion and I feel personally that this hasn’t been done within the fi rst few weeks of Mayor Bennett’s ad- ministration. Mayor Bennett fought hard and long to win elec- tion to his current offi ce. I would hope that he stands for all of his constituents rather than those that rely upon the Chamber of Com- merce to promote themselves. I call on Mayor Bennett to do the right thing and actually do something to improve the system—I call on my own elected mayor, Cathy Clark, to try and help improve the system. There has been too much talk of “We will get to it eventually” or “It is what it is.” The people have had enough of the upper one percent calling all the shots. If true change is to happen it needs to start at an already established point Dakota Saunders Keizer letters To the Editor: I am writing to voice my objections to Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett’s proposal to bring Uber and Lyft into this city without fi rst trying to im- prove upon the current public trans- portation. It is no actual secret that a good chunk of people who live in this city, rely on a currently inadequate trans- portation system because the council is unable or unwilling to take actual steps to try and improve up on the sys- tem as it stands. Mayor Bennett has worked, it would seem, extremely hard to bring in ride share servers more than he has tried to improve the current system. True, the council is unable to make actual decisions and changes in this system but they are able to help move the conversation in the right direc- Everyone likes to win By LYNDON ZAITZ Everyone likes to win—an award, a ribbon, a title, a contest. The recent Academy Awards made me think about the awards and honors I have won. It was my fi rst award that was like winning an Oscar. I had won a con- test or two before my big win on May 19, 1976. In second grade at Keizer El- ementary School I won a coupon for a free 19¢ burg- er at Bob’s Burgers for having my poster design chosen as the winner. I can’t even remember what the topic was—don’t care; I won. By 1976 I had traded in my aca- demic pursuits for the glory of the stage. By the middle of my junior year I was a part of the drama de- partment; I was no drama geek, per se, I had other interests as well. By the time my high school career was ending I had trod the boards as Man in Subway in Bells Are Ringing, the lead in You’re a Good Man, Char- lie Brown, and as Lt. Frank Burns in our high school production of M*A*S*H—it’s hard to picture a school approving it these days. I was the all-singing, all-dancing lifeguard in No, No Nanette. At the end of the school the dra- ma class/department held an irrev- erent awards program, set up in such a way that every graduating senior got some sort of an award. At the awards dinner in my senior year, my classmates won this award and that award, even my younger brother won a best actor award for a role that mirrored Woody Allen. All the awards had been present- ed. Except one. Each year the teach- er, Al Osburg, gave out The Ozzie, an award he personally gave out. It is still hard to discern what the criteria on my mind was for the award. Mr. Osburg gave a few remarks and said the winner of The Ozzie is...me. I rose and walked to the dais to thunderous applause from the 40 or so people in attendance. The award was basically a trophy with a rendition of the sad/ happy masks on top where the bowler or the batter would normally be. I was happy to win. I was emotional; I cried and I thanked the people in the room for giving me a home in high school. Winning never gets old. I didn’t win anything again until years later. I was honored with awards from some entries into a state-wide contest by the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association. I, like everyone else, likes to win things. When I was a Toastmaster with a Salem club, 10 of my required speeches won nine blue ribbons. Just as the theatre department was a welcome fi t in my fi nal high school days, Toastmasters fi lled a need and did help with public speaking. Though I haven’t been a member of Toastmasters for a number of years, I do use what I acquired in that or- ganization every day—that was my lasting award. I don’t win every time. There are honors or awards over many years I wish I had received. But like they say at the Oscars and other awards: it nice just to be considered. A seg- ment of the public decries the awarding of green ribbons so every- one feels like a winner and no one is loser. Well, there are losers. Losing doesn’t create losers, it makes one try harder, it keeps one humble. In- stead of moping, just think, “I didn’t win. This time.” Keizertimes Wheatland Publishing Corp. • 142 Chemawa Road N. • Keizer, Oregon 97303 phone: 503.390.1051 • web: www.keizertimes.com • email: kt@keizertimes.com SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGING EDITOR Eric A. Howald editor@keizertimes.