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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 7, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, May 7, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com MIKE FORRESTER STEVE FORRESTER KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Chairman of the Board Astoria President Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer CORY BOLLINGER JEFF ROGERS Aberdeen, S.D. Director Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW Hard to stay on top of GOP’s Clinton’s imagination problem shifting sands I OTHER VIEWS U.S. Rep. Greg Walden’s tour There are lots of reasons why, but no one can argue that the of Oregon tackled some biggest reason is Donald serious issues. Emotions and passions Trump. were high in Hermiston Walden told the East when discussing opioid Oregonian editorial board addiction. The economic that he doesn’t know development stakes were how a Trump candidacy just as high when Walden would affect the party. And toured land that once that answer isn’t really a housed the chemical depot Greg Walden cop-out. No one would have and hopefully will soon thought the party would be house millions of dollars in where it is today, and it is investment. near impossible to predict where it will But even in be a year from now. the sage land of Even while Walden is trying Oregon, in sight of touring Umatilla to stand on the the Columbia River, sands of the Walden is never far County, Greg shifting GOP. The Bushes from the turmoil Walden is don’t want any part of the Republican Party. He is the a Trump-led never far from of chairman of the party. Powerful National Republican Speaker of the the turmoil of Congressional Paul Ryan is the Republican House Committee — wishy-washy so far. making him about Republican voters Party. as “establishment” are split on just as you can be. about everything Walden’s job is to get Republicans except their dislike of Hillary elected and, once there, make them Clinton. They want to defeat her and the most powerful force in Congress. deny her the presidency and all that That has never been an easy job. comes with it. Ego, assertiveness and ambition Walden has some ideas on how abound. But it has been a tougher to make Trump more palatable job than usual in the last decade to the party, and a more electable as Tea Party challengers have candidate. He said the vice gathered inluence, driving wedges presidential pick will be important, through the party and breaking the and threw out the name Joni Ernst Republican caucus into smaller as a VP he could get behind. Ernst is factions. They drove a Speaker of a popular junior senator from Iowa, the House to ind a new line of work. a likable character and, importantly, But Walden’s job is about to a woman. Perhaps that could help become even tougher. the GOP win back some of the large Donald Trump is the presumptive percentage of women who do not Republican nominee — knocking have a high opinion of The Donald. off more than a dozen challengers Whatever you think about Donald on the way — and all along he has Trump, the man will not leave the been insulting his competitors, Republican Party as he found it. He high-proile Republicans and the will either reinvent it and restore it party itself. Yet he has won primaries to the Oval Ofice, or he will take and Republicans have seen millions a hammer to the cracks already more ballots returned this year than appearing in its membership, its in the last two primary campaigns. legislators and the Grand Old Party. 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. industrial jobs to ill but they couldn’t n March Hillary Clinton told a ind people who could pass the CNN interviewer, “We’re going to pre-employment drug test. put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” That Clinton did gesture toward some of was a true but dumb thing to say in these truths, saying, “They’re dying advance of the West Virginia primary. from suicide, but I thought Bill really So this week Clinton went on an put his inger on it. He said, ‘You apology and listening tour through know what they’re really dying of? Appalachia. They’re dying of a broken heart.’” But David She heard tales of loss and renewal. Brooks her policy ideas don’t exactly respond Then she gave a speech proposing to current realities. Comment an agenda for the region. It was a She vowed to “take a hard look at perfectly serviceable speech. Yet you retraining programs.” She’d expand can see in it some of the reasons the Clinton tax credits to encourage investment. She’d campaign has not exactly caught ire. get tough on trading partners who are trying The core problem is that she sounds like to dump cheap steel. These are the normal, a normal Democratic candidate in the noble sensible ideas candidates propose, but they are tradition of Edmund Muskie and Hubert familiar and haven’t exactly done much good. Humphrey, but she doesn’t sound like an A daring approach might have been to use imaginative candidate who is responding with the speech to propose a comprehensive drug fresh eyes to situations today. addiction and mental health agenda. That This year it seems especially important would have grabbed the attention of all those to show voters that you see them and know Americans whose families are touched by them, and can name the addiction and mental health exact frustrations in their issues — which is basically lives. Clinton’s speech was everybody. illed with the lattery that A more imaginative candidates always offer their approach might have been audiences — “Appalachia to unfurl a vision to reweave is home to some of the social fabric, the way David most resilient, hardworking Cameron has in Britain. people anywhere.” But In areas of concentrated the political rhetoric was poverty, everything is conventional and she didn’t connected to everything really capture the texture of life. else — job loss, family structure, alcoholism, She didn’t really capture the way economic domestic violence, neighborliness. It would be loss has triggered a series of complex spirals, nice if America, too, had creative politicians and that social decay is now center stage. who could put together a comprehensive A few decades ago there were 175,000 coal agenda that nurtures social connection, rather jobs in the U.S. Now there are 57,000. That than just relying on economic levers like economic dislocation has hit local economies job-training programs