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OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, August 6, 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
A farewell to
old fair grounds
It’s the most Umatilla time of the
And successful, popular ones, too.
year.
Umatilla County is host of the
The county fair kicks off today
ifth-most visited fair in Oregon,
with a parade, and on Tuesday with
despite being just the 14th-most
events and activities at the Umatilla
populated county. It means we show
County Fair Grounds in Hermiston.
up and celebrate our county, and the
Some events have already started
fair board puts on a show that keeps
and inished — the
people coming back.
Umatilla County
And we haven’t
Umatilla is
Fair has grown just
gussied it up like
too big to it in a
in Western Oregon,
the 14th-most
calendar week.
where county fairs
populated county have morphed
And it will
soon be too big for
food festivals
in Oregon, but into
the old location
and beer gardens
has the ifth-most and carnivals of
in downtown
Hermiston. Some
a more urban,
visited fair.
would argue it has
interchangeable
been for years.
sort. This is still
Although 2016
your classic fair:
was intended to be the irst year
agriculture, livestock and craft-
at the new Eastern Oregon Trade
centric. And it’s all kid-centric, too.
and Event Center, that project
It’s a place the whole family can
has been constantly beset with
have fun attending, and can ind
mismanagement, missed deadlines
something to compete in as well.
and cost overruns. Next year’s rodeo
Hopefully your submissions are
is in serious doubt.
in, your cows and pigs are fat and
But we can worry about next
your horses are well-groomed. It’s
year’s fair next year.
county fair time, for the last time in
This is one inal show at the
downtown Hermiston. And this time
downtown Hermiston location,
we mean it.
which has hosted fairs for decades.
Enjoy.
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
Corporate tax a tax on everything
The Bend Bulletin
M
easure 97 is a bad idea, but
there’s clever marketing behind
it. The most recent is a study
produced by Our Oregon and the Oregon
Consumer League that reaches a lawed
conclusion.
Let’s review. Measure 97 is on
the November ballot. Our Oregon
helped get it there. The measure would
create a 2.5 percent tax on the sales of
C-corporations exceeding $25 million,
which does not include The Bulletin. It
would raise some $3 billion in taxes per
year.
Raising corporate taxes can be
popular. It’s not like a straightforward
tax on Oregonians that would be felt
directly, such as a sales tax, an income
tax or a property tax. It’s a tax on big,
impersonal corporations. It’s a sneaky
tax. The impact of the corporate tax
doesn’t show up on a sales receipt. It’s
largely invisible. But who pays?
Corporations are made of people.
There are the owners, the managers
and the employees. When taxes go
up, proits go down and there is less
money for the owners, managers and
employees. It may not mean people lose
jobs, though that could happen. It could
very well mean that new people are not
hired, new equipment is not purchased,
or existing employees don’t get raises
or improvements in beneits. The
corporation could also raise the prices on
the goods it sells, passing the cost to the
consumer.
Our Oregon paid Portland State
economists to do a study of the impacts
of Measure 97. Guess what the study
said? The tax could increase prices to
consumers. The Legislative Revenue
Ofice, a nonpartisan state agency, was
less equivocal. It estimated that the
increase would be about $600 more a
year in taxes per Oregonian.
That’s bad news for the supporters of
Measure 97. Our Oregon and the Oregon
Consumer League tried put a better spin
on it. They looked at prices of goods
sold by national chains in different
states. Their study points out that the
prices are remarkably similar, despite
the differences in tax policy in different
states.
“Our study shows that, despite what
corporations may say, an increase in
state corporate taxes will not translate
into higher prices for common,
consumer goods,” the report concludes.
“Measure 97 affects national companies,
and national companies use national
pricing.”
That’s a lawed conclusion. You can’t
take $3 billion in taxes and not expect a
price will be paid.
First of all, Measure 97 does not only
affect national companies. It will affect
C-Corporations in Oregon with sales of
$25 million or more.
Second and more importantly, some
national companies may have national
pricing strategies. That doesn’t mean
that their national or Oregon prices
would not be lower if their tax burden
were lower or that prices won’t increase
if Measure 97 passes.
And don’t forget all of Measure
97’s other laws — some pointed out
by the study that Our Oregon paid for
and others by the Legislative Revenue
Ofice’s analysis.
Measure 97 socks it to the poor. It’s
going to have a regressive impact on
consumers, meaning it is going to hit
the poor the hardest. It could tax some
goods over and over again as they move
through the production process. It forces
businesses to pay whether or not they are
making a proit.
Measure 97 is so rich in faults it
deserves to fail.
