OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2017
Founded in 1873
HEIDI WRIGHT, Interim Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
GOP tax plans
could hurt Oregon
college students
T
he Republican tax plans making their way through
Congress would hurt Oregon college students, especially
ones who attend private, nonprofit schools.
The U.S. House and Senate have different versions of their
tax plans, which must be negotiated into a final edition if
Congress is to pass tax reform this year.
In contrast with the 1986 tax reforms that President Ronald
Reagan signed into law, only the majority Republicans are writ-
ing the tax bills this time. The 1986 reforms, in which Oregon
Sen. Bob Packwood was influential, involved a bipartisan
group of Republicans and Democrats. Congress overwhelm-
ingly passed the legislation after months of discussion and
negotiation.
The current House Republican plan would eliminate the
income tax deduction for student loan interest, which would
affect graduates and their families who itemize their tax
deductions.
It also would make graduate students pay income taxes on the
tuition waivers they receive in return for working as teaching or
research assistants. The American Chemical Society and other
organizations have spoken against taxing these tuition waivers,
predicting the tax would have a chilling effect on students pur-
suing graduate degrees, especially in science, technology, engi-
neering and math. Graduate school tuition can be quite expen-
sive, so paying taxes on the value of the waivers would make
master’s or doctoral degrees unaffordable for many students.
The current House and Senate tax plans also would add a
1.4 percent tax on investment income at private schools whose
endowments are worth at least $250,000 per full-time student.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, only three
private, nonprofit colleges in Oregon currently would be subject
to the excise tax — Lewis and Clark College and Reed College,
both in Portland, and Willamette
University in Salem. However,
the tax would set a worrisome
precedent that eventually could
Post-high
touch smaller university endow-
ments or could expand to other
school
nonprofits.
education
Endowments subsidize
the financial aid that enable
is not a one-
many students to attend a pri-
size-fits-all
vate school at an out-of-pocket
endeavor.
cost no greater than for a pub-
lic university. Eighteen pri-
vate, nonprofit schools are mem-
bers of the Oregon Alliance of
Independent Colleges & Universities. Alliance leaders told state
legislators during public hearings this month that 93 percent of
their beginning full-time students receive institutional grants,
and 28 percent of students graduate with bachelor’s degrees but
no debt.
Together, those 18 colleges and universities produce 20 per-
cent of Oregon’s college graduates; 25 percent of all degrees in
science, technology, engineering, math and health; 38 percent of
education degrees; and half of the master’s and doctoral degrees.
Post-high school education is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.
Students need a broad range of options, including public and pri-
vate universities, community colleges, trade schools and appren-
ticeships. The Republican tax plans cut away at that diversity of
opportunity.
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 439 Cannon House Office
Building, Washington, 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,
Washington, D.C. 20510. Phone:
202-224-3753. Web: www.merk-
ley.senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D):
221 Dirksen Senate Office Build-
ing, 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
johnson@state.or.us
Web: www.betsyjohnson.com Dis-
trict Office: P.O. Box R, Scap-
poose, 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@portofasto-
ria.com
• Clatsop County Board of
Commissioners: c/o County Man-
ager, 800 Exchange St., Suite
410, Astoria, OR 97103. Phone:
503-325-1000.
AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes a selfie with a group of entrepreneurs and innovators in St. Louis.
How evil is tech?
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
N
ot long ago, tech was the
coolest industry. Everybody
wanted to work at Google,
Facebook and
Apple. But over the
past year the mood
has shifted.
Some now
believe tech is
like the tobacco
industry — corpo-
rations that make billions of dollars
peddling a destructive addiction.
Some believe it is like the NFL —
something millions of people love,
but which everybody knows leaves
a trail of human wreckage in its
wake.
Surely the people in tech — who
generally want to make the world
a better place — don’t want to go
down this road. It will be interesting
to see if they can take the actions
necessary to prevent their compa-
nies from becoming social pariahs.
There are three main critiques of
big tech.
The first is that it is destroying
the young. Social media promises
an end to loneliness but actually
produces an increase in solitude
and an intense awareness of social
exclusion. Texting and other tech-
nologies give you more control over
your social interactions but also lead
to thinner interactions and less real
engagement with the world.
As Jean Twenge has demon-
strated in book and essay, since the
spread of the smartphone, teens are
much less likely to hang out with
friends, they are less likely to date,
they are less likely to work.
Eighth-graders who spend 10 or
more hours a week on social media
are 56 percent more likely to say
they are unhappy than those who
spend less time. Eighth-graders
who are heavy users of social media
increase their risk of depression by
27 percent. Teens who spend three
or more hours a day on electronic
devices are 35 percent more likely
to have a risk factor for suicide,
like making a plan for how to do
it. Girls, especially hard hit, have
experienced a 50 percent rise in
depressive symptoms.
The second critique of the tech
industry is that it is causing this
addiction on purpose, to make
money. Tech companies understand
what causes dopamine surges in the
brain and they lace their products
with “hijacking techniques” that
lure us in and create “compulsion
loops.”
Snapchat has Snapstreak, which
rewards friends who snap each
other every day, thus encouraging
addictive behavior. News feeds are
structured as “bottomless bowls” so
that one page view leads down to
another and another and so on for-
ever. Most social media sites create
irregularly timed rewards; you have
to check your device compulsively
because you never know when a
burst of social affirmation from a
Facebook like may come.
Imagine if
instead of
claiming to
offer us the
best things
in life, tech
merely saw
itself as
providing
efficiency
devices.
The third critique is that Apple,
Amazon, Google and Facebook
are near monopolies that use their
market power to invade the private
lives of their users and impose
unfair conditions on content
creators and smaller competitors.
The political assault on this front is
gaining steam. The left is attacking
tech companies because they are
mammoth corporations; the right
is attacking them because they are
culturally progressive. Tech will
have few defenders on the national
scene.
Obviously, the smart play would
be for the tech industry to get out in
front and clean up its own pollution.
There are activists like Tristan
Harris of Time Well Spent, who is
trying to move the tech world in
the right directions. There are even
some good engineering responses. I
use an app called Moment to track
and control my phone usage.
The big breakthrough will
come when tech executives clearly
acknowledge the central truth:
Their technologies are extremely
useful for the tasks and pleasures
that require shallower forms of
consciousness, but they often crowd
out and destroy the deeper forms of
consciousness people need to thrive.
Online is a place for human
contact but not intimacy. Online
is a place for information but not
reflection. It gives you the first ste-
reotypical thought about a person or
a situation, but it’s hard to carve out
time and space for the third, 15th
and 43rd thought.
Online is a place for exploration
but discourages cohesion. It grabs
control of your attention and scatters
it across a vast range of diverting
things. But we are happiest when
we have brought our lives to a point,
when we have focused attention and
will on one thing, wholeheartedly
with all our might.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
wrote that we take a break from the
distractions of the world not as a
rest to give us more strength to dive
back in, but as the climax of living.
“The seventh day is a palace in
time which we build. It is made of
soul, joy and reticence,” he said. By
cutting off work and technology we
enter a different state of conscious-
ness, a different dimension of time
and a different atmosphere, a “mine
where the spirit’s precious metal can
be found.”
Imagine if instead of claiming
to offer us the best things in life,
tech merely saw itself as providing
efficiency devices. Its innovations
can save us time on lower-level
tasks so we can get offline and
there experience the best things in
life.
Imagine if tech pitched itself
that way. That would be an amazing
show of realism and, especially,
humility, which these days is
the ultimate and most disruptive
technology.