OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, Managing Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Prosecutors wield
enormous power and
warrant scrutiny
T
he American Civil Liberties Union’s national campaign
to raise awareness about the importance of elected
district attorneys and entice more candidates to run for
these jobs has excited considerable backlash from incumbents,
including Clatsop County District Attorney Joshua Marquis.
Marquis made several valid points in his guest column
Friday in The Daily Astorian, but underplayed the impor-
tance of county prosecutors in the justice system. Police, juries
and judges all are key at certain procedural points in protect-
ing society from lawbreakers. But prosecutors wield enormous
power in determining who deserves a break, who gets the pro-
verbial book thrown at them, and every shade of justice in
between.
Smart district attorneys deliver appropriately nuanced inter-
ventions for first offenders, increasingly severe and less mer-
ciful penalties for those who repeat their mistakes, and full out
“throw away the key” prosecutions for those who are viewed as
irredeemable. Most of these important decisions are essentially
invisible to the public. But they ripple up and down the chain
of justice, strongly influencing who police choose to arrest, and
who judges and juries see inside courtrooms.
A majority of elected district attorneys and their staffs per-
form acceptably well in an overloaded system that highly
reflects problems faced in their communities. In our area,
although Clatsop and Pacific counties have each experienced
bad prosecutors in recent decades, both now are fortunate to
have dedicated and competent ones in Marquis here and Mark
McClain in South Bend, Washington. Citizens have frustrations
about property crime driven by drug addictions, sentences influ-
enced by jail overcrowding and other criminal-justice issues.
But there is little or no sense in our area that prosecutors are
lazy, overwhelmed, incompetent, biased or corrupt.
The same cannot be said of every county in the nation. The
ACLU is not wrong in asserting there are district attorneys
who, at a minimum, should face vigorous competition in elec-
tions. Democracy benefits when voters have genuine choices on
ballots. This applies to all elective offices. Most county officers
of all types — not just prosecutors — tend not to face serious
opponents. Sometimes, this is a function of pay. An attorney in
private practice can make much more than a district attorney or
a judge, and face far less agonizing day-to-day decisions.
Usually, voters tend to stick with established incumbents
unless there is some compelling reason not to. But we would be
better served if every election was a well-informed referendum
on how well our various levels of government are functioning.
Contested races are key to this goal.
Beyond issues of compe-
tency and honesty, the ACLU’s
campaign is partly premised
We are
on the degree to which some
fortunate
district attorneys intervene in
the political system in sup-
to have
port of or opposition to laws
dedicated
and citizen initiatives. Tough-
and
on-crime ballot measures in
Oregon and elsewhere can
competent
appear appealing to voters, yet
ones in
have a disproportionate impact
on people disadvantaged
Marquis and
because of their ethnicity or
McClain.
other circumstances.
Marquis and other politi-
cally engaged prosecutors are passionate advocates on behalf of
causes like victims’ rights — positions shared by most constitu-
ents, judging by election results. However, it’s unsurprising that
the ACLU, which often defends unpopular causes grounded
in an expansive view of the Bill of Rights, would push back
against prosecutors who wade into political and social matters.
Annoying and yet admirable, the ACLU is a valuable watchdog
on behalf of constitutional liberties for all.
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The economy isn’t broken
AP Photo/Alan Diaz
After years of sluggish growth, typical U.S. household incomes finally topped pre-recession levels in
2016 and reached an all-time high, according to information released by the Census Bureau last week.
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
M
iddle-class wage stag-
nation is the biggest
economic fact driving
American politics.
Over the past
many years, so the
common argument
goes, capitalism
has developed
structural flaws.
Economic gains
are not being shared fairly with the
middle class. Wages have become
decoupled from productivity. Even
when the economy grows, every-
thing goes to the rich.
This account of reality, which
I’ve certainly repeated, explains why
the Democratic Party has moved
from the Bill Clinton neoliberal
center to the Bernie Sanders left. It
explains why the Republicans have
moved from the pro-market Mitt
Romney right to the populist Donald
Trump right.
On both left and right, move-
ments have arisen to fix capitalism’s
supposed structural flaws, either by
radically interfering in the market-
place (Bernie) or by clamping down
on global competition (Trump).
