OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Solid cooperation led to
important legislation
W
hile Republican U.S. senators and representatives
returned home forlorn last week for the long August
congressional recess after failure to repeal or replace
Obamacare, our region’s congressional delegation chalked up a big
bipartisan win for fishermen. And despite a pervading air of dys-
function in Congress, there is solid cooperation between the parties
in support of several other important legislative proposals aimed
at issues, ranging from improving rural cellphone service to curing
the widespread national shortage of affordable housing.
Tri-state
Lower Columbia River communities are thankful for bipartisan
work led by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, to make
the tri-state agreement a permanent fixture of West Coast fisher-
ies management. U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, Jeff Merkley,
D-Oregon, Patty Murray, D-Washington, Lisa Murkowski,
R-Alaska, and Dianne Feinstein, D-California, co-sponsored the
bill. U.S. Reps. Jamie Herrera-Beutler, R-Washington, and Derek
Kilmer, D-Washington, carried the legislation in the House.
The tri-state agreement is one of the most important West
Coast fishery laws, but one that relatively few know about, even
here where it underpins a crucial part of our economy. Working
together since 1998 under auspices of federal law, the crabbers and
managers of Oregon, Washington state and California have created
a “sustainable, science-based fishery management program that
keeps fishermen fishing and crab stocks thriving,” in the words of
Cantwell’s office. This isn’t mere political puffery — in an indus-
try that has little use for regulators, the collaborative model gives
knowledgeable crabbers a direct role in ensuring the future of the
crab resource and the thousands of rural jobs tied to it.
Making the agreement permanent will remove a lingering doubt
about the federal government’s commitment to locally based gov-
ernance of crab harvests and conservation. It will permit a more
concentrated focus on the many other issues facing the fishery —
everything from the acidifying ocean to competition with other
industries for offshore areas.
Outdoor recreation
In late July, Wyden cosponsored with a Republican col-
league federal legislation aimed at cutting red tape that impedes
public use of recreational lands. As reported by Oregon Public
Broadcasting, Wyden’s initiative envisions a number of common
sense — and probably popular — steps like requiring agencies
to sell passes and permits online, and work with states to create
passes that cover both state and federal recreation areas.
Though mostly directed at the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau
of Land Management, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would
be required to include recreational activities in its planning. In our
region, Army Corps assets like jetties already play an important
but largely unacknowledged role in recreation.
Especially elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, where logging
restrictions have decimated economies, making outdoor recreation
easier is a laudable goal.
Rural Wireless Act
Yet another bipartisan congressional act was endorsed last month
by Wyden and others. It would help build out cell service and wire-
less internet coverage throughout rural Oregon and other states.
The Rural Wireless Act of 2017 recognized that cell service is
essential 21st century infrastructure that is necessary for safety and
economic development.
“Wireless coverage is essential for law enforcement and health
care providers to respond quickly to life-and-death situations and
for precision agriculture as well as small mom-and-pop busi-
nesses to communicate with their customers in the global econ-
omy,” Wyden said in a press release. “Simply put, the reliability of
wireless coverage data maps must be improved for the safety and
well-being of rural Oregonians.”
We all should join in supporting this sensible legislation. It’s
encouraging to see the parties working together on it.
Affordable housing
Cantwell is leading legislation, the Affordable Housing Credit
Improvement Act, to expand the successful Low-Income Housing
Tax Credit and make important fixes to the program.
A shortage of supply and rising demand are pushing rents
beyond affordable levels for many Americans, including here
around the mouth of the Columbia River.
Under Cantwell’s proposal, cosponsored by Finance Committee
Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, ranking member Wyden and
16 others, the expanded tax credit would help create or preserve
about 1.3 million affordable homes over a 10-year period — an
increase of 400,000 more units than is possible under the current
program. According to the National Association of Home Builders,
the Cantwell-Hatch proposal would create an additional 452,000
jobs over the next 10 years supporting the construction of addi-
tional units.
All these initiatives show how much might be achieved
when the parties in Congress work together whenever they can.
Repairing Obamacare in mutually agreeable ways should be
among their highest priorities.
Obamacare rage in retrospect
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
I
guess it ain’t over until the
portly golfer sings, but it does
look as if Obamacare will
survive. In the end,
Mitch McConnell
couldn’t find the
votes he needed;
many thanks are
due to U.S. Sens.
