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4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2018 editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher Founded in 1873 JIM VAN NOSTRAND Editor JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager DEBRA BLOOM Business Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager OUR VIEW Governor playing politics with tax breaks G ov. Kate Brown is trying to have it both ways. She’s taking a tax break from Oregon businesses and she’s calling a special legislative session to give busi- nesses a tax break. If that sounds like election-year posturing by a governor who is seeking reelection, well, it is. Brown riled Republicans and busi- state over SB 1528. ness leaders last week by announc- Boquist contends the bill raises ing she would sign Senate Bill 1528, taxes and thus needed a supermajority passed a few weeks ago by the Oregon for passage in the Legislature. Instead, Legislature. The bill is a reaction to con- Democrats in the Senate and House gressional passage late last year of the passed it by simple majorities. Four Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Democrats — including Scappoose Sen. The federal law gave a tax cut to Betsy Johnson — joined all Republicans “pass-through” entities — businesses in voting no. whose profits or losses are passed Meanwhile, Brown now wants the directly to the owners and counted as Legislature to hold a special session to personal income for taxation purposes. give sole proprietorships a tax break. Such businesses generally are organized If this sounds confusing and purely as sole proprietorships, LLCs, partner- political, well, again it is. ships or S-corporations. During a special legislative session The state legislation, SB 1528, in 2013, Democrats gained Republican stops that tax break from also apply- support for the so-called “Grand ing to Oregon income taxes. As Brown Bargain” by including a break for LLCs, explained, such businesses still will get partnerships and S-corporations. Sole their federal tax cut but not the same cut proprietorships were left out of that in their state income taxes. Thus, the deal, and Brown now says that was state will collect more tax revenue. unfair to them. Brown said that’s not a tax increase, The 2019 Legislature could make just a lack of tax cut. that change, even retroactively for this Opponents disagree. One of them, year. Instead, Brown said she would state Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, con- order lawmakers to hold a special ses- firmed this week that he will sue the sion before June 30, asking them to AP Photo/Don Ryan Gov. Kate Brown wants to call a special legislative session . broaden the 2013 small-business tax break to include sole proprietors. Meanwhile, many of her fellow Democrats, particularly in the state House, have been trying to undo the overall 2013 tax break. And last week, Brown would not commit to whether the 2013 tax break was good long-term public policy. Neither was she ready to discuss tax reform, which she previ- ously said would be a critical issue for the 2019 Legislature. Boquist is right. Holding a special legislative session is about politics, not good government policy. OUR VIEW Applauding the return of voters’ pamphlet T he Clatsop County Board of Commissioners deserves a collective pat on the back for deciding to rein- state the voters’ pamphlet. Earlier this year, a group of citizens lobbied to bring back the publication, which high- lights candidates and issues, offering facts not endorse- ments. The county produces one for busy elections in even-numbered years, but had stopped producing one on odd years when more minor boards and one-time ballot measures are determined. The residents, speaking as individuals but with a united theme, urged county leaders to reconsider, saying the pam- phlet was most needed when these less newsworthy issues and smaller boards are on the ballot. After some study, and a review of financial and practi- cal implications, county lead- ers agreed to reinstate the pamphlet for all elections. It’s pleasing when govern- ment is responsive to the pub- lic’s needs. And when it hap- pens, it is appropriate to point it out. GUEST COLUMN Obamacare’s very stable genius F ront pages continue, understandably, to be dominated by the roughly 130,000 scandals currently afflicting the Trump administration. But polls suggest that the reek of corruption, intense as it is, isn’t likely to dominate the midterm elections. The biggest issue on voters’ minds appears, instead, to be health care. And you know what? Voters are right. If Republicans retain control of both houses of Congress, we can safely predict that they’ll make another try at repealing Obamacare, taking health insur- ance away from 25 million or 30 million Americans. Why? Because their attempts to sabotage the pro- gram keep falling short, and time is running out. PAUL I’m not saying that sabotage KRUGMAN has been a complete failure. The Trump administration has succeeded in driving insurance premiums sharply higher — and