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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, February 23, 2016 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Minimum wage bill has too much downside The Oregon Legislature has passed a three-tiered minimum wage bill, and Gov. Kate Brown is set to sign it. The only thing good that can be said about it is that it is better than alternatives earlier proposed by lawmakers, and much better than a hike to $15 touted by proponents who are gathering signatures for a November ballot initiative. In Oregon, proponents of hiking the minimum wage say $9.25 an hour just isn’t enough for workers to meet their minimum living expenses, particularly in high-priced Portland. The bill passed was presented as a compromise to an across-the-board hike. Under the bill, the minimum wage all across Oregon will climb in July to $9.75 per hour. It will climb at regular intervals, but at different rates depending on the locale, through 2022. In rural areas like ours — the proverbial third tier — the minimum wage gradually will climb to $12.50. Those areas include Umatilla, Morrow, Malheur, Lake, Harney, Wheeler, Sherman, Gilliam, Wallowa, Grant, Jefferson, Baker, Union, Crook, Klamath, Douglas, Coos and Curry counties. The minimum will rise to LQZLWKLQWKH³¿UVW tier” Portland urban growth boundary, which includes parts of Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties. It will rise to $13.50 in Benton, Clatsop, Columbia, Deschutes, Hood River, Jackson, Josephine, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Polk, Tillamook, Wasco and Yamhill counties, and parts of Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties outside Portland’s urban growth boundary. There are measurable differences in the economies of various locales within the state. Portland is far more UREXVWDQGGLYHUVL¿HGWKDQ-RKQ Day. Employers in Oregon’s “rural” communities will have an easier time dealing with a minimum wage of $12.50 rather than $14.75. But a business’ location does not determine its ability to pay a higher wage. Low-margin businesses struggle no matter where they are located, particularly if they compete with people who have lower labor costs. Hood River fruit growers who will pay $13.50 won’t get more for their fruit than growers in Umatilla County who will pay $12.50. Nurseries within Portland’s urban growth boundary paying $14.75 will be at a competitive disadvantage with nurseries down the road but outside the boundary paying $13.50. Eastern Oregon onion packers, who will pay the lowest rate, say they already struggle to compete against packers in Idaho who pay $7.25. They promise to move east. None of that could matter if 15 Now Oregon makes good on its promise to put an initiative on November’s ballot that would increase the minimum wage to $15 statewide by 2019. Obviously, this would be far more ruinous. Proponents suggest businesses can easily absorb a wage increase or just hike prices. They say no one will lose their job or have their hours cut. Those people also likely have never covered a payroll or sold a product. It’s a laudable goal to raise the prospects of unskilled workers. Pricing them out of the job market isn’t the way to do it. We would all be better off by promoting policies that encourage the creation of better-paying jobs, and facilitate the training of workers WR¿OOWKHP 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. Clash of the populists (though he’s not above “whiner” The Book of Daniel predicted it. and “sourpuss” as well). But their 7KH%RRNRI5HYHODWLRQFRQ¿UPHGLW SXQJHQWODQJXDJHUHÀHFWVDVKDUHG The Necronomicon spelled it out in mastery of the contemporary media language too terrible for human ears environment, in which controversy to hear. And if you read “The Art of and unpredictability are the great the Deal” backward in the original currencies, and having people 6DQVNULW\RX¶OO¿QGLWIRUHWROGWKHUH constantly asking “Did he really just as well: Before the seventh seal is say that?” is the surest ticket to the opened, before Famine and Pestilence Ross are loosed, the Man in White must do Douthat world’s attention. The public style that produces battle with the Combed-Over Titan, Comment these “say what?” moments can get amid the ravening shrieks of Twitter them both into a kind of trouble. But and beneath the unblinking eye of the