PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, MAY 26, 2017
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Fun at festival, work at Capitol
Maybe you saw Rosie the RV ennium (over $200 million) and as
in the Iris Festival parade on Satur- you may have heard, it looks like the
day, May 20. My crew of kids and kicker will actually kick this year.
I had a great time seeing everyone We can balance our budget while
and we even won an award. I always still adequately funding education
and other core services.
love participating in these
By keeping state agency
kinds of events and am so
budgets at their current
grateful to all the volunteers
levels we don’t have to
who work so hard to make
cut, we just don’t raise.
this festival possible. I want
In general, public per-
to give a special shout out
ception is that the two
to Danielle Bethell, execu-
parties are constantly
tive director of the Keizer
fi ghting each other. In
Chamber of Commerce
reality, right now, the
for her tireless work. This
fi ghting in this session
is what makes Keizer my
home town —volunteerism. from the isn’t between the differ-
While it was fun to see
capitol ent parties, it is between
everyone, now it’s back to Rep. BILL POST the leaders of the two
chambers. The way the
work at the Capitol. Discus-
system works is that a
sions continue around the
state budget as well as transportation bill originates in the House, goes
funding. The tone and feeling of the through a committee, gets voted
conversations have shifted, howev- on by the House and then moves
er. Since Secretary of State Dennis over to the Senate, where the pro-
Richardson released information cess is repeated and then the bill
from an audit regarding the Oregon goes to the governor to be signed.
Health Authority. Apparently, thou- The system is the same in the Sen-
sands of people are receiving Med- ate. At this point in the session, here
icaid payments who are not eligible. in the House we have mostly passed
Perhaps to the tune of $36 million a all the House bills we’re going to,
month. This is a massive number and and are moving on to voting on the
right now it is an estimate, but even bills coming over from the Senate.
if it’s half that much, this is grossly In fact, we have nearly 30 pages
inept on the part of the agency. It of Senate bills waiting to be voted
also makes it hard to advocate for on in the House and, interestingly
raising revenue if what we already enough, we’re not moving very
have is being mismanaged this badly. many of those Senate bills. It is a
You may have heard people talk- log jam created by the two chamber
ing about a budget “shortfall.” There leaders. That’s the “inside baseball”
is no shortfall. The “shortfall” is the of the Oregon Legislature. Eventu-
difference between what state gov- ally, it’ll all work out and we’ll pass
ernment wants to spend and what budgets and get out of here later in
state government should spend. early summer.
( Bill Post represents House Dis-
That’s the shortfall. We have had
record revenue pouring in over the trict 25. He can be reached at 503-
past few years. We have even more 986-1425 or via email at rep.bill-
unexpected revenue this next bi- post@state.or.us.)
Push negative
news below
the fold
bank robbers, wouldn’t it
be more prudent to place
them at least below the
fold? It’s not like the paper
would be trying to cover
up the story, but the paper
should do its best to put
the positive things about
this town front and center. There
is plenty of positive things to print
about, with its low crime rates and
small town atmosphere, let’s not put a
spotlight where it doesn’t need to be.
Kim Free
Keizer
letters
To the Editor:
My family recently
moved to Keizer and have
really enjoyed settling into our friend-
ly neighborhood. I was impressed with
how many nice things the city has to
offer and have been getting to know
its parks and local businesses better.
I like to read the Keizertimes and
I think it does a pretty good job at
representing this town and the vari-
ous communities within it. I was dis-
appointed to see that the Keizertimes
seems to have a habit of placing very
negative stories front and center at
the top of the front page. No matter
the case, be it attempted murder or
Share your opinion
Email a letter to the editor (300
words) by noon Tuesday.
Email to:
publisher@keizertimes.com
Insurance is a shared experience
By DON VOWELL
Iowa Congressman Rod Blum
has made himself famous by ask-
ing at a town hall meeting “Why
should a 62-year-old man have to
buy insurance for mater-
nity leave?”
Then there’s former
Rep. Joe Walsh—“Sorry
Jimmy Kimmel. Your sad
story doesn’t obligate me
or anybody else to pay
for somebody else’s health
care.” If that’s not abrasive
enough, he continued,
“My money was earned by
me and should be kept by my fam-
ily and I (sic). It’s not compassion
to forcibly take the money I make
and give it to someone else.” No
wonder health care is so hard.
Barbara Rank attended Con-
gressman Blum’s town hall meeting
and wrote a short response that I
doubt he understood. “Why should
I pay for a bridge I don’t cross, a
sidewalk I don’t walk on, a library
book I don’t read? Why should I
pay for a fl ower I won’t smell, a park
I don’t visit, or art I can’t appreci-
ate? Why should I pay the salaries
of politicians I didn’t vote for, a tax
cut that doesn’t affect me, or a loop-
hole I can’t take advantage of?” She
answered by noting that we all con-
tribute for the greater good, a civil
society. Generations before ours
knew it.
By defi nition insurance means
that someone else pays for your
losses. If Congress-
man Blum’s house
burns down and we
share the same in-
surance company I’ll
be helping to pay
for the rebuilding of
his home. For the
forty years or so I
had steady employ-
ment I paid health
insurance premiums without com-
plaint, mostly grateful that our good
health didn’t require us to use it. If
Congressman Blum is involved in
an auto accident I bet he’ll accept
the pooled resources of his fellow
insurance payers to replace his car.