yes, I mean “succeeded,” because that was definitely the goal. Enrollment on the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges has also declined since 2016 — with almost all the decline taking place in Trump administration-run exchanges, rather than those run by states — and the overall number of Americans without health insurance, after declining dramatically under President Barack Obama, has risen again. But what Republicans were hoping and planning for was a “death spiral” of declining enrollment and soaring costs. And while constant claims that such a death spiral is underway have had their effect — a majority of the public believes that the exchanges are collapsing — it isn’t. In fact, the program has been remarkably stable when you bear in mind that it’s being administered by people trying to make it fail. What’s the secret of Obamacare’s stability? The answer, although nobody will believe it, is that the people who designed the program were extremely smart. Political reality forced them to build a Rube Goldberg device, a complex scheme to achieve basically simple goals; every progressive health expert I know would have been happy to extend Medicare to everyone, but that just wasn’t going to happen. But they did manage to create a system that’s pretty robust to shocks, including the shock of a White House that wants to destroy it. Originally, Obamacare was supposed to rest on a “three-legged stool.” Private insurers were barred from discriminating based on pre-existing condi- tions; individuals were required to buy insurance meeting minimum standards — the “individual mandate” — even if they were currently healthy; and subsidies were provided to make insurance affordable. Republicans have, however, done their best to saw off one of those legs; even before they repealed the mandate, they drastically reduced outreach efforts in an attempt to discourage healthy Americans from enrolling. The result has been that the population actually signing up for coverage is both smaller and sicker than it would otherwise have been, forcing insurers to charge higher premiums. But that’s where the subsidies come in. Under the ACA, the poorest Americans are covered by Medicaid, so private premiums don’t matter. Meanwhile, many of those with higher incomes — up to 400 percent of the poverty line, or more than $95,000 for a family of four — are eligible for subsidies. That’s 59 percent of the population, but because many of those with higher incomes get insurance through their employers, it’s 83 percent of those signing up on the exchanges. And here’s the thing: Those subsidies aren’t fixed. Instead, the formula sets the subsidy high enough to put a limit on how high premium payments can go as a percentage of income. What this means is that of the 27 million Americans who have either gained coverage through the Medicaid expansion or purchased insurance on the exchanges, only about 2 million are exposed to those Trump-engineered premium hikes. That’s still a lot of people, but it’s not enough to get a death spiral going. In fact, for com- plicated reasons (“silver-loading” — don’t ask), after-subsidy premiums have actually gone down for many people. And that leaves the GOP very, very frustrated. From the beginning, Republicans hated Obamacare not because they expected it to fail, but because they feared that it would succeed, and thereby demonstrate that government actually can do things to make people’s lives better. And their nightmare is gradually coming true: Although it took a long time, the Affordable Care Act is finally becoming popular, and the public’s concern that the GOP will kill it is becoming an important political liability. What this says to me is that if Republicans manage to hold on to Congress, they will make another all-out push to destroy the act — because they’ll know that it’s probably their last chance. Indeed, if they don’t kill Obamacare soon, the next step will probably be an enhanced program that lets Americans of all ages buy into Medicare. So voters are right to believe that health care is very much an issue in the midterm elections. It may not be the most important thing at stake — there’s a good case to be made that the survival of American democracy is on the line. But it’s a very big deal. Paul Krugman is a syndicated columnist for the New York Times News Service. LETTERS WELCOME Letters should be exclu- sive to The Daily Astorian. Letters should be fewer than 250 words and must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. You will be contacted to con- firm authorship. All letters are subject to editing for space, grammar, and, on occasion, factual accuracy. Only two letters per writer are allowed each month. Letters written in response to other letter writers should address the issue at hand and, rather than mentioning the writer by name, should refer to the headline and date the letter was published. Dis- course should be civil and people should be referred to in a respectful manner. Let- ters in poor taste will not be printed. 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