OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2017
Founded in 1873
KARI BORGEN, Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, Editor
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
10 years ago this week — 2007
Power was still out to thousands of homes and businesses on the North
Coast Tuesday after a mega-storm with winds of up to 100 mph laid waste
to the region Sunday and Monday.
Some old timers said it was almost as bad as the Columbus Day storm
in 1962 — and certainly a longer duration.
The sustained blast of bad weather left a swath of devastation in its
wake in Clatsop and Washington’s Pacific counties with scores of severely
damaged storefronts in Astoria and Seaside. Hundreds of homes lost roofs
and tiles when the sustained winds of 85 mph buffeted the region for sev-
eral hours.
As highways gradually reopen and power companies work
to energize local substations, the worst of the storm appears to
have passed.
However, 9-1-1 phone lines remain down, cold weather is on
the way, and it could still be a week before all residential power
is restored, county leaders heard at an Emergency Operations
Center meeting Tuesday morning.
“The heat of the crisis is over,” said Astoria Mayor Willis
Van Dusen. “Now we need endurance. It will be several days
until things are back to a comfortable level.
The “Voices in the Dark” — the local radio stations and broadcasters
who have guided us through the “Storm of ‘07” and its aftermath — have
definitely proven their worth this week.
On the FM dial, they’ve been there all along.
Local public radio station KMUN 91.9 of Astoria “stepped up to the
plate,” according to station manager Dave Hammock.
And despite a giant tree falling into the building, plus numerous tech-
nical problems, the station was able to broadcast 24/7, with their staff of
volunteers providing much-needed news and information.
“When something like this happens, it’s not about being the alterna-
tive radio station or diversity — for this week, we are a primary commu-
nications conduit,” Hammock said. “And we take that responsibility very,
very seriously.”
50 years ago — 1967
The Daily Astorian/File
‘The worst disaster ever to hit Cannon Beach,’ Mayor Gerald Gow-
er said after the flood subsided and left logs and other debris
over much of the small resort city.
“The worst disaster ever to hit Cannon Beach” pounded
ashore Saturday, flooding that city of 520 persons with water
three feet deep for a period of six hours.
Gov. Tom McCall is expected to decide this afternoon
whether to declare the area a disaster zone, authorizing emer-
gency state services.
Water began creeping into low-lying areas about 9 a.m. on
the rising tide, then rapidly filled the downtown area with three
feet of water. Battering waves undermined seawalls and sent
huge logs three to four blocks inland. Logs and other debris
went through beach front windows.
One motel manager reported $15,000 damage. Other areas
of the county were flooded also, according to reports. Water
overflowed many dikes.
Heavy seas crumpled a lifeboat on the wheelhouse deck of the huge
oil tanker Utah Standard during its entry into the Columbia River Thurs-
day afternoon on the ebb tide.
Bar pilot Capt. R.W. Gibson said water from breakers on the bar
washed “over the top” of the midships superstructure and described the
crossing as one of the worst he has made in the past two or three years.
The Standard Oil company tanker was headed for Portland and arrived
there at 11:30 p.m.
Flood damage from Saturday’s storm was being assessed
Monday and Tuesday with a report from Clatsop County com-
mission chairman Hiram Johnson the damages could reach a
$250,000 total loss in the county.
Bulk of the loss was suffered in Cannon Beach, hardest hit
by the churning seas and three-foot flood.
Monday afternoon, Gov. Tom McCall declared Clatsop
County a disaster area for emergency loan purposes.
NEHALEM – Nehalem suffered its worst flooding over the weekend
since 1933, when all bridges were washed out and water reached door
knob level.
75 years ago — 1942
The long-awaited mileage rationing finally went into effect
today, and rationing headquarters in the old city hall were
crowded with applicants for supplementary ration cards for
trucks and passenger cars and by gasoline and oil company
representatives who also registered today.
Republicans are now
coming for your benefits
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
R
epublicans don’t care about
budget deficits, and never
did. They only pretend to
care about deficits
when one of two
things is true: a
Democrat is in the
White House, and
deficit rhetoric can
be used to block his
agenda, or they see
an opportunity to slash social pro-
grams that help needy Americans,
and can invoke deficits as an excuse.