But what if there are no structural
flaws? What if the market is working
more or less as it’s supposed to?
That’s certainly the evidence
from the last two years. Over this
time, the benefits of economic
growth have been shared more
widely.
In 2015, median household
incomes rose 5.2 percent. That
was the fastest surge in percentage
terms since the Census Bureau
began keeping records in the 1960s.
Women living alone saw their
incomes rise 8.7 percent. Median
incomes for Hispanics rose 6.1 per-
cent. Immigrants’ incomes, exclud-
ing naturalized citizens, jumped
more than 10 percent.
The news was especially good
for the poor. The share of overall
income that went to the poorest fifth
increased 3 percent, while the share
that went to the affluent groups did
not change. In that year, the poverty
rate fell 1.2 percentage points, the
steepest decline since 1999.
The numbers for 2016 have just
been released by the Census Bureau,
and the trends are pretty much the
same. Median household income
rose another 3.2 percent, after infla-
tion, to its highest level ever. The
poverty rate fell some more. The
share of national income going to
labor is now rising, while the share
going to capital is falling.
In a well-functioning economy,
workers are rewarded for their pro-
ductivity. As output, jobs and hours
worked rise, so does income. Over
the past two years, that seems to be
exactly what’s happening.
The evidence from the past two
years strongly supports those who
have argued all along that income
has not decoupled from productivity.
A wide range of economists, includ-
ing Martin Feldstein, Stephen Rose,
Edward Lazear, Joao Paulo Pessoa,
John Van Reenen, Richard Anderson
of the St. Louis Fed and a team from
Goldman Sachs, have produced
studies showing wages tracking very
predictably with productivity.
Right now
moderates
are in retreat.
The populist
extremes are
on the march.
But the fact is
they are basing
their economic
and political
agendas on a
story that is
fundamentally
untrue.
If anything, as Neil Irwin of The
Times’ Upshot has noted, wages
are a little higher than you’d expect
from looking at the productivity and
inflation numbers alone.
The problem of the middle-class
squeeze, in short, may not be with
how the fruits of productivity are
distributed, but the fact that there
isn’t much productivity growth at
all. It’s not that a rising tide doesn’t
lift all boats; it’s that the tide is not
rising fast enough.
For those interested, Shawn
Sprague has a good summary of
the data at the Labor Department’s
“Beyond the Numbers.” He shows
conclusively that during this recov-
ery we’ve endured a historically
low labor productivity growth rate
of 1.1 percent. By some estimates if
productivity increases had kept pace
with the mid-20th-century norm, l
median incomes would be $40,000
higher than they are today.
If productivity itself is the
problem, not distribution, radically
different politics is demanded than
we’re seeing today. If productivity
is the problem, we need more dyna-
mism, not less, more openness, not
less, more growth-oriented policies,
not more dirigiste and redistributive
ones.
There are a few things govern-
ment can do to help boost produc-
tivity: Increase market competition
with more antitrust enforcement and
fewer licensing regulations; admit
more skilled immigrants; invest
more in human capital; deregulate
urban land usage back to the 2008
levels; introduce more market incen-
tives into the low productivity sec-
tors, like health care and education;
fund more research into promising
technologies like new energy storage
systems.
Today politics is polarizing to the
populist left and the populist right.
But if productivity is the problem,
what we actually need is a resur-
gence of the moderates. The mod-
erate-left policies of Barack Obama
must have had something to do with
the middle-income gains of the last
two years. Moderate Democrats can
plausibly argue that government
should not be interfering in the
markets, but it should be addressing
the inequalities that are the result of
deeper social forces. There is still a
yawning gap dividing the median
Asian-American household, which
makes $81,000 a year; the median
white household, which makes
$65,000; and the median African-
American household, which makes
$39,490.
Moderate Republicans can argue
that while government should be
active in boosting human capital,
and in helping rural America, most
of what’s needed is more dynamic
capitalism — more trade, more
immigration, more free competition,
fewer regulatory burdens, more
growth.
Right now moderates are in
retreat. The populist extremes are on
the march. But the fact is they are
basing their economic and political
agendas on a story that is fundamen-
tally untrue.