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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
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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.