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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 28, 2017)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 2017 Founded in 1873 DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager Water under the bridge Compiled by Bob Duke From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers GOP rejects conservatism By DAVID BROOKS New York Times News Service A The Daily Astorian/File Oregon Department of Transportation Maintenance Specialist Mike Atwood sucks up fish heads, tails and guts with a vacuum truck af- ter a trailer overturned while eastbound at the Astoria roundabout. 10 years ago this week — 2007 A truck driver for Ocean Protein LLC, in Hoquiam, Washington, learned the hard way Wednesday that speed and fish parts don’t mix. Oregon State Police said Peter Thomsen was driving his big rig too fast when he entered the Astoria roundabout at 10 a.m. When he put on the brakes, the rig struck the curb and the trailer flipped onto its side, spilling the fish waste he had picked up at Point Adams in War- renton all over the highway and the shoulder and creating a major traffic jam. Thomsen, 55, of Aberdeen, Washington, was immediately cited for care- less driving. But the nightmare for local motorists traveling between War- renton and Astoria on the New Youngs Bay Bridge had just begun. “Fish parts were all over the road. It tied up traffic pretty good,” said Dean Fuller, district manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation. Liquefied natural gas developer NorthernStar Natural Gas Co.’s request for land use at Bradwood Landing should be denied. That’s the advice county staff will give to the Planning Com- mission when it meets in July for a hearing on the company’s application to build an LNG terminal 20 miles east of Astoria. 50 years ago — 1967 An amendment to Bonneville Power Administration’s contract with Northwest Aluminum company has been prepared and may be ready for Administrator Donald Black’s signature some time this week, BPA officials said Monday. The amendment changes the delivery point for 310,000 kilowatts of power from Guemes Island, Washington, to Warrenton. “This amendment is going through the normal processes of approval and we see no particular problem in accomplishing it,” said Bernard Goldham- mer, power manager for BPA at its Portland headquarters. ILWACO, Wash. — Astoria chamber of commerce members, in a car caravan 49 strong, were given a triple treat Tuesday eve- ning in Ilwaco. The three-way treat included a tour through the new Tele- phone utilities building; being first guests to dine in the newly constructed banquet section of Red’s Cafe; and excerpts from the works of Carl Sandberg and James Thurber, presented by James Cameron of the Gearhart summer theater. A small steel-hulled tugboat owned by the Port of Astoria sank in the West Mooring Basin Monday evening, making an excuse for four teenage boys to stay out later than usual. The four were watching boats in the basin about 8 p.m. when they saw the 20-foot tug going down. They said it was about half under when they first sighted it. Within about 15 minutes the boat was showing only a small portion of its bow. Construction workers placing ramps and piling in the basin didn’t know the boat had sunk until they arrived at work Tuesday morning. Apparently no one called Port officials Monday evening when the boat went down. 75 years ago — 1942 An entirely new and different outdoor sport has developed for Hammond and other towns along the coast in Clatsop County since last Sunday night. The spot where all the hundreds of people go is a mud hole at Delaura Beach. All that is required in way of equipment for this strange new game is a rake, hoe, ax, pitchfork, shovel or what have you. All comers have an intent and somewhat sheepish look on their faces but this soon wears off in the hunt. Shoes are dis- carded, pants or slacks are rolled well up over the knees and the participant is ready for the game. This game also requires the climbing of trees for the more venturesome players because part of the spoil is in the trees. The object of the game is to find shrapnel from the mud- hole and surrounding territory which landed there when a shell was fired from a Japanese submarine. It is reported that pieces have sold for from $3 to $10. One of the small Hitchman boys is reported to have found the butt of one shell for which he was offered $100. SPEN, Colo. — There is a structural flaw in modern capitalism. Tremendous income gains are going to those in the top 20 percent, but prospects are diminishing for those in the middle and working classes. This gigantic trend widens inequality, exacerbates social segmentation, fuels distrust and led to Donald Trump. Conservative intellectuals were slow to understanding the serious- ness of this structural problem, but over the past few years they have begun to grapple with the consequences. Basically, many con- servative intellectuals have come to terms with income redistribution. Conservative income redistri- bution doesn’t look like liberal redistribution. Conservatives tend to like their redistribution done at the local level, and they like to use market-friendly mechanisms, like child tax credits, mobility vouchers and wage subsidies. But the intent is the same: to give those who are struggling more security and opportunity. Conservative redistribution extends to health care. Over the past several years many plans have emerged from the various right-leaning thinking tanks that imagine consumer-driven health care that also has universal or near universal coverage. These plans, from places like the American Enterprise Institute, use tax credits or pre-funded health sav- ings accounts or some other method to give middle- and