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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (June 10, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, June 10, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Big frogging mistake There are two things that give a see that mistake splayed across the journalist great relief. World Wide Web. And to think: Just 1.) Having an editor or a few weeks ago we were Internet proofreader catch a mistake in a heroes, showing the courage and story, headline or caption moments temerity to publish a letter about before the paper goes to press farts. Now, we’re lowly Internet and realizing you’ve dodged an zeros, publishing unconsciously embarrassing bullet. about frogs. 2.) Finding a mistake in another ,W¶VFHUWDLQO\QRWWKH¿UVWWLPH publication and we’ve picked up an laughing gleefully at EO and seen a mistake, how someone let such from the wrong use an obvious error get of a word to improper through. grammar to just a There is also every plain old typo. For print journalist’s worst regular readers of nightmare, the thing any newspaper — a that will wake you up community monthly in a cold sweat in the where one person does middle of the night. all the work, or the Wall That’s realizing you’ve Street Journal where AP/The Muppets an entire department made a mistake, large Kermit is embarrassed. pores over every page or small, and it is now being distributed to looking for goofs — a thousands of readers printed mistake is not We went and all you can do is uncommon. That’s the lay there sweating in of words and from Internet nature your bed. deadlines and the lack heroes to And now, with the of a delete button once Internet and all, that mistake has been Internet zeros. that mistake can go wider pressed in ink. than ever before. No excuses. We’ll Such was the case own it. It was a dumb in the weekend edition of the East mistake and it got through, from our Oregonian, where we reported on desk to the press to the web. Surely the young amphibious — ahem, we’ll hear plenty about it in the ambidextrous — pitcher recently coming week. Then it will die down, called up by the Oakland Athletics. life will go on and we’ll give those Sure, we’re a little red in the face. proofs closer looks. It’s one thing to have a slip of the Nights waking up in a cold sweat? tongue, it’s another to put a mistake They aren’t going anywhere anytime into print, and it’s still another to soon. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. OTHER VIEWS Renovation tax credit would rob public schools The Oregonian When it comes to money, the message from Salem these days could not be more clear: We ain’t got enough! The Legislature’s K-12 education budget pleased no one, and the state’s universities and community colleges have argued for greater generosity, too. Meanwhile, Rep. Tobias Read, D-Beaverton, has introduced a bill to grab income tax “kicker” rebates projected to top $470 million. And then, of course, there’s the looming budget hammer of the state’s public pension system, which will drop painfully during the 2017-19 biennium and beyond. Given present and future budgetary pressures, lawmakers this session must take particular pains to distinguish between wants and needs when dipping into the public’s wallet, especially when it comes to new programs. The same level of scrutiny should apply regardless of the number of zeros on a program’s price tag or the good intentions of its backers. That’s a long way of saying Senate Bill 565 should die in the Joint Committee on Tax Credits, where the Senate Committee on Finance and Revenue sent it March 24 by a unanimous vote. The bill, promoted ardently by WKHQRQSUR¿W5HVWRUH2UHJRQZRXOG establish a fund to subsidize the restoration of historic properties. The VWDWHZRXOG¿OOWKHIXQGE\DXFWLRQLQJ off tax credits to individuals and businesses, and property owners would be able to apply for up to 25 percent of the cost of eligible renovation projects. Eligible properties would be those listed or deemed suitable for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, but would not include buildings used primarily for single-family housing. Total tax credits would be capped at $24 million per biennium, and no single project could receive more than $2 million. A state-level subsidy is necessary, backers argue, because seismic vulnerability and modern code requirements make old buildings expensive to renovate. The costs make many projects too expensive to pursue even with existing subsidies, including a federal historic tax credit that covers up to 20 percent of eligible renovation costs. Turbocharging the subsidy pool, backers argue, would create jobs and revitalize neighborhoods while preserving structures with both historic and aesthetic value. Everybody wins! Except, of course, for those who lose. That $24 million per biennium would be pulled from public services supported by income taxes, the most prominent of which is public education — which, everyone seems to agree, didn’t get enough this session even though plenty of tax revenue is rolling into state coffers to trigger the kicker. Some may argue that diverting several million dollars per year from public schools to historic buildings is ¿QHEHFDXVHWKHHGXFDWLRQEXGJHWLVVR big. What’s a few million here and there, right? Well, a few million here and there is still a few million, and supporters of the diversion ought to make the same case as those seeking to divert, say, $100 million: Why is this a higher and better use of public funds than the things the money otherwise would support? As much as we and others may like old EXLOGLQJVWKDW¶VDYHU\GLI¿FXOWFDVHWR make. Oregonians may — and will — debate renovation subsidies even without a statewide tax credit. But such debates should be local. If elected leaders in Portland, Astoria or Pendleton consider the redevelopment of certain historic buildings important enough to nudge along, they should make the case to their constituents for the appropriate incentives. By contrast, the so-called Revitalize Main Street Act operates on the assumption