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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, October 5, 2016 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Ofice Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW Attorney General race offers a clear choice The East Oregonian editorial board went into our meeting with the two candidates for attorney general open to an alternative. Incumbent Democrat Ellen Rosenblum has done ine work, but journalists are deeply invested in much-needed public records reforms championed by Rosenblum and Governor Kate Brown. Those reforms have yet to be enacted, and many believe they lack the requisite teeth to make Oregon government more transparent. Yet after the meeting, minds were quickly made up: Rosenblum is the only choice for the job. Her opponent, Republican Daniel Crowe, is not ready for a statewide position, and his bluster directed toward Rosenblum was clearly misplaced. He tried to saddle her with mistakes that were made before she even took ofice, and when made aware of that fact, was unable to muster another line of attack. Rosenblum, on the other hand, is a quiet hand in a dificult job, doing her best to avoid the pitfalls that her predecessor John Kroger fell into. Kroger was unable to inish his term, nor get much meaningful legislation passed. Rosenblum considers both the legal and political ramiications and, while that may make her proposals imperfect, it does mean they have a better chance of becoming law. Rosenblum is the clear choice to be re-elected. Read has experience, expertise for treasurer People accuse those running for treasurer of being a boring lot, but perhaps that is what makes a good treasurer. The four people gunning for the seat do lean toward the soft-spoken and programmatic: Democrat Tobias Read, Republican Jeff Gudman, Independent Chris Telfer and Working Families/Progressive Chris Henry. Only Read, Gudman and Telfer have actively campaigned for the seat, and we support Read. Read has the more complete résumé, being one of the longest- serving state representatives (since 2007) who rose to House Speaker pro tempore. He also has worked for the U.S. Treasury and has experience in the private sector, at Nike. Telfer, a current Oregon Lottery commissioner, is the most interesting alternative, who has tossed out ways the state could improve the dangerous and ineficient marijuana banking system. Still, treasurer is not a position where you want to take risks. The growing problem that the next oficeholder will have to face down is PERS, a rising menace to Oregon’s state budget. As treasurer, Read’s planned improvements are small but helpful: modernizing the investment program, hiring state employees to manage investments rather than farming out the job to expensive consultants, and slashing Wall Street fees in the process. It will take an increase in state employees and their compensation packages, but the idea makes sense. If a sizable portion of the state’s budget is dependent on returns from our investment portfolio, then we should have more control over that investment. All in all, Read has the right amount of experience and expertise and we think he would do a serviceable job in a very important position. 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. YOUR VIEWS Oregon East Symphony starts season with brilliance Saturday night at the Vert was a very fun evening. Oregon East Symphony chose as their irst offering of the season “City Girl,” a silent movie from the 1920s. It was shown with an original modern score composed by John Paul. This score enhanced the character motivation and action of the ilm beautifully. The musicians played with their usual brilliance. Keep your eye on future performances with the Oregon East Symphony. Marva Dawley Pendleton Opioid crisis fueled by drug maker lobbyists and special interests Lawmakers get a huge piece of their campaign cash from donors with ties to the prescription painkiller business. As the election approaches, citizens would like to know what local politicians running for ofice have ever accepted donations from pharmaceutical companies who make painkillers and lobbyists groups funded by drug makers. Between 2006 and 2015, the makers of prescription painkillers have spent millions in campaign contributions to help kill or weaken measures aimed at preserving their status quo of aggressive prescribing. This explains when one vet recently broke her hand, she was stunned to be prescribed 180 OxyContin pills. She needed eight. In other words, painkillers are being over-prescribed. Four of every ive heroin addicts began their nightmare being prescribed painkillers, twice as strong, for an injury or surgery. The makers of painkillers are reaping enormous proits from this aggressive prescribing. The drug makers fund lobbyists to delay and defend anytime the painkillers’ addictive nature comes under increasing scrutiny. The Pain Care Forum, a lobbyist group, outs prescription opioids as having a vital role in improving the quality of life for millions. Remember, OxyContin was created for fatal cancer, not broken ankles or carpal tunnel. Oregon ranks third in the U.S. for having the largest portion of its total contributions to politicians come from Pain Care Forum. There have been about 19 lobbyists hired each year for the past decade to represent members of the Pain Care Forum. There have been an average of about 30 lobbyists hired each year for the past decade to represent members of the Pain Care Forum in Washington state. That puts Washington second in the nation for receiving the largest portion of its campaign money from the opioid industry and its allies. Nevada ranked irst. Put another way, if the prescriptions were passed out evenly, two Washingtonians out of every three people in the state would have opioids on hand. While in Oregon, doctors prescribed painkillers at a rate