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Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, August 3, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Trump v. Clinton bad for America Donald Trump and Hillary heck voters were thinking. Clinton, surely two of the most In some ways it is just a sign divisive politicians in a generation, of the times, when partisan rancor are in all-out attack mode until the has reached a fever pitch and November election. demonizing the That is bad opponent is the best for the country. to encourage Both candidates way Whatever political voter turnout. In have high and cultural divides other ways it is a have been dug in the low-water mark, unfavorable last decade, expect when the best them only to deepen ratings, meaning candidate each party during the campaign muster is the that no matter could and into the ¿rst one that engenders term of what will the most fury from who wins a assuredly be one of other side. majority of the the Through the most disliked the presidents in the entire primary country will be system, only modern era. disappointed. about 9 percent of It has already started, too. Both Americans voted for parties’ conventions Trump or Clinton. consisted only of digging ditches It’s a good reminder that the system of demarcation and division. Only for narrowing our presidential late in the Democratic convention, choices is a poor one and that few by former Republicans like Michael voters have a chance to make a Bloomberg, was there any attempt meaningful impact on choosing a to reach out and persuade members nominee. It’s also a reminder that of the other party. Trump tried few people actually step up to the half-heartedly to cajole disaffected plate and cast a ballot when they Bernie Sanders supporters, but was have the opportunity to. only able to go a few hours before You don’t have to search too long insulting Sanders and wasting that before you ¿nd interviews of Trump opportunity. talking highly of the Clintons, and It is perhaps understandable vice versa. The Clintons of course then that both Clinton and attended Trump’s last wedding and Trump have extraordinarily low their children — Chelsea Clinton favorability ratings. According to and Ivanka Trump — are good RealClearPolitics poll averages, friends. only 35 percent of Americans have It’s enough to make the election a favorable view of Trump while 58 just seem like a farce, a choice percent have an unfavorable one. between two narrow options Clinton isn’t much better. Using the orchestrated by a few and only same data source, 40 percent have exciting a few. The majority, a favorable view and 54 percent disappointed, will go on feeling regard her unfavorably. more and more removed from Therefore no matter who wins, politics and their country and their a majority of the country will be fellow man. The walls will go up, unable to understand what in the whether Trump wins or not. 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 Retirement plan changes will bene¿t Oregon longterm The (Eugene) Register-Guard A mericans employed in the private sector are pretty much on their own when it comes to ¿nancing retirement. Company-paid pensions have all but vanished, and Social Security bene¿ts average 1,341 a month. Unless workers have managed to accumulate a sizable pool of savings, their choices in old age will be to live in poverty or stay on the job. A new program taking shape in Oregon will broaden those choices, and ultimately reduce the burden on public services. The easiest way to save for retirement is through employer- sponsored programs such as 401(k) plans that deposit a portion of each paycheck into an investment account. The deposits are sometimes matched by the employer. Workers who have access to such plans are 14 times more likely to save for retirement than those who do not. But nationwide, 42 percent of full-time private-sector employees between the ages of 18 and 64 have no workplace retirement savings plan. In Oregon, about half have no access to a such a plan. That helps explain why 55 percent of households with a worker between the ages of 55 and 64 have retirement savings of less than 25,000. Unless these people act on their own to set up an Individual Retirement Account or something like it, they’ll face old age without savings. The Oregon Legislature confronted this problem in 2015 by creating the Oregon Retirement Savings Plan, which will begin enrolling workers next July. The plan will be open to all workers whose employers do not offer a plan of their own. It will be administered by the Oregon Retirement Savings Board, with the state treasurer as its chairman. Last week Treasurer Ted Wheeler, who pushed for approval of the plan, announced details of how it will operate. The high points: Enrollment will be automatic — workers will participate unless they choose not to. No employer contribution will be required. The savings rate will be 5 percent, unless workers choose to contribute at a higher or lower rate. The money will go into Roth IRA accounts, which means that contributions are made with after-tax dollars but investment gains and eventual withdrawals are tax-free. Investments will be tailored to the age of the worker, with the objective shifting from growth to preservation of capital as retirement nears, unless the account- holder chooses a different investment objective. Workers who think they can’t afford to save 5 percent of their pay, or who prefer to set up their own savings plans, can opt out of the state program. But automatic enrollment has been shown to double participation in workplace savings plans. And even low-wage workers in a plan with modest investment returns can accumulate a sizeable nest egg over the course of their working lives. A majority of states are considering publicly sponsored retirement savings plans; Oregon is further ahead than all but a few. The social bene¿ts will be broad. Oregon will be a better place for everyone if fewer senior citizens are living in poverty and turning to the government for help with housing, medical and living expenses. Americans are increasingly on their own in preparing for retirement — and programs like Oregon’s will make self-reliance easier. Oregon will be a better place if fewer senior citizens are living in poverty and turning to the government for help with housing, medical and living expenses. OTHER VIEWS Obama’s American idea T here is a line from a conversation a Barry Soetoro, his boyhood name 20 years ago between Barack in Indonesia, can