OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Dual approach
is needed on
pension reform
W
hen it comes to reforming Oregon’s Public Employees
Retirement System, state leaders need to avoid taking
one step forward and two steps back.
As the Legislature recently sputtered on pension reform, Gov.
Kate Brown appointed a seven-member, public-private task force
to scrutinize ways to make the most of state assets to reduce the
system’s $22 billion pension liability.
Brown gave the task force a goal of reducing the liability by
$5 billion and suggested selling state assets, although not certain
properties, such as prisons and state parks. Sales could include
properties such as “buffer zones” around state prisons or youth
correctional facilities. It’s also possible the state could enter pub-
lic-private partnerships or cut costs in other ways, such as by mov-
ing certain state offices to lower-rent areas.
Those are good steps and should be taken, but many would gen-
erate one-time-only savings and none address the real root of the
PERS problem – the system’s structure and the benefits them-
selves. Public employee unions have vigorously fought any reduc-
tion of benefits and the unions exert heavy political clout. Brown
and other lawmakers acknowledged near the end of the legisla-
tive session that any structural or benefit reform would have to be
tackled at the next full session in 2019, thereby kicking the can
down the road once again. In this past session, a bill that would
have required a 1 percent salary contribution toward PERS died in
committee.
A multipronged approach is the right course to take. Legislators,
for their part, can only make changes to the system going forward.
The task force, though, isn’t addressing the benefits issue. Its mis-
sion is finding ways the state can pay down a chunk of what it
expects to owe. It’s also looking at whether dedicating specific rev-
enue streams to help reduce the obligation makes sense.
In its first meeting Monday, the task force agreed to focus its
work — expected to culminate in a report due to the governor by
Nov. 1 — on big-ticket items that can get to the $5 billion figure.
Meanwhile, the board overseeing PERS is scheduled to
vote Friday on whether to downgrade assumptions about how
much return the system will get on its investments. Changing
the assumptions about returns on the investments could greatly
increase the pension’s unfunded liability, which would mean state
agencies and school districts would have to put even more money
into the system in the coming years.
The governor and lawmakers need to be advocates for other
system changes to reduce the financial threat the liability poses
to the state’s future well-being. Until those issues are addressed,
the liability will continue to grow, public employers will have to
increase the amount they pay into PERS for employee benefits and
the task force’s work will provide only short-term help.
No new drama needed
at the Port of Astoria
A
lthough Port Commissioner Robert Mushen’s resignation
from his post for health reasons this week wasn’t surpris-
ing, we hope the selection process for his replacement
doesn’t generate new drama within the five-member board.
Mushen served as president of the Port Commission during
the past year when meetings grew more heated and adversarial
with infighting and innuendo. During an April meeting, Mushen
suffered a spike in his blood pressure and had to be rushed to
Columbia Memorial Hospital. During the recovery period that fol-
lowed, Mushen’s doctors advised him to resign, he said.
In May, voters re-elected Commissioner James Campbell along
with newcomers Dirk Rohne and Frank Spence to join Mushen
and Bill Hunsinger on the Port board. At the time, Rohne said he
hoped the election results would lead to a new era of “boring but
productive” meetings for the commission, and earlier this month
the board elected new officers with Spence becoming president.
After Mushen’s announcement during Tuesday’s meeting, he
left the room to standing applause. Campbell said Mushen has
been an asset to the community and served well, while Spence
said Mushen’s calm, rational demeanor will be missed.
The appointment process now begins, and Spence said any
registered voter in Clatsop County can apply by sending a letter
of interest and resume to him at 1 Pier St., Suite 308, in Astoria.
Applications are due by noon Aug. 9, with interviews taking place
later in the month. The full board will make the final decision and
the person selected will fill Mushen’s remaining term, which runs
until mid-2019.
We hope the opening draws a solid pool of applicants who are
interested in moving the Port forward, those who put the team
ahead of their own interests. The Port is poised for progress, and
the commission needs to ensure that the appointment is another
step in that direction.
The Trump tower of absolute folly
By ROSS DOUTHAT
New York Times News Service
D
onald Trump’s campaign
against his attorney general,
Jeff Sessions, in which he
is seemingly attempting to insult
and humiliate
and tweet-shame
Sessions into
resignation,
is an insanely
stupid exercise.
It is a multitiered
tower of political
idiocy, a sublime monument to
the moronic, a gaudy, gleaming,
Ozymandian folly that leaves many
of the president’s prior efforts in its
shade.
Let us walk through the levels
of stupidity one by one. First there
is the policy level — generally
the lowest, least important in
Trumpworld, but still worth
exploring.
To the extent that any figure
in the Trump administration both
embodies “Trumpism” and seems
capable of executing its policy
ambitions, it is Sessions, who is
using his office to strictly enforce
immigration laws and pursue an
old-school law-and-order agenda.
You may hate his agenda (as
most liberals do) or dislike parts
of it (as I do), but it is clearly the
agenda that Trump ran on, and the
attorney general’s office is one of
the few places where it is being
effectively pursued. So cashiering
Sessions would be a remarkable
statement (though hardly the first)
that the president cares almost noth-
ing for his own alleged platform and
governing philosophy.