that nearly reached one per person last year. The AP and Center For Public Integrity found out this information in September 2016. Please inform your readers on each candidate’s acceptance of donations from pharmaceutical companies before the election. In 2007, executives at Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, pleaded guilty to misleading the public about the drug’s addictive nature and agreed to $600 million in ines. Since then, it appears the industry has paid large amounts to Oregon and Washington lawmakers. Does this explain why Umatilla County has no medical opiate detox? Also, please support Ryan Lehnert for sheriff. He is up to date on the devastating opioid crisis. Sally Sundin Walla Walla Trump, taxes and citizenship Y ou can be a taxpayer or you can be glow of love of country. It continues with a a citizen. If you’re a taxpayer your sense of sweet gratitude that the founders of role in the country is deined the country, for all their laws, were by your economic and legal status. able to craft a structure of government Your primary identity is individual. that is suppler and more lasting than You’re perfectly within your rights to anything we seem to be able to craft do everything you legally can to look today. after your self-interest. The citizen enjoys a sweet Within this logic, it’s perfectly ine reverence for all the gifts that have for Donald Trump to have potentially been handed down over time, and a generous piety about country that is the paid no income taxes, even over a long David period of time. As Trump and his allies Brooks opposite of arrogance. Out of this sweet parfait of have said, he would have broken no Comment emotions comes a sense of a common law. He would have taken advantage beauty that transcends individual of the deductions just the way the beauty. There’s a sense of how a lovely society rest of us take advantage of the mortgage is supposed to be. This deduction or any other; means that the economic it’s just that he had more desire to save money on deductions to draw upon. taxes competes with a larger As Trump and his desire to be part of a lovely advisers have argued, it world. is normal practice in our In a lovely society we society to pay as little in all pull our fair share. Some taxes as possible. There things the government does are vast industries to help are uncontroversial goods: people do this. There is no protecting us from enemies, wrong here. preserving the health and The problem with the dignity of the old and inirm. taxpayer mentality is that These things have to be paid you end up serving your for, and in the societies we individual interest short admire, everybody helps. term but soiling the nest you In a lovely society need to be happy in over the everybody practices a kind long term. of social hygiene. There A healthy nation isn’t are some things that are just an atomized mass legal but distasteful and of individual economic corrupt. In a lovely society people shun these and legal units. A nation is a web of giving corrupt and corrupting things. The tax code and getting. You give to your job, and your is a breeding ground for corruption, so they employer gives to you. You give to your don’t take advantage. The lottery system neighborhood, and your neighborhood gives to you. You give to your government, and your immiserates the poor so they don’t contribute to its acceptability by playing. government gives to you. In a lovely society everyone feels privilege, If you orient everything around individual but the rich feel a special privilege. They self-interest, you end up ripping the web of know they have been given more than they giving and receiving. deserve, and that it is actually not going to Neighbors can’t trust neighbors. hurt all that much to try to be worthy of what Individuals can’t trust their institutions, and they’ve received. they certainly can’t trust their government. Citizens aren’t just sacriicing out of the Everything that is not explicitly prohibited is nobility of their heart. They serve the common permissible. Everybody winds up suspicious good for their own enrichment, too. If they and defensive and competitive. You wind up practice politics they can learn prudence; alone at 3 a.m. miserably tweeting out at your if they serve in the military they can learn enemies. courage. Public citizenship is the path to And this is exactly the atomized mentality personal growth. that is corroding America. You can say that a billionaire paying no Years ago, David Foster Wallace put it taxes is ine and legal. But you have to adopt gently: “It may sound reactionary, I know. an overall mentality that shuts down a piece of But we can all feel it. We’ve changed the way your heart, and most of your moral sentiments. we think of ourselves as citizens. We don’t That mentality is entirely divorced from think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense the mentality of commonality and citizenship. of being small parts of something larger and That mentality has side effects. They may ininitely more important to which we have lead toward riches, but they lead away from serious responsibilities. We do still think of happiness. ourselves as citizens in the sense of being ■ beneiciaries — we’re actually conscious David Brooks became a New York Times of our rights as American citizens and the nation’s responsibilities to us and ensuring we Op-Ed columnist in September 2003. He has been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, get our share of the American pie.” a contributing editor at Newsweek and the The older citizenship mentality is a Atlantic Monthly, and a commentator on PBS. different mentality. It starts with the warm It is normal practice in our society to pay as little in taxes as possible. There are vast industries to help people do this. There is no wrong here. 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.
