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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 10, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, August 10, 2016 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Neither Trump nor Clinton offer Plan B on TPP Hillary Clinton and Donald came out against the pact. Trump has always been Trump are running for president. against TPP, calling it “terrible Their expressed positions on for America.” Though China issues, and the positions of their respective party platforms, are easily isn’t a party to TPP, Trump says it gives China opportunities to distinguishable. get in “through the back door.” Except for trade, where there’s As governor of Indiana and a not much difference between congressman before that, Mike Republican or Democrat standard Pence, Trump’s running mate, has bearers. If farmers and ranchers long supported multi-nation trade were to decide on this issue alone, deals — including they would have a TPP. He too hard time picking the candidate who Eighty percent of underwent a best represents their the wheat grown post-convention conversion. interests. There have been Trade is the in the Northwest many trade deals lifeblood of is bound for over the years. Some agriculture in them good, some the Northwest Asian markets. of of them bad. Even and California. Without access in the best, someone Everything from the United States apples to nuts is to those markets, in loses as other of dependent on trade. producers are their countrymen Eighty percent of win. the wheat grown inished. And it is thus in the Northwest with the TPP. In is bound for Asian granting access to markets. Without its market to our farmers, Vietnam access to those markets, producers will expect more favorable terms for are inished. its manufactured goods here. What Both sides are for trade — fair country would make a deal in which trade. And by that they mean trade it received nothing in exchange for that doesn’t cheat middle class its concessions? Americans out of good-paying Without TPP, what’s Plan B? jobs. Democrats are also concerned Both Clinton and Trump say they’ll with foreign labor standards reopen the negotiations on TPP and and environmental regulation. other pacts and get a better deal for Republicans want our partners America. Maybe, but those kinds to respect American intellectual property and stop manipulating their of negotiations take time, In the meantime, some of our toughest currencies. competitors could get a toehold in By those standards, they all say, many previous deals have been very some of our best markets in Asia. Supporters of TPP, including bad. And the recently submitted President Obama, are still pushing Trans-Paciic Partnership — a for a vote on the deal — perhaps 12-nation, 6,000-page behemoth awaiting a vote in Congress — could after the election and before the inauguration, when everyone will be be the worst. Clinton once called TPP the “gold protected from the voters. That’s a little sleazy. But, better standard” of trade deals, but last fall to have a deal in hand for the next after the deal was written Clinton president to tweak than allow said it didn’t meet her standard. our competitors months — and Sen. Tim Kaine, her running mate, potentially years — to exploit was for it as recently as a week our lack of favored standing with before being nominated for the vice established customers. president slot, when he promptly 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 Governor Brown’s union ties cloud judgment on economic issues The (La Grande) Observer D iscouraging. That is the most apt word to describe Gov. Kate Brown’s announcement Thursday she supports a ballot measure designed to tax irms in Oregon that generate more than $25 million a year. The initiative is now known collectively as IP 28 but when it reaches the ballot for voter consideration in November it will be dubbed Measure 97. The rationale behind Measure 97 is a simple one and also one that casts a wide populist net. The measure will change the current minimum tax on C-corporations in Oregon. The plan would levy a 2.5 percent tax on corporations that generate sales in excess of $25 million a year. Advocates of the proposal assert — among a host of things — a kind of self-styled populist rhetoric whereby only huge, out-of-state owned irms will be forced to pay. After all, the theory goes, these megalithic irms are out-of- state intruders anyway, and they don’t pay enough to begin with. So let’s tax them and make them pay their fair share. Sounds like a pretty good populist argument. The only problem with this theory is that it fails to take into consideration several important factors that have nothing to do with rhetoric but are actually based on reality. First, supporters of the measure contend that the money accumulated by it will be directed toward education, health care and senior services. Again, that sounds pretty good. Yet, again, that isn’t necessarily true because the Legislature could rework the law to spend the money somewhere else. Unless the governor has somehow forgotten that we live in a democracy, what the Legislature does or does not do is something she has no control over. The very way the tax initiative is being sold should also be troubling to legislators and those who actually believe in the three-tiered American system — legislative, judicial and executive branches — as a viable method. That’s because this tax hike — conigured to hit big business — isn’t going through a legislative vetting process. It isn’t going to face debate in the House or the Senate. Most troubling, though, is that the proposed tax boost most likely will not be a hit big irms will simply shrug off. Nope, they will either leave the state, lay off workers or — and this is more likely — pass the extra costs onto consumers. That is, you and me. Plus, in an economically struggling area such as Eastern Oregon, such a measure will simply be one more reason for a large corporation to go somewhere else. Brown made a bad judgment on this one. It is a discouraging move and unfortunately shows that the governor may regard her ties to public unions as more important than the future economic health of the state. The way the tax initiative is being sold should be troubling to legislators. OTHER VIEWS The great afluence fallacy I suffer depression by as much as n 18th-century America, colonial eight times the rate as people in poor society and Native American countries. society sat side by side. The former There might be a Great Afluence was buddingly commercial; the latter Fallacy going on — we want privacy was communal and tribal. As time in individual instances, but often this went by, the settlers from Europe makes life generally worse. noticed something: No Indians were Every generation faces the defecting to join colonial society, but many whites were defecting to live in challenge of