OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
OUR VIEW
Control costs
before adding
new spending
T
his seems like a no-brainer: The state Legislature should
examine the worth of current programs before starting new
ones.
That’s an idea put forth last week by several legislators.
Don’t public offi cials do that already? No, at least not always.
And that reality shows why the Legislature has failed to curb its
spending, regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans
were in control.
The 21st century opened with Republican Senate President
Gene Derfl er sounding the alarm about out-of-control Public
Employees Retirement System costs and unsustainable state bud-
gets. Those issues still confound legislators today.
So it was with a bit of hope that fi ve veteran legislators — three
Democrats and two Republicans — on Friday unveiled a long list
of ways to control future spending. They included something that,
to most Oregonians, should be routine: “Review performance and
need for current programs and services to determine whether new
proposals are a higher priority than current programs and services.”
That responsibility lies with the executive branch — the
G overnor’s O ffi ce, which runs the majority of state agencies — as
much as with the legislative branch, which writes the state budget.
It was disappointing that Gov. Kate Brown initiated a fi rm hiring
freeze only last week, although the magnitude of the state budget
hole had been known for months. A governor is the CEO of state
government, and that role requires as much fi scal discipline and
diligence as in any other corporate entity. It requires leadership.
However, as Gov. Ted Kulongoski once said, there is little polit-
ical glory to be gained
from the behind-the-
scenes, nuts-and-bolts
The Legislature,
work of streamlining
after all, is a
government, and Brown
seems uninterested.
political entity.
That is why legislative
But it also is the
leaders on Friday had high
praise for the cost-con-
state’s board of
tainment concepts from
directors. It has
state Sen. Richard Devlin,
D-Tualatin; Sen. Betsy
the fi duciary
Johnson, D-Scappoose;
responsibility to
Sen. Jackie Winters,
institutionalize
R-Salem; Rep. Nancy
Nathanson, D-Eugene;
the ongoing
and Rep. Greg Smith,
cost-benefi t
R-Heppner.
Legislative leaders, let
analyses
alone public-employee
of existing
unions and outside inter-
est groups, did not seem
agencies,
keen on some of the
programs —
ideas. However, Senate
and yes, laws
President Peter Courtney
and House Speaker Tina
— as well as
Kotek deserve credit for
proposed ones.
appointing the cost-con-
tainment group and taking
its ideas seriously.
As Sen. Johnson said in presenting several recommendations,
“These should be considered a starting point for discussion and
subject to further refi nement, analysis and negotiation.”
The Legislature, after all, is a political entity. But it also is
the state’s board of directors. It has the fi duciary responsibility
to institutionalize the ongoing cost-benefi t analyses of existing
agencies, programs — and yes, laws — as well as proposed
ones.
As Rep. Smith noted, the state budget has grown substantially
during the past six years, and will be even larger during 2017-19.
That growth rate not only may be unsustainable but, ironically,
it is insuffi cient to maintain existing programs. Thus, “unspend-
ing” should be as important as spending.
As part of that, the Legislature should reach out more to the
state workforce — the front-line workers who see what works
and doesn’t work — and seek their ideas for refi ning government.
Furthermore, the Legislature should fi nd more self-discipline.
When issues arise, the Legislature should undertake a root-cause
analysis of what went wrong, instead of assuming that a poten-
tially expensive new law, task force or program is the answer.
In fact, the Legislature could make itself a test case: Refocus
its priorities to make government more cost-effective, and
accomplish that work without adding staff.
After all, as the late Gov. Vic Atiyeh was fond of saying, it’s
amazing how much can be accomplished when you don’t worry
about who gets the credit.
With North Korea, we
do have cards to play
By CHARLES
KRAUTHAMMER
Washington Post Writers Group
W
ASHINGTON — The
crisis with North Korea
may appear trumped up.
It’s not.
Given that
Pyongyang has had
nuclear weapons
and ballistic mis-
siles for more than
a decade, why the
panic now? Because North Korea is
headed for a nuclear breakout. The
regime has openly declared that it is
racing to develop an intercontinental
ballistic missile that can reach the
United States — and thus destroy
an American city at a Kim Jong Un
push of a button.