All of this has been obvious for
years to anyone paying attention.
So it’s not at all surprising that
they were willing to enact a huge
tax cut for corporations and the
wealthy even though all independent
estimates said this would add more
than $1 trillion to the national debt.
And it was also predictable that they
would return to deficit posturing
as soon as the deed was done,
citing the red ink they themselves
produced as a reason to cut social
spending.
Yet even the most cynical among
us are startled both by how quickly
the bait-and-switch is proceeding
and by the contempt Republicans
are showing for the public’s
intelligence.
In fact, the switch began even
before the marks swallowed the bait.
During the Senate debate
over the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, was
challenged over support for the
Children’s Health Insurance
Program, which covers 9 million
U.S. children — but whose funding
lapsed two months ago, and has not
been renewed. Hatch declared his
support for the program, but insisted
that “the reason CHIP’s having trou-
ble is because we don’t have money
anymore” — just before voting for a
trillion-and-a-half-dollar tax cut that
will deliver the bulk of its benefits
to the richest few percent of the
population.
He then went on to say, “I have a
rough time wanting to spend billions
and billions and trillions of dollars
to help people who won’t help
themselves, won’t lift a finger and
expect the federal government to do
everything.”
So who, exactly, was he talking
about, and which programs are con-
suming these billions and billions
and trillions?
Was he talking about food
stamps, most of whose beneficiaries
are children, elderly or disabled?
(And many of the rest are working
hard, just not earning enough to get
by.)
Was he talking about the
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the tax-writing Finance Com-
mittee, talks to reporters about the GOP effort to overhaul the tax code.
earned-income tax credit, which
rewards only those who work?
Was he talking about Medicaid,
which again mainly benefits chil-
dren, the elderly and the disabled,
plus people who work hard but
whose jobs don’t provide health
benefits?
We can go on down the list. The
simple fact is that big spending on
people who “won’t lift a finger”
doesn’t actually happen in America
— only in Hatch’s mean-spirited
imagination.
The hypocrisy
and contempt
for the public
... is just the
beginning.
Now, to be fair, there are some
people in America who get lots of
money they didn’t lift a finger to
earn — namely, inheritors of large
estates. Strange to say, however,
Republican legislation would give
these people much more — indeed,
billions and billions of dollars —
without requiring any additional
effort on their part.
The House version of the big tax
cut would eliminate the estate tax;
the Senate version would double the
level of wealth exempted from the
tax, to $22.4 million for a couple.
How can this be justified if it’s
supposedly hard to find money for
children’s health care?
Well, Sen. Chuck Grassley,
R-Iowa, explained it all last week:
“I think not having the estate tax
recognizes the people that are
investing, as opposed to those that
are just spending every darn penny
they have, whether it’s on booze or
women or movies.”
Hmm. Somehow, I don’t think
limiting spending on booze, women,
and movies (movies?) is going to be
sufficient for the median American
household — which had an income
of $59,000 last year — to end up
with a $22 million estate. And if
you think of people who really
will benefit from eliminating taxes
on inheritance — people like, say,
Donald Trump Jr. — one is not
immediately struck by the notion
that this is a reward for their fathers’
abstemious lifestyles.
The important thing to realize,
however, is that the hypocrisy and
contempt for the public we’ve
seen in the past few days is just the
beginning.
It has been widely noted that the
tax bills enacted by the House and
Senate are remarkably unfriendly
to the middle class — in fact, the
Senate bill, once fully phased in,
would actually raise taxes on a
majority of middle-class families.
But that observation captures only
a small part of what is about to
happen to ordinary, hardworking
Americans.
For budget deficits are going
to soar thanks to Republican leg-
islation — probably by even more
than the official scorekeepers say,
because the legislation creates so
many new loopholes. And offsetting
those deficits will require going after
the true big-ticket programs, namely
Medicare and Social Security.
Oh, they’ll find euphemisms
to describe what they’re doing,
talking solemnly about the need for
“entitlement reform” as an act of
fiscal responsibility — while their
huge budget-busting tax cut for the
rich gets shoved down the memory
hole. But whatever words they use
to cloak the reality of the situation,
Republicans have given their donors
what they wanted — and now
they’re coming for your benefits.
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