OTHER VIEWS
Trump’s enablers will
inally have to take a stand
U
p through the convention there
impossible for him to make empathetic
were all sorts of Republican
connection. Fear is his only bond.
oficeholders who weren’t
Some people compare Trump to
really for Trump, but they weren’t
the great authoritarians of history, but
really against him. They sort of
that’s wrong. They were generally
endorsed him implicitly, while trying
disciplined men with grandiose
to change the subject.
plans. Trump is underdeveloped and
Their bodies squirmed when they
unregulated.
were asked about their nominee. They
He is a slave to his own pride,
David
refused to look you straight in the eye.
compelled
by a childlike impulse to
Brooks
They made little apologetic comments
lash out at anything that threatens his
Comment
so you would still like them even
fragile identity. He appears to have no
though they were doing this shameful
ability to experience reverence, which
thing.
is the foundation for any capacity to admire
They had all sorts of squirrelly
or serve anything bigger than self, to want to
formulations about why it was OK to ride the
learn about anything beyond self, to want to
Trump train: He can be tamed or surrounded
know and deeply honor the people around
and improved. Sure, he’s got some real
you.
weaknesses, but he’s more or less a normal
Republicans are not going to be able to
candidate who is at least better than Hillary.
help the 70-year-old man-child grow up over
Over the past few days,
the next few months. Nor
Trump has destroyed
are they going to be able to
this middle ground. He’s
get him to withdraw from
exposed the wet noodle
the race. A guy who can
Republicans as suckers, or
raise $82 million mostly
worse. Trump has shown
in small donations has a
that he is not a normal
passionate niche following.
candidate. He is a political
But they can at least get
rampage charging ever more
out of the enabling business.
wildly out of control. And
First, they can acknowledge
no, he cannot be changed.
that they are being
He cannot be
sucked down a nihilistic
contained because he is
whirlpool. Second, they can
psychologically off the
acknowledge the long-term
chain. With each passing
damage being done to the
week he displays the classic
country and to themselves.
symptoms of medium-grade
Amid the chaos, all sorts
mania in more disturbing
of ugliness is surfacing.
forms: inlated self-esteem,
See the video of the horriic
sleeplessness, impulsivity,
things shouted at Trump
aggression and a compulsion to offer advice
rallies compiled by Times reporters. Moreover,
on subjects he knows nothing about.
Trump is permanently tainting the names of
His speech patterns are like something
conservatism and the Republican Party and
straight out of a psychiatric textbook. Manics
the many good men and women who have
display something called “light of ideas.”
built and served it. As Ben Shapiro writes in
It’s a formal thought disorder in which ideas
National Review, “Trump asks something
tumble forth through a disordered chain of
more — your political soul.”
associations. One word sparks another, which
Events are going to force Republicans
sparks another, and they’re off to the races. As off the fence. For the past many months
one trained psychiatrist said to me, compare
Republican leaders have been condemning
Donald Trump’s speaking patterns to a Robin
Trump’s acts while sticking with Trump the
Williams monologue, but with insults instead
man. Trump is making that position ridiculous
of jokes.
and shameful. You either stand with a man
Trump insults Paul Ryan, undermines
whose very essence is an insult to basic
NATO and raises the specter of nuclear war.
decency, or you don’t.
Advisers can’t control Trump’s brain because
Those who don’t will have to start building
Trump can’t control it himself.
a Republican Party in Exile. They will have
He also cannot be contained because he
to tell the country what they honestly think
lacks the inner equipment that makes decent
of Donald Trump. They will have to build a
behavior possible. So many of our daily social parallel campaign structure that will survive if
interactions depend on a basic capacity for
Trump implodes, a structure of congressional
empathy. But Trump displays an absence of
and local candidates. They will have to
this quality.
jointly propose a clear manifesto — ive or 10
He looks at the grieving mother of a war
policies the party in exile ardently supports.
hero and is unable to recognize her pain.
There comes a time when neutrality and
He hears a crying baby and is unable to
laying low become dishonorable. If you’re not
recognize the infant’s emotion or the mother’s in revolt, you’re in cahoots. When this period
discomfort. He is told of women being
and your name are mentioned, decades hence,
sexually harassed at Fox News and is unable
your grandkids will look away in shame.
to recognize their trauma.
■
The same blindness that makes him
David Brooks became a New York Times
impervious to global outrage makes it
Op-Ed columnist in September 2003.
Over the past
few days,
Trump has
destroyed the
middle group.
He’s exposed
the wet noodle
Republicans
as suckers, or
worse.
YOUR VIEWS
Round-Up Court should
look like ‘real women’
I was born in Pendleton and lived
there throughout my childhood and I still
read the local news at times, especially
during the Round-Up season.
I am dismayed that professional
pictures of the queen and her court have
become so “photoshopped” over the past
few seasons. They resemble actors in the
“Stepford Wives” movie!
Please don’t do that to them; let their
individuality show — freckles, smiles,
short and/or curly hair show, uneven
teeth, if accurate, dimples, light/darker
skin, etc.
TV has enough “Botoxed beauties”
on screen for everyone to see. Look
at the daily female anchors — they all
look the same, same hair style and color
(blonde and long!).
I know the Pendleton real cowgirls
aren’t Botoxed, but their expressions
have been “scrubbed” to look like
that. Bring back our real women, as I
remember them.
Judi Carlisle, San Diego, Calif.
LETTERS POLICY
The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and
policies for publication. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the
city of residence and a daytime phone number. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave.
Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.