The North Koreans are not
bluffi ng. They’ve made signifi -
cant progress with solid-fuel rock-
ets, which are more quickly deploy-
able and thus more easily hidden
and less subject to detection and
pre-emption.
At the same time, Pyongyang
has been steadily adding to its sup-
ply of nuclear weapons. Today it
has an estimated 10 to 16. By 2020,
it could very well have a hundred.
(For context: the British are thought
to have about 200.)
Hence the crisis. We simply can-
not concede to Kim Jong Un the
capacity to annihilate American
cities.
Some will argue for deterrence.
If it held off the Russians and the
Chinese for all these years, why not
the North Koreans? First, because
deterrence, even with a rational
adversary like the old Soviet Union,
is never a sure thing. We came
pretty close to nuclear war in Octo-
ber 1962.
And second, because North
Korea’s regime is bizarre in the
extreme, a hermit kingdom run by
a weird, utterly ruthless and highly
erratic god-king. You can’t count
on Caligula. The regime is savage
and cult-like; its people, robotic.
Karen Elliott House once noted that
while Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was
a prison, North Korea was an ant
colony.
Ant colonies do not have good
checks and balances.
If not deterrence, then preven-
tion. But how? The best hope is for
China to exercise its infl uence and
induce North Korea to give up its
programs.
For years, the Chinese made
gestures, but never did anything
remotely decisive. They have their
reasons. It’s not just that they fear
a massive infl ux of refugees if
the Kim regime disintegrates. It’s
AP Photo/Wong Maye-E
North Korean soldiers sit at the back of trucks as they are driven
through Mirae Scientists Street in Pyongyang, North Korea.
also that Pyongyang is a perpetual
thorn in the side of the Americans,
whereas regime collapse brings
South Korea (and thus America)
right up to the Yalu River.
So why would the Chinese do
our bidding now?
For a variety of reasons.
Our objective
should be clear.
At a minimum,
a testing
freeze. At the
maximum,
regime change.
• They don’t mind tension but
they don’t want war. And the risk
of war is rising. They know that the
ICBM threat is totally unacceptable
to the Americans. And that the cur-
rent administration appears partic-
ularly committed to enforcing this
undeclared red line.
• Chinese interests are being sig-
nifi cantly damaged by the erection
of regional missile defenses to coun-
teract North Korea’s nukes. South
Korea is racing to install a THAAD
anti-missile system. Japan may fol-
low. THAAD’s mission is to track
and shoot down incoming rockets
from North Korea but, like any mis-
sile shield, it necessarily reduces the
power and penetration of the Chi-
nese nuclear arsenal.
• For China to do nothing risks
the return of the American tactical
nukes in South Korea, withdrawn
in 1991.
• If the crisis deepens, the pos-
sibility arises of South Korea and,
most importantly, Japan going
nuclear themselves. The latter is the
ultimate Chinese nightmare.
These are major cards Amer-
ica can play. Our objective should
be clear. At a minimum, a testing
freeze. At the maximum, regime
change.
Because Beijing has such a
strong interest in the current regime,
we could sweeten the latter offer by
abjuring Korean reunifi cation. This
would not be Germany, where the
communist state was absorbed into
the West. We would accept an inde-
pendent, but Finlandized, North.
During the Cold War, Finland
was, by agreement, independent but
always pro-Russian in foreign pol-
icy. Here we would guarantee that
a new North Korea would be inde-
pendent but always oriented toward
China. For example, the new regime
would forswear ever joining any
hostile alliance.
There are deals to be made.
They may have to be underpinned
by demonstrations of American
resolve. A pre-emptive attack on
North Korea’s nuclear facilities and
missile sites would be too danger-
ous, as it would almost surely pre-
cipitate an invasion of South Korea
with untold millions of casualties.
We might, however, try to shoot
down a North Korean missile in
mid-fl ight to demonstrate both our
capacity to defend ourselves and
the futility of a North Korean mis-
sile force that can be neutralized
technologically.
The Korea crisis is real and
growing. But we are not helpless.
We have choices. We have assets.
It’s time to deploy them.
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