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Derek Wiley news@keizertimes.com One year: $25 in Marion County, $33 outside Marion County, $45 outside Oregon PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY ADVERTISING Publication No: USPS 679-430 Paula Moseley advertising@keizertimes.com POSTMASTER Send address changes to: PRODUCTION MANAGER Andrew Jackson Keizertimes Circulation graphics@keizertimes.com 142 Chemawa Road N. LEGAL NOTICES Keizer, OR 97303 legals@keizertimes.com EDITOR & PUBLISHER Lyndon Saitz publisher@keizertimes.com BUSINESS MANAGER Laurie Painter billing@keizertimes.com Periodical postage paid at Salem, Oregon RECEPTION Lori Beyeler facebook.com/keizertimes twitter.com/keizertimes business wants to get a city loan to up- grade their commercial property they must add a play station. How would a series of urban play stations throughout the city be paid for? For starters, each station would have a fi tness, educational, historical or art facet. Those are four areas is which grant money is available from a myr- iad of public and private sources. For stations situated in our parks, it can be funded with money added to the city’s utility bills (if that comes to pass). A renewed River Road Renais- sance would have money available for stations along Keizer’s main thorough- fare. The addition of urban play stations would be a project that maintains Keizer’s urban livability while helping to solve the issue of few entertainment and recreation choices for our kids and grown-ups alike. —LAZ As Trump unmuzzles the economy, a rosy scenario will become reality By LAWRENCE KUDLOW Virtually the whole world is beat- ing up on the Trump administration for daring to predict that low marginal tax rates, regulatory rollbacks and the repeal of Obamacare will generate 3 to 3.5 percent economic growth in the years ahead. In a CNBC interview last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held the line on this forecast. He also argued the need for dynamic budget scoring to capture the effects of faster growth. Good for him. But what’s so interest- ing about all the economic growth naysaying today is that former President Obama’s fi rst budget forecast roughly eight years ago was much rosier than President Trump’s. And there was nary a peep of criticism from the main- stream media outlets and the consen- sus of economists. Strategas Research Partners policy analyst Dan Clifton printed up a chart of the Obama plan that predicted real economic growth of roughly 3 per- cent in 2010, nearly 4 percent in 2011, over 4 percent in 2012 and nearly 4 percent in 2013. But it turned out that actual growth ran below 2 percent during this period. Was there any howling about this result among the economic consensus? Of course not. It seems it has saved all its grumbling for the Trump forecast. And what’s really interesting is that the Obama policy didn’t include a single economic growth incentive. Not one. Instead, there was a massive $850 billion so-called spending stimu- lus (Whatever became of those spend- ing multipliers?), a bunch of public works programs that never got off the ground and, fi nally, Obamacare, which really was one giant tax increase. Remember when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the health-care mandate was in fact a tax? But it wasn’t just a tax. It was a tax hike. And added to that were a 3.8 percent investment tax hike, a proposed tax hike on so-called Cadillac insurance plans and yet another tax increase on medical equipment. So eight years ago, tax- and-spend was perfectly OK. And the projection that it would produce a 4 percent growth rate per- fectly satisfi ed the economic consen- sus. Make sense? No, it does not. So here’s President Trump reaching back through history for a common- sense growth policy that worked in the 1960s, when President John F. Kennedy slashed marginal tax rates on individuals and corporations, and again in the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan slashed tax rates across the board and sparked a two- decade boom of roughly 4 percent real annual growth. But the economic consensus won’t buy Trump’s plan. One after another, Trump critics argue that because we’ve had 2 per- cent growth over the past 10 years or so, we are doomed to continue that forever. This is nonsense. Most of them point to the decline other views in productivity over the past 15 years. They say that unless productivity jumps to 2.5 percent or so, and un- less labor-force participation rises, we can’t possibly have 3 to 4 percent growth. Stanford University econom- ics professor John Taylor, who’s also a research fellow at the Hoover In- stitution, is one of the nation’s top academic economists. He released a chart on productivity growth that shows that productivity declines can be followed by productivity increases, which unfortunately can be followed again by productivity declines. In his widely read blog, Econom- ics One, Taylor wrote one post titled “Take Off the Muzzle and the Econo- my Will Roar.” He notes that bad eco- nomic policy leads to slumping pro- ductivity, living standards, real wages and growth. We can see “huge swings in pro- ductivity growth in recent years,” he says. “These movements ... are closely related to shifts in economic policy, and economic theory indicates that the relationship is causal.” He concludes, “To turn the econo- my around we need to take the muzzle off, and that means regulatory reform, tax reform, budget reform, and mone- tary