become a Barry Obama and photographer Obama and at last a proud Barack Mariana Cook that offers an important Hussein Obama — the country where, insight into the president: “All my as Obama said in 2004, a “skinny kid life,” he said, “I have been stitching with a funny name” ¿nds his place. together a family, through stories or Yet this America, whose fault memories or friends or ideas.” lines Obama the hybrid stepped There was much to stitch: his across 12 years ago, is perhaps more Roger lost Kenyan father, his Indonesian divided than ever as his presidency Cohen stepfather Lolo Soetoro, his unusual winds down. There was something Comment journey through various names and about Obama’s blackness, his identities, his black paternal side and intellectualism, his cool distillation his white maternal side, his youth in Asia, his of problems that was intolerable to a wide adolescence in Hawaii, his student years in swath of the white working class angered California and New York, and his coming- by lost jobs, lost wars, lost security and lost of-age in Chicago. pride. These Americans have What Barack Obama ended felt left behind. They have up “stitching together” in perceived not outreach from his path to selfhood — the Obama’s White House but unifying idea that became condescension. his core reference — was the More than 2.5 million United States of America. As members of the American he said in his keynote speech armed forces have been at the Democratic National deployed to Afghanistan and Convention in 2004, “In no Iraq over the past 15 years. other country on Earth is my For a signi¿cant number of story even possible.” those 2.5 million families, This was the moment Obama has failed to honor Obama emerged onto the their sacri¿ce because, in his national stage: “There is not prudent realism (a “surge” a black America and a white in Afghanistan with a date America and Latino America certain to end), there is little and Asian America — there’s place for the heroic American the United States of America.” narrative. — Barack Obama, I can still feel the frisson his I think a lot of this fracture words stirred in Boston. At 2004 Democratic was inevitable given the In the dozen years National Convention global economic context, and since, his message has not domestic political and cultural changed. It was evident again realities, within which Obama in Philadelphia last week as he endorsed worked. Still, he could not bridge the divide; Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. He spoke perhaps he sharpened it. of the American values that led his Kansan Michelle also participated in Obama’s grandparents and his wife Michelle’s family 1996 conversation with Cook, part of which to see the children of immigrants as “just as appeared in The New Yorker in 2009, and American as their own, whether they wore a worried that her husband was “too much of a cowboy hat or a yarmulke; a baseball cap or a good guy for the kind of brutality” of politics. hijab.” Obama talked about how Michelle was at Obama was at his most uplifting. Because once “completely familiar” and “a complete he discovered America, pieced it together mystery to me in some ways” and how the after his years overseas, saw it as a newcomer tension between those two feelings “makes for might, understood from experience the space something strong, because, even as you build it affords for personal reinvention, he brings a a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, singular intellectual passion to the American you retain some sense of surprise or wonder idea: a nation of immigrants equal before the about the other person.” law dedicated to the proposition that among America has been governed, for almost their inalienable rights are “life, liberty and the eight years now, by a happy, grounded man pursuit of happiness.” who knows how to love a woman. That has He admonished Donald Trump, the not been the least of Obama’s gifts to the would-be savior: “We don’t look to be nation he stitched together in his personal ruled.” No, Americans are engaged in “self- quest. government.” He was reminding Americans, We were reminded of that gift last week in at a critical moment, of the ¿rst words of the Philadelphia by Obama and Michelle — and Constitution: “We the People.” Of every color, are reminded every day of Trump’s threat to creed, sexuality, race, ethnicity are the people America’s “E pluribus unum — Out of many, composed: That, for Obama, is America’s one.” Trump, whose American journey has strength; it’s what gave him his. led him only to denigration of Khizr and In no other nation is tomorrow so vivid, Ghazala Khan, the Muslim parents of a fallen yesterday so pale. Where you came from American soldier, and to this arid conviction: yields to American rebirth. There is no real Hatred brings a headline. America to take back, as Trump insists, Ŷ because America’s many-hued reality is a Roger Cohen joined The New York Times ceaseless becoming. It is a mosaic in which in 1990. “There is not a black America and a white America and a Latino America and Asian America —there’s the United States of America.” YOUR VIEWS Despite law, little has changed on limiting television noise Of the few things Congress has acted on, even passed a law about that actually might make a daily improvement in quality of life for many Americans, the Commercial Audio Level Mitigation (CALM) Act seems to be among the most wished for by the people. Three years later, there has been no change. Flaunting the rules, broadcasters have found no consequence to ignoring federal legislation. The process of ¿ling a complaint with the FCC is arduous and apparently designed to encourage giving up, not ¿nishing the complaint. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a commercially available TV that had the ability to control the audio level internally, advertised as “smart, very smart.” A TV sound regulator was also available, but it required complex hookup and yielded a dense 60Hz buzz. But the automatic technology has been available for decades, and not expensive, either. What right do big corporations have to ignore federal regulations and why can’t or shouldn’t little guys like you and me get away with Àaunting our own choice regulations" Thomas L. Farney Hermiston 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 newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services 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. Be heard! Comment online at eastoregonian.com and on our Facebook and Twitter sites.