that have consistently in the form of shuttered storefronts and disappointed. abandoned bank buildings. A more timely approach would have noted Everywhere there are local activists this fact: That for all of American history, trying to rebuild, but it’s hard to hold off the people have moved in search of opportunity, dislocation, distrust and pessimism. Birthrates but these days we’re just not moving. The drop. Family structures erode. Life expectancy number of Americans who move in search of falls. People slip between the cracks and jobs has been declining steadily since 1985. inevitably drug use rises. According to The Place-based federal anti-poverty programs Charleston Gazette-Mail, between 1999 and discourage mobility; if you move in search 2009, per-capita consumption of oxycodone, of opportunity you risk losing your beneits. hydrocodone and fentanyl tripled. By 2009 The government could offer mobility grants to West Virginians were annually illing 19 help people get their families from one place painkiller prescriptions a person. to another. It could set up migration zones — Heavy opioid use often slides over into helping people ind housing and connection in heroin use. Heroin overdose deaths tripled places where jobs are available. between 2009 and 2014. In those years the Clinton’s speech was not bad by any state had the highest drug overdose death rate means. But she could have offered something in the nation. inspiring and audacious — to tackle mental It’s not surprising that there’s so much health problems, to reweave community, to drug use in towns where there’s so little to do. make America the daring mobile place it used But the root of this kind of addiction crisis to be. She could have grabbed the nation’s is social isolation. Addiction is a disease that attention. aflicts the lonely. It is a disease that aflicts This is a country seriously off course. A those who have suffered trauma in childhood little creativity is in order. and beyond. And once the social fabric frays ■ it’s hard for economic recovery to begin. I David Brooks became a New York Times ran into employers in Pittsburgh who had Op-Ed columnist in 2003. Clinton doesn’t sound like an imaginative candidate. OTHER VIEWS Oregon voters should consider manufacturing when voting V oters are going to the Oregon alone. The loss of so polls this year with many skilled, high-paying economic worries jobs has profoundly hurt uppermost in their minds. America’s middle class, Although the “headline” with formerly well-paid unemployment rate has workers forced into fallen to 5.0 percent, the unemployment, early labor force participation retirement, or lower-paying rate remains near historic service jobs. No wonder lows, indicating that many voters are angry. To restore Kevin people who might work Kearns the viability of domestic are not doing so. manufacturing, voters need Comment Discouraged workers to choose candidates who have given up looking will tackle the big problem for work, and middle-class jobs facing the nation’s factories, with beneits are scarce. One issue namely, bad U.S. trade policies. ties these troubles together — When Americans are asked why manufacturing. U.S factories are moving overseas, America’s factories are they usually think “cheap labor.” struggling. In spite of economic But labor is only a small part of growth, U.S. manufacturing is the picture. What really hurts in a recession. The sector has America’s factories is the massive now contracted for ive straight subsidies that foreign governments months, with exports lower due provide to their industrial to a weak global economy and sectors. China, Japan, Malaysia, a strong dollar. But competition Singapore, South Korea, and from illegally subsidized foreign some EU countries deliberately producers is the main culprit. intervene in currency markets to Federal data shows the United weaken their currencies, making States has lost roughly 5 million their goods artiicially cheap manufacturing jobs since 2000, against American-made products. including roughly 35,000 jobs in That’s why the annual U.S. trade deicit with China has exploded over the past 15 years, jumping from $83 billion in 2000 to $366 billion in 2015. That’s a lot of lost jobs, and both the Bush and Obama administrations failed to take action. Voters should be asking, “Who will stop this hemorrhaging of our manufacturing base?” In 2013, bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress urged President Obama to include strong, enforceable currency measures in the Trans-Paciic Partnership. Congress did so again in 2015 when they passed negotiating objectives for the TPP. Inexplicably, the Obama Administration ignored Congress, and there are no penalties for currency manipulation in the TPP. That means the deal, if passed, will allow even more artiicially cheap goods to enter the U.S. market, further weakening domestic industry. America’s manufacturers are beset by a host of other unfair trade practices. China massively subsidizes its energy sector, and props up key industries like autos, steel, glass, paper, rubber, and electronics. These subsidies are actionable under world trade law, and could be countered if only a U.S. president enforced existing trade laws. Most countries have cohesive industrial strategies to grow their manufacturing sectors — but not the United States. That’s why Germany, and not America, enjoys a trade surplus with China and the Inexplicably, the Obama Administration ignored Congress and there are no penalties for currency manipulation in the TPP. world, successfully exporting its products while restraining imports. A strong manufacturing base is critical to America’s economic future. Manufacturing jobs pay better than service jobs, and provide better beneits. They support related jobs throughout the economy. And manufacturing undertakes 70 percent of private sector R&D, spawning future industries. Voters must help rebuild manufacturing. Step one is to identify candidates who support action against currency manipulation and subsidies by China, Japan, and others, as well as candidates who reject outsourcing deals such as the TPP. When voters listen closely to candidates on trade issues, they’ll quickly ind out who wants a robust future for America’s factories, jobs, and middle class. ■ Kevin L. Kearns is president of the U.S. Business & Industry Council (USBIC), a national business organization advocating for domestic U.S. manufacturers since 1933.