billionaire and the pontiff both seem to Cable News. Or, for the less mystically inclined: It was believe — on some evidence — that a little troublemaking is the best way to make the only a matter of time before Pope Francis disaffected pay attention. tangled with Donald Trump. And by reaching people who usually tune Their war of words came about the way out churchmen and politicians, they have you would expect. It began with a rambling become leading populists in our increasingly news conference on the papal plane, where populist moment. The popular constituencies Francis suggested that Trump (or at least they speak for are very different, of course. his zeal for an amazing border wall) “is not Christian.” It escalated with a rambling news Trump is a nationalist, speaking on behalf of the unhappy Western working class, while release from the mogul turned presidential candidate, which Trump-splained to the pope Francis is a Latin American and a globalist, that only a Trump administration can protect speaking for the developing world’s poor — which is why immigration policy naturally the Vatican from ISIS. puts them at loggerheads. Then came the inevitable downplaying But they nonetheless share a common IURP9DWLFDQRI¿FLDOVWKHLQHYLWDEOH HQHP\1RWMXVWVSHFL¿FJXDUGLDQVRI turnabout from Trump (“the Pope is a wonderful guy,” he told CNN), the inevitable business as usual, whether Catholic or Republican, but the wider Western ruling debates about whether the Vatican’s own class. Whether it’s The Donald attacking walls are un-Christian, whether Protestant voters in the South Carolina primary are still “the very, very stupid people” making policy in the United States, or Francis deploring suspicious of popery, and more. the greed and self-interest of rich nations The obvious drama of the collision lay and wealthy corporations, the pope and in the contrasts between the two men: The the mogul are now leading critics of the celibate and the lecher, the ascetic and neoliberalism that has governed the West for the billionaire, the mystic and the frank a generation or more. materialist. But their similarities are also Neoliberalism needs critics, as the fascinating. For all the ways in which Republican Party needs reinvention and the )UDQFLVDQG7UXPSGLIIHUDV¿JXUHVRQ Catholic Church needs reform. At the same the global stage they’re also strangely alike — in the forces that they’re channeling, time, as Schmitz notes, what both Trump and Francis promise — deliverance “from their style of public salesmanship, and their inconvenient and unresponsive institutions, relationship to the institutions they either with all their strictures and corruptions” — head or aspire to lead. downplays the value of rules, customs, and This resemblance begins, as Matthew traditions in protecting people from the rule Schmitz pointed out in The Washington of novelty and whim. Post, with their status as “outsiders bent This is always populism’s peril: That it on shaking up their establishments,” which relies too much on the power of charisma, they (and many others) deem sclerotic and and tears down too much in the quest to corrupt. When Trump attacks Republican make America or Catholic Christianity great elites and breaks with party orthodoxy on WUDGHRUIRUHLJQSROLF\RUFDPSDLJQ¿QDQFH again. Of course neither Francis nor Trump have Schmitz notes, he’s mirroring the way that broken anything yet. The populist pope may Francis “challenges a hidebound Vatican be remembered as a great reformer, and the EXUHDXFUDF\DQGÀLUWVZLWKUHYLVLQJVHWWOHG populist billionaire as the unlikely catalyst Catholic doctrine.” Both messages appeal for the Republican Party’s long-delayed to the same exhaustion with institutions, the reform. same desire to somehow “make a mess” (as But for now, the last thing they have in Francis likes to put it) and start anew. common in this: Everything that makes them This mirroring extends to their rhetoric, interesting makes them dangerous as well. where both men have a fondness for, well, Ŷ name-calling that’s rare among presidential Ross Douthat joined The New York Times candidates and popes. The insults differ: as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009. His Trump calls people “low energy,” “liar” and “loser,” while Francis prefers “Pharisee” and column appears every Sunday. Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic “self-absorbed Promethean neo-Pelagian” YOUR VIEWS The Super Bowl and white people I read David Burns’ letter in the Feb. 19 edition of the East Oregonian. After recovering from the stroke his Neanderthal thinking caused, I’m still at a loss how to respond. First, I’m an old white guy so I think Mr. Burns and I are in the same demographic. I remember the days of Jim Brown, Bart Starr and Johnny Unitas fondly also, but I have a somewhat different take on them. While Mr. Burns has shown KLPVHOIWREHDNQRZOHGJHDEOHLI¿FNOH football fan, he seems to forget that Jim Brown was always an outspoken advocate for black athletes and black people in general. He had to be because the playing ¿HOGZDVWLOWHGVWHHSO\LQIDYRURIZKLWH people. That’s the reason Tommie Smith and -RKQ&DUORVPDGHWKHLU¿VWVUDLVHGJHVWXUH at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. While still controversial, many white people honor them for their courageous statement. As to his objections to the “hands up, don’t shoot” dance move, the events in Ferguson, Mo., are not as clear-cut as Mr. Burns would have you believe. We do know that an unarmed black man (thug or not), Michael Brown, ZDVVKRWWRGHDWKE\DZKLWHSROLFHRI¿FHU Darren Wilson. It’s racists like David Burns that make black people feel the need to keep this issue in the public consciousness. I’m sure the NFL scheduled the Super Bowl to coincide with 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party just to get under Mr. Burns’ skin. Four hundred words do not allow me to adequately respond to each of Mr. Burns’ VWDWHPHQWV,ZLOOUHSHDWZKDW,VDLGWKH¿UVW time I responded to a letter from this man: He needs to pay attention to what Homer 6LPSVRQLVGRLQJDWWKH6SULQJ¿HOGQXFOHDU power plant because when he ventures beyond that it’s embarrassing. Patrick J. Delaney Hermiston Palmer election loss would be poetic justice Voters, ponder this possibility: Given the Justice Department investigation of (Grant County Sheriff Glenn) Palmer, if Palmer is re-elected, will Palmer cause legal problems against which the county may have to defend itself by using tax dollars? Will voters literally put their tax money where their vote is — and possibly cause their taxes to increase — by voting for Palmer? If the Palmer investigation rules against him, may it [1] end Palmer’s re-election, [2] end his being elected to any public RI¿FHDQ\ZKHUHE\3DOPHUORVLQJWKH credibility necessary for election to public RI¿FHDQG>@HQGKLVFKDQFHRIHYHUEHLQJ hired in law enforcement anywhere again? If so, then Palmer can thank the Bundy “Patriot” criminals for his possible chronic unemployment and his family’s possible bankruptcy. Talk about poetic justice. If Palmer loses, then talk about citizen DFWLRQDJDLQVWJRYHUQPHQWRI¿FLDOV talk about the people taking back their JRYHUQPHQWWDONDERXWJURXQGVZHOO &RQVWLWXWLRQDODFWLRQWDONDERXWWUXH SDWULRWLFSUDFWLFHWDONDERXWSROLWLFDO HPSRZHUPHQWWDONDERXWUHDOUHYROXWLRQ by that bastion of freedom known as the ³9RWH.HHSHUV´WDONDERXWRYHUZKHOPLQJ occupation by that protector of liberty NQRZQDVWKH³´WDONDERXWSRHWLF MXVWLFHWDONDERXWWUXHMXVWLFH If Palmer loses, and if Bundy “Patriot” criminals signed Palmer’s Constitution copy, then Palmer can read why he lost the election, why he lost his job, and why he lost his future every single time he reads their signatures in his Constitution copy. Talk about poetic justice. 3DOPHUVKDOO¿QGRXWKLVUHDOVHQWHQFH which shall be imposed on him by the jury of his peers — voters — on election day. If he loses, then we already know what his reply may be: “AMBUSH!” Brian McDonough Bennington, N.H. John Turner plugged in, ready to run for mayor We are pleased that John Turner has decided to run for mayor of Pendleton. John brings the important traits of integrity, service, commitment, and leadership. After DGLVWLQJXLVKHGFDUHHUDVDQRI¿FHULQWKH Marine Corps, John worked for 10 years at Blue Mountain Community College, serving as president for nine of these years. He currently is a member of the Port of Umatilla, The Round-Up City Corporation, and Rotary. In a few words, John gets things done. Please vote to make John Turner the next mayor of Pendleton! Paul and Mary Davis Pendleton 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. The newspa- per reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual ser- vices and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