working-class people coverage, while reducing regulations and improving incen- tives throughout the system. Republican politicians could have picked up one of these plans when they set out to repeal Obamacare. They could have created a better system that did not punish the poor. But there are two crucial differences between the conservative policy johnnies and Republican politicians. First, conservative policy intellectuals tend to have accepted the fact that American society is coming apart and that measures need to be taken to assist the working class. Republican politicians show no awareness of this fact. Second, conservative writers and intellectuals have a vision for how they want American society to be in the 21st century. Republican politicians have a vision of how they want American government to be in the 21st century. Republican politicians believe that government should tax people less. The U.S. Senate bill AP Photo/Susan Walsh President Donald Trump, center, speaks as he meets with Republi- can senators on health care in the East Room of the White House Tuesday. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, left, and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, right, listen. would eliminate the 3.8 percent tax on investment income for those making over $250,000. Republican politicians believe that open-ended entitlements should be cut. The Senate health care plan would throw 15 million people off Medicaid, according to the Congressional Budget Office. (This is the program that covers nearly 40 percent of America’s children.) The current Republican Party has iron, dogmatic rules about the role of government, but no vision about America. Is there a vision of society underlying those choices? Not really. Most political parties define their vision of the role of govern- ment around their vision of the sort of country they would like to cre- ate. The current Republican Party has iron, dogmatic rules about the role of government, but no vision about America. Because Republicans have no governing vision, they can’t really replace the Obama vision with some alternative. They just accept the basic structure of Obamacare and cut it back some. Because Republicans have no governing vision, they can’t argue for their plans. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price came to the Aspen Ideas Festival to make the case for the GOP approach. It’s not that he had bad arguments; he had no arguments, no vision for the sort of health care system these bills would usher in. He filled his time by rising to a level of vapid generality that was utterly detached from the choices in the actual legislation. Because Republicans have no national vision, they seem largely uninterested in the actual effects their legislation would have on the country at large. This Senate bill would be completely unworkable because anybody with half a brain would get insurance only when they got sick. Worse, this bill takes all the dev- astating trends afflicting the middle and working classes — all the instability, all the struggle and pain — and it makes them worse. As the CBO indicated, the Senate plan would throw 22 million people off the insurance rolls. It would send them to private insurance plans that they could not afford to buy. Under the Senate bill, deductibles for poor families would be more than half of their annual income. The plans are so incompetently and cruelly designed that as the CBO put it, “few low-income people would purchase any plan.” This is not a conservative vision of American society. It’s a vision rendered cruel by its obliviousness. I have been trying to think about the underlying mentality that now gov- erns the Republican political class. The best I can do is the atomistic mentality described by Alexis de Tocqueville long ago: “They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands. “Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ances- tors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.” WHERE TO WRITE • U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D): 2338 Rayburn HOB, Washing- ton, D.C., 20515. Phone: 202- 225- 0855. Fax 202-225-9497. District office: 12725 SW Millikan Way, Suite 220, Beaverton, OR 97005. Phone: 503-469-6010. Fax 503-326- 5066. Web: bonamici.house. gov/ • U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313 Hart Senate Office Building, Wash- ington, D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224- 3753. Web: www.merkley.senate.gov • U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D): 221 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510. Phone: 202-224-5244. Web: www.wyden. senate.gov • State Rep. Brad Witt (D): State Capitol, 900 Court Street N.E., H-373, Salem, OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1431. Web: www.leg.state. or.us/witt/ Email: rep.bradwitt@ state.or.us • State Rep. Deborah Boone (D): 900 Court St. N.E., H-481, Salem, OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1432. Email: rep.deborah boone@state. or.us District office: P.O. Box 928, Cannon Beach, OR 97110. Phone: 503-986-1432. Web: www.leg.state. or.us/ boone/ • State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D): State Capitol, 900 Court St. N.E., S-314, Salem, OR 97301. Telephone: 503-986-1716. Email: sen.betsy john- son@state.or.us Web: www.betsy- johnson.com District Office: P.O. Box R, Scappoose, OR 97056. Phone: 503-543-4046. Fax: 503-543-5296. Astoria office phone: 503-338-1280. • Port of Astoria: Executive Director, 10 Pier 1 Suite 308, Asto- ria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-741-3300. Email: admin@portofastoria.com • Clatsop County Board of Com- missioners: c/o County Manager, 800 Exchange St., Suite 410, Astoria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-325-1000.