If he is faced with the responsibil-
ity of paying for the other driver’s
catastrophic injuries he’ll be glad for
our help.
It is human nature to want to pay
only for things that benefi t you di-
rectly. Mr. Walsh says it is not com-
passion to forcibly take the money
he makes to pay for others’ health
care. Most of us can see that con-
tributing to the greater good of a
civil society benefi ts all of us di-
a box
of
soap
Keizertimes
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(Don Vowell lives in Keizer. He
gets on his soapbox regularly in the
Keizertimes.)
President Trump in Saudia Arabia
By GENE H. McINTYRE
After 150 days on the job, Presi-
dent Donald Trump fi nally, with-
out tweets or mendacities, pre-
sented himself in presidential form.
Ironically, this demonstration af-
forded him a measure of respect and
dignity—not provided at
home yet—in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia, where the president
spoke before a gathering
of leaders from 50 Islam-
dominant nations, citizens
of several he wants to keep
from entering the U.S.
Mainly he wants these
Muslim leaders to drive out and oth-
erwise eradicate those who organize
to make terrorism their way of life.
Thereby, Trump argued, to make
the entire world a more safe, peace-
ful and prosperous place. That’s great
and surely is wanted by the average
human on our planet, but it does not
address the most important problem
to those Arabs and others in Muslim
nations not able to have a hand what-
soever in deciding their own fate.
Take, for example, among the
Arab nations and Trump’s host, Saudi
Arabia. The unrest there and efforts
to overthrow the Kingdom of Sau-
di Arabia come from many sources
of long-time, extreme discontent.
In brief explanation, as readers may
already know, there are two ma-
jor branches of Islam in the world,
the Sunni and Shia, that had their
origin some 14 centuries ago over
whom, among his followers, would
be Mohammed’s successor.
In Saudi Arabia and other majority
Sunni nations, the Shia are repressed
and forced, at best, into second-class
citizenship. As an ARAMCO em-
ployee in Saudi Arabia for six years,
I witnessed the fact that no Shiite
could hold a company position of au-
thority and really were not trusted at
all. Then there is the royal family of
Saudi Arabia that, hand-in-hand with
the Sunni Muslim religious leaders
there, decides and enforces all the
laws, mainly of religious interpreta-
tion. Saudi women are also second
class citizens and quite controlled by
the men folk. Then there’s the U.S.
military’s presence along with all its
infi dels.
The above problems have caused
an explosion of discontent among the
Saudi population that has organized
for years to overthrow
the monarchy, more so
since the Americans
arrived during the
“Cold War” to “pro-
tect” Saudi Arabia from
the U.S.S.R. and make
sure its oil went to the
U.S. These Saudis are
not only angry with the Saudi king
and royal family for their debauchery
but are angry with Americans who
they view as having defi led their holy
land. Osama bin Laden was a Saudi as
were many of his followers and per-
petrators of 9/11. Many nowadays
serve in the ranks of ISIS, having for-
merly serving in al-Qaeda.
There continue to be a consider-
able number of Saudis who are un-
happy and want signifi cant change
that would bring a new Saudi Arabia
without a monarchy, with Sharia law,
and the total expulsion of anything
American. The greatest currently an-
ticipated problem was the Trump an-
guest
column
EDITOR & PUBLISHER
rectly. The money that Mr. Walsh
hopes to keep for his family and his
own benefi t was earned in a coun-
try compassionate enough to make
it possible. However, to earn that
money he was aided by infrastruc-
ture.
Everybody shares. It is easy to see
how stupid it is to imagine you are
self-suffi cient. Could you drive only
on roads you personally built? Call
only on a cell network that you had
placed around the country? Could
you survive on food you are able
to grow? Drink only water you
plumbed in free of contaminants?
Could you save your burning home
with your garden hose? Who would
you Google if you couldn’t Google
Google? Everybody shares.
We drive cautiously and pay at-
tention to possible hazards in our
Keizer home. We also support the
Keizer Police Department, the Keiz-
er Fire District and city hall in spirit
and in taxes paid, seeing their value
while hoping that we’ll never need
their intervention. If we make sure
the families entering our schools are
healthy, safe, and secure its taxes well
spent, even compassionately spent.
It’s why we like living here.
twitter.com/keizertimes
nouncement during his visit to Saudi
Arabia that the U.S. will sell that na-
tion billions of dollars in armaments.
And those armaments will be used
mainly to crush internal Saudi revo-
lutionaries and destroy, where possi-
ble, Shia-dominated Islamic nations.
Hence, what’s been going on in
Saudi Arabia and against its oppo-
nents—due to the centuries ongoing
Sunni-Shia confl ict—will predict-
ably continue and promises, with
more arms pumped into the Middle
East, to get worse, much worse.
There will be no peace in the
Middle East and the revolutionaries
will continue in ISIS form, or some-
thing just like it, into any foreseeable
future: the U.S. once again only hav-
ing served, by taking sides and giving
guns, to make continuing war and its
deathly consequences to continue
no matter how devastatingly the U.S.
treasury is drained and the evermore
loss of American lives.
The best predictor of the future is
the past, true now and always has been
true. And this new deal between the
U.S. administration and Saudi Ara-
bia simply spells more very serious
trouble and perpetual problems for
almost everyone, everywhere.
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)