Next in our tower of folly is the
institutional level. Trump has had
difficulty staffing his administration,
his secretary of state is muttering
about leaving, and his White House
is riven by factionalism and para-
noia. Meanwhile, he is both under
investigation by Senate Republicans
and dependent on their good will to
keep the investigations contained to
just the Russia business.
Trying to defenestrate Sessions,
the lone Republican senator
in Trump’s corner during the
primary campaign and a popular
figure among his former Senate
colleagues, will make things worse
for the president on both fronts. It
demonstrates a level of disloyalty
that should send sane people
running from Trump’s service, it
tells other Cabinet members to get
out while the getting’s good (and to
leak and undermine like crazy on
their way), and it further alienates
Republican senators whom Trump
needs to confirm appointees (includ-
ing any Sessions replacement) and
to go easy on his scandals.
Next on our tour is the level of
mass politics, where Trump’s war
on Sessions is one of the few things
short of a recession that could hurt
him with his base — which he
needs to hold, since he isn’t doing
anything to persuade anyone outside
it.
Of course many Trump support-
ers will side with him no matter
what and lots don’t care about
Sessions one way or another. But
the Trumpian core also includes
conservatives who like Sessions
for ideological reasons, who trust
Trump in part because Sessions
vouched for him, and who don’t
like or trust very many other people
(the family, the New Yorkers, the
ex-Democrats) in Trump’s inner
circle. Which is why Trump’s cam-
paign against Sessions has already
brought him negative coverage from
Breitbart, Tucker Carlson and var-
ious pro-Trump or anti-anti-Trump
pundits — making it an extraor-
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Attorney General Jeff Sessions leaves the White House Wednesday.
dinary act of political malpractice
from a White House that lacks a
cushion for such follies.
Next there is the legal level.
By his own admission, Trump’s
beef with Sessions centers on the
attorney general’s recusal from the
Russia investigation, which from
Trump’s perspective led to the
appointment of a special counsel he
now obviously yearns to fire.
Trump’s
war on
Sessions is
one of the few
things short
of a recession
that could hurt
him with his
base — which
he needs to
hold, since
he isn’t doing
anything to
persuade
anyone
outside it.
This blame-Sessions perspective
is warped, since it was Trump’s
decision to fire James Comey (an
earlier monumental folly) that was
actually decisive in putting Robert
Mueller on the case. But regardless
of whether he has his facts straight,
Trump’s logic is a straightforward
admission that he wants to eject his
attorney general because Sessions
has not adequately protected him
from legal scrutiny — an argument
that at once reveals Trump’s usual
contempt for laws and norms and
also suggests (not for the first time)
that he has something so substantial
to hide that only omerta-style loy-
alty will do.
Which, of course — now we’ve
reached the peak of the tower of
folly — he probably will not get if
Sessions goes, because no hatchet
man will win easy confirmation,
and until Sessions is replaced the
acting attorney general will be Rod
Rosenstein, the man who appointed
Robert Mueller as special counsel in
the first place!
So it’s basically madness all the
way to the top: bad policy, bad strat-
egy, bad politics, bad legal maneu-
vering, bad optics, a self-defeating
venture carried out via deranged-as-
usual tweets and public insults.
And if it were any other pres-
ident behaving like this — well,
rather than repeat arguments I’ve
made before, I’ll quote Bloomberg
View’s Megan McArdle, writing
a few months ago in response to
my admittedly extreme suggestion
that Trump’s behavior might
justify removal under the 25th
Amendment:
Imagine, if you will, that George
W. Bush had started acting like
Donald Trump partway into his sec-
ond term …. Is there any question
that people would be talking about
invoking the 25th Amendment
to remove him? Not for political
reasons, but because it would be
obvious that some tragic mental
impairment had befallen the com-
mander in chief.
Adults of mature years know
not to engage in histrionic self-pity
in public, not necessarily because
they avoid self-pity but because,
outside of high school parties, this
is a singularly ineffective way to
make people like and support you.
Competent leaders do not preside
over staff who are leaking what is
essentially one long and anguished
primal scream to any reporter they
can get to hold still. Seasoned
professionals do not, suddenly and
for no apparent reason, say things in
public that make them better targets
for legal investigations …
And so the only possible expla-
nation for such a quick succession
of stunning lapses in judgment
would be a severe stroke, an aggres-
sive brain tumor or some other neu-
rological disaster that had rendered
him unfit to continue in office, at
least until it could be treated. I don’t
even think this would be contro-
versial, even among his supporters.
“Poor fellow,” they’d murmur, “the
strain of the office has destroyed his
health. He has given more than his
life for his country.” Time to let
him rest and heal while someone
else shoulders his Sisyphean
burdens.
Trump hasn’t had a stroke or
suffered a neurological disaster, and
his behavior in the White House
is no different from the behavior
he manifested consistently while
winning enough votes to take the
presidency.
But he is nonetheless clearly
impaired, gravely deficient some-
where at the intersection of reason
and judgment and conscience and
self-control. Pointing this out is
wearying and repetitive, but still it
must be pointed out.
You can be as loyal as Jeff
Sessions and still suffer the conse-
quences of that plain and inescap-
able truth: This president should not
be the president, and the sooner he
is not, the better.