reform.” Well, aren’t those exactly the reforms that President Trump is promoting? Get rid of the state-sponsored barriers to growth. Then watch how these common-sense incentive-mind- ed policies turn a rosy scenario into economic reality. (Creators Syndicate) The American ideal will not be disrupted By MICHAEL GERSON Two sets of remarks, a day apart, by two men more accustomed to being behind the scenes. Stephen Bannon, ap- pearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), made the case for “economic nationalism” and called President Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans- Pacifi c Partnership “one of the most pivotal moments in modern American history.” The passage of the Civil Rights Act and the defeat of the Soviet Union fi nally have some com- pany. As the ideologist in Trump’s in- ner circle, Bannon is a practitioner of Newt Gingrich’s mystic arts. Take some partially valid insight at the crossroads of pop economics, pop history and pop psychology; declare it an inexorable world-historic force; and, by implication, take credit for be- ing the only one who sees the inner workings of reality. For Bannon, it has something to do with “the fourth turning,” or maybe it is the fi fth progression, or the third cataclysm. At any rate, it apparently involves cycles of discontent and dis- ruption. Lots of disruption. Across the West, as Bannon sees it, the victims of globalization—the victims of immi- gration, free trade and international- ism in general—are rising against their cosmopolitan oppressors. Institutions will crash and rise in new forms. And this restless world spirit takes human form in... Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. Like many philosophies that can be derived entirely from an airport book- store, this one has an element of truth. The benefi ciaries of the liberal inter- national order have not paid suffi cient attention to the human costs of rapid economic change. (Just as the critics of internationalism have not paid suf- fi cient attention to the nearly 1 billion people who have left extreme poverty during the last two decades.) But there is a prob- lem with the response of economic nationalism and ethno-nationalism. It is morally degraded and dangerous to the country. Which brings us to the second set of remarks, at a State Department re- tirement party, complete with cake. This speech was from one of the most distinguished diplomats our nation has recently produced, Ambassador Dan Fried. Fried was on diplomatic duty for 40 years, focusing mainly on Europe. He was ambassador to Poland and pulled into the White House as a special adviser on Central and Eastern Europe to both Bill Clin- ton and George W. Bush. Most populists would probably view Fried as the pin-striped enemy. I came to know him in the Bush administration as a freedom fi ghter, deeply and personally offended by oppression. He had been an enemy — not an opponent, but an enemy—of the Soviet Union, and remains a com- mitted friend to 100 million liberated Europeans. Fried used his retirement remarks to describe “America’s Grand Strat- egy.” For decades, the U.S. has stood for “an open, rules-based world, with a united West at its core.” Despite oc- casional failures and blunders, “the world America made after 1945 and 1989 has enjoyed the longest period of general peace in the West since Ro- man times.” What would happen if America were to leave the global order and pursue its own ethno-national great- ness? This is the proposal that the populists have placed on the table, in which blowing up the TPP is a sign of things to come. “By abandoning our American Grand Strategy,” argued Fried, “we would diminish to being michael gerson just another zero-sum great power.” This would result in a system entirely based on “spheres of infl uence,” which are “admired by those who don’t have to suffer the consequences.” And ac- cepting spheres of infl uence would “mean our acquiescence when great powers, starting with China and Russia, dominated their neighbors through force and fear.” “Some so-called realists,” said Fried, “might accept such a world as mak- ing the best of a harsh world, but it is not realistic to expect that it would be peaceful or stable. Rather the reverse: A sphere of infl uence system would lead to cycles of rebellion and repres- sion, and, if the past 1,000 years is any guide, lead to war between the great powers, because no power would be satisfi ed with its sphere. They never are.” This is a foreign policy cycle more substantial than the “fourth turning.” The disrupters of international order —the liberal democratic order built and defended by FDR, Truman, Ken- nedy and Reagan—are thoughtless, careless and reckless. And they must be resisted. The founding fathers of the ethno- state are also in violation of the coun- try’s defi ning values. The United States was summoned into existence by the clear bell of unifying aspirations, not by the primal scream of blood and soil. And this great ideal of universal freedom and dignity is not disrupted; it disrupts. (Washington Post Writers Group) Share your opinion Email a letter to the editor (300 words) by noon Tuesday. Email to: publisher@keizertimes.com