that renovations in Portland, Astoria, Pendleton — wherever — are so important to those communities that schools across the state should pay for them. Really? LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS Fighting the derp W hen it comes to economics constantly accused of just looking for — and other subjects, but I’ll reasons to expand government. focus on what I know best But derp isn’t universal. There’s — we live in an age of derp and cheap also plenty of genuine, honest analysis cynicism. And there are powerful out there — and you don’t have to be a forces behind both tendencies. But technical expert to tell the difference. those forces can be fought, and I’ve already mentioned one WKHSODFHWRVWDUW¿JKWLQJLVZLWKLQ telltale sign of derp: predictions that yourself. just keep being repeated no matter Paul What am I talking about here? Krugman how wrong they’ve been in the past. “Derp” is a term borrowed from Another sign is the never-changing Comment the cartoon “South Park” that has policy prescription, like the assertion achieved wide currency among that slashing tax rates on the wealthy, people I talk to, because it’s useful shorthand which you advocate all the time, just so for an all-too-obvious feature of the modern happens to also be the perfect response to a intellectual landscape: people who keep ¿QDQFLDOFULVLVQRERG\H[SHFWHG saying the same thing no matter how much Yet another is a call for long-term evidence accumulates that it’s completely responses to short-term events — for example, wrong. a permanent downsizing of government in The quintessential example is fear response to a recession. PRQJHULQJRYHULQÀDWLRQ,WZDVSHUKDSV And here’s the thing: If you look at forgivable for economists, pundits, and what Romer and many other Keynesians SROLWLFLDQVWRZDUQDERXWUXQDZD\LQÀDWLRQ had to say, none of those telltale signs were some years ago, when the Federal Reserve SUHVHQW7KH\DGYRFDWHGGH¿FLWVSHQGLQJDVD was just beginning its efforts to help a response to a severe downturn, not a universal depressed economy. After all, everyone makes elixir, and the measures they called for, like bad predictions now and then. infrastructure spending and budget aid to state But making the same governments, were designed to be temporary rather than wrong prediction year after a permanent expansion year, never acknowledging (and the 2009 stimulus past errors or considering did, in fact, fade away on the possibility that you have schedule.) the wrong model of how the So derp isn’t destiny. economy works — well, But how can you — that’s derp. whether you’re a pundit, And there’s a lot of derp a policymaker, or just a RXWWKHUH,QÀDWLRQGHUS concerned citizen — protect in particular, has become yourself against derpitude? more or less a required 7KH¿UVWOLQHRIGHIHQVH position among Republicans. I’d argue, is to always be Even economists with suspicious of people telling solid reputations, whose you what you want to hear. professional work should Thus, if you’re a conservative opposed KDYHPDGHWKHPVNHSWLFDORILQÀDWLRQK\VWHULD to a stronger safety net, you should be extra have spent years echoing the paranoia of the skeptical about claims that health reform is goldbugs. And that tells you why derp abides: about to crash and burn, especially coming it’s basically political. from people who made the same prediction It’s an article of faith on the right that last year and the year before (Obamacare derp DQ\DWWHPSWE\WKHJRYHUQPHQWWR¿JKW UXQVDOPRVWDVGHHSDVLQÀDWLRQGHUS unemployment must lead to disaster, so the But if you’re a liberal who believes that faithful must keep predicting disaster no we should reduce inequality, you should matter how often it fails to materialize. similarly be cautious about studies purporting Still, doesn’t everyone do this? No, and to show that inequality is responsible for many that’s where the cheap cynicism comes in. of our economic ills, from slow growth to True, the peddlers of politically inspired ¿QDQFLDOLQVWDELOLW\7KRVHVWXGLHVPLJKWEH derp are quick to accuse others of the same correct — the fact is that there’s less derp on sin. For example, right at the beginning of America’s left than there is on the right — but the Obama administration Robert Lucas, a \RXQRQHWKHOHVVQHHGWR¿JKWWKHWHPSWDWLRQWR Nobel laureate at the University of Chicago, accused Christina Romer, the administration’s let political convenience dictate your beliefs. Fighting the derp can be hard, not least chief economist, of intellectual fraud. Her DQDO\VLVRI¿VFDOSROLF\KHGHFODUHGZDVMXVW because it can upset friends who want to be reassured in their beliefs. But you should do it “a very naked rationalization for policies that anyway: It’s your civic duty. were already, you know, decided on for other Ŷ reasons.” Paul Krugman joined The New York Times In general, anyone practicing some kind in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page of Keynesian economics — an approach and continues as professor of Economics and that, among other things, correctly predicted International Affairs at Princeton University. TXLHVFHQWLQÀDWLRQDQGLQWHUHVWUDWHV²LV The first line of derp defense is to always be suspicious of people telling you what you want to hear. YOUR VIEWS Smart to add solar panels to Hawthorne learning center I would like to commend the Pendleton School District for having the foresight to put an array of 200 solar panels on the roof of the new Hawthorne Early Learning Center. What a wonderful way to save costs that will go well into the future. With 12 panels on my own roof I generated 298 kilowatt hours of electricity last month; a panel of 200 could generate close to 5,000 kilowatt hours. How wonderful. I sincerely hope that the school district will also be putting solar panels on the new Washington and Sherwood elementary school buildings. Any use of clean renewable energy saves our environment, lowers energy costs and adds to the value of buildings. Thanks for being a leader, Pendleton School District. Here’s hoping more new construction will also use solar panels when possible. Marge Normington-Jones Pendleton