Susan Collins,
Lisa Murkowski
and John McCain (who turns out
to be a better man than I thought),
not to mention the solid wall of
Democrats standing up for what’s
right. Meanwhile, all indications
are that the insurance markets are
stabilizing, with insurer profitability
up and only around 0.1 percent of
enrollees unserved.
It’s true that the tweeter-in-
chief retains considerable ability
to sabotage care, but Republicans
are basically begging him to stop,
believing — correctly — that the
public will blame them for any
future deterioration in coverage.
Why did Obamacare survive?
The shocking answer: It’s still here
because it does so much good. Tens
of millions have health coverage —
imperfect, but far better than none
at all — thanks to the Affordable
Care Act. Millions more rest easier
knowing that coverage will still be
available if something goes wrong
— if, for example, they lose their
employer-sponsored plan or develop
a chronic condition.
Which raises a big question:
Why did the prospect of health
reform produce so much popular
rage in 2009 and 2010?
I’m not talking about the rage of
Republican apparatchiks, who hated
and feared the ACA, not because
they thought it would fail, but
because they were afraid it would
work. (It has.) Nor am I talking
about the rage of some wealthy
people furious that their taxes were
going up to pay for lesser mortals’
care.
No, I’m talking about the people
who screamed at their congressional
representatives in town halls. People
like, for example, the man who
pushed his wheelchair-bound son,
who was suffering from cerebral
palsy, in front of a congressman,
yelling that President Barack
Obama’s health care plan would
provide the boy with “no care
whatsoever” and would be a “death
sentence.”
The reality, of course, is that
people with pre-existing medical
conditions are among the ACA’s
biggest beneficiaries, and would
have had the most to lose if conser-
vative Republicans had managed to
repeal the law. And this should have
been obvious from the beginning.
Beyond that, it’s now clear (as
should also have been clear from
the beginning) that very few people
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is surrounded by reporters as she
arrives on Capitol Hill in July before a test vote on the Republican
health care bill. Collins was one of three Republican senators to vote
against the GOP health bill.
other than wealthy taxpayers were
hurt by health reform, which was
designed to disrupt existing health
arrangements as little as possible.
Yes, around 2.6 million people
who had individual policies with
high deductibles and/or limited
coverage were told that their
policies were too skimpy to meet
ACA requirements. But they were
offered the chance to buy better pol-
icies, and many of them probably
received subsidies that made these
better policies cheaper than their
original coverage. Meanwhile, some
young, healthy, affluent people saw
their premiums rise. But predictions
of mass harm were completely
wrong.
Whenever I
see someone
castigating
liberals for
engaging
in identity
politics, I
wonder what
such people
imagine the
right has
been doing all
these years.
Or if you regard statistical evi-
dence as “fake news,” consider what
happens every time Republicans
call on the public to come forward
with horror stories about how
they’ve been hurt by Obamacare:
The result keeps being an outpour-
ing of support for the law, bolstered
by tales of lives and finances saved
by the ACA.
So once again: What was
Obamacare rage about?
Much of it was orchestrated
by pressure groups like Freedom
Works, and it’s a good guess that
some of the “ordinary citizens” who
appeared at town halls were actually
right-wing activists. Still, there was
plenty of genuine popular rage,
stoked by misinformation and out-
right lies from the usual suspects:
Fox News, talk radio and so on.
For example, around 40 percent of
the public believed that Obamacare
would create “death panels” depriv-
ing senior citizens of care.
The question then becomes why
so many people believed these lies.
The answer, I believe, comes down
to a combination of identity politics
and affinity fraud.
Whenever I see someone
castigating liberals for engaging
in identity politics, I wonder what
such people imagine the right has
been doing all these years. For
generations, conservatives have
conditioned many Americans to
believe that safety-net programs are
all about taking things away from
white people and giving stuff to
minorities.
And those who stoked
Obamacare rage were believed
because they seemed to some
Americans like their kind of people
— that is, white people defending
them against you-know-who.
So what’s the moral of this
story? There’s bad news and good
news.
It’s certainly not encouraging to
realize how easily many Americans
were duped by right-wing lies,
pushed into screaming rage against
a reform that would actually
improve their lives.
On the other hand, the truth did
eventually prevail, and Republicans’
inability to handle that truth is turn-
ing into a real political liability. And
in the meantime, Obamacare has
made America a better place.
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.