how to reconcile freedom David the Native American one. Brooks and community — “On the Road” This struck them as strange. versus “It’s a Wonderful Life.” But Comment Colonial society was richer and more I’m not sure any generation has faced advanced. And yet people were voting it as acutely as millennials. with their feet the other way. In the great American tradition, millennials The colonials occasionally tried to would like to have their cake and eat it, too. A welcome Native American children into their few years ago, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis midst, but they couldn’t persuade them to stay. came out with a song called “Can’t Hold Us,” Benjamin Franklin observed the phenomenon which contained the couplet: “We came here in 1753, writing, “When an Indian child has to live life like nobody was watching/I got been brought up among us, my city right behind me, if taught our language and I fall, they got me.” In the habituated to our customs, irst line they want complete yet if he goes to see his autonomy; in the second, relations and make one complete community. Indian ramble with them, But, of course, you there is no persuading him can’t really have both in ever to return.” pure form. If millennials During the wars with the are heading anywhere, it Indians, many European seems to be in the direction settlers were taken prisoner of community. Politically, and held within Indian millennials have been drawn tribes. After a while, they to the class solidarity of the had plenty of chances to Bernie Sanders campaign. escape and return, and yet Hillary Clinton — secretive they did not. In fact, when and a wall-builder — is the they were “rescued,” they quintessence of boomer led and hid from their rescuers. autonomy. She has trouble with younger Sometimes the Indians tried to forcibly voters. return the colonials in a prisoner swap, and Professionally, millennials are famous for still the colonials refused to go. In one case, bringing their whole self to work: turning the the Shawanese Indians were compelled to ofice into a source of friendships, meaning tie up some European women in order to and social occasions. ship them back. After they were returned, the I’m meeting more millennials who embrace women escaped the colonial towns and ran the mentality expressed in the book “The back to the Indians. Abundant Community,” by John McKnight Even as late as 1782, the pattern was still and Peter Block. The authors are notably going strong. Hector de Crèvecoeur wrote, hostile to consumerism. “Thousands of Europeans are Indians, and They are anti-institutional and anti-systems. we have no examples of even one of those “Our institutions can offer only service aborigines having from choice become — not care — for care is the freely given European.” commitment from the heart of one to another,” I irst read about this history several months they write. ago in Sebastian Junger’s excellent book Millennials are oriented around “Tribe.” It has haunted me since. It raises the neighborhood hospitality, rather than national possibility that our culture is built on some identity or the borderless digital world. “A fundamental error about what makes people neighborhood is the place where you live and happy and fulilled. sleep.” How many of your physical neighbors The native cultures were more communal. know your name? As Junger writes, “They would have practiced Maybe we’re on the cusp of some great extremely close and involved child care. And cracking. Instead of just paying lip service to they would have done almost everything in the community while living for autonomy, I get company of others. They would have almost the sense a lot of people are actually about never been alone.” to make the break and immerse themselves If Colonial culture was relatively atomized, in demanding local community movements. imagine American culture of today. As we’ve It wouldn’t surprise me if the big change in gotten richer, we’ve used wealth to buy the coming decades were this: an end to the space: bigger homes, bigger yards, separate apotheosis of freedom; more people making bedrooms, private cars, autonomous lifestyles. the modern equivalent of the Native American Each individual choice makes sense, but the leap. overall atomizing trajectory sometimes seems ■ to backire. According to the World Health David Brooks became a New York Times Organization, people in wealthy countries Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. No Indians were defecting to join colonial society, but many whites were defecting to live in the Native American one. YOUR VIEWS EOTEC project should be praised, not criticized In its Saturday editorial, the East Oregonian editors lament this will be the last Umatilla County Fair held at the old fairgrounds in the middle of Hermiston. Although acknowledging the fair is too big for its downtown location, the editors then excoriate EOTEC for “mismanagement, missed deadlines and cost overruns.” As usual, the EO editors sadly miss the mark. Rather than damning EOTEC, they should praise it, Umatilla County and the city of Hermiston for their vision, guts and hard work to provide a new home for the fair and rodeo and a new events center. While there have been delays and money shortages, that is to be expected with a project of this scope and complexity. They are going where no one has gone before. It’s dificult and there are no road maps. To build the facility, EOTEC has assembled $16 million for the build — largely state and federal money and private donations. In fact they raised almost $2 million in private money in the four months immediately after a long East Oregonian editorial dissing EOTEC and ridiculed its fundraising effort as begging for charity. Apparently no one heeded the editorial. The editors conveniently overlook the county study that found it would have taken $8 million of basic infrastructure improvements to keep the fair at its present location — money the county did not have and that, if expended, would have still left us with decrepit, unsafe and code-violating buildings, no parking and no room. And if you question the need for improvements to the existing fair infrastructure, you should go to the fairgrounds early in the morning this week. Each day a sewage pumper truck arrives to pump the sewage lines under the fairgrounds. They don’t drain. While we will all miss the old fairgrounds and the memories, its time has passed, and we are fortunate for the vision and work of the EOTEC board, Umatilla County and the city of Hermiston to move the fair and build EOTEC. Shame on the East Oregonian editors for not once acknowledging or praising these visionaries or their efforts. Not once in six years. George Anderson Hermiston LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in print 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. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
