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.