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OPINION
East Oregonian
Saturday, November 19, 2016
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 Office Manager
MIKE JENSEN
Production Manager
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OUR VIEW
Salvaging a state budget
First the bad news: Oregon faces
a roughly $1.7 billion deficit in the
next biennium.
Now the worse news: The state’s
only plan to fill that budgetary
hole — Measure 97 — went down
in flames in November. There was
no back-up plan for the poorly
designed, unpopular measure that
this newspaper and many others
agreed wouldn’t be healthy for the
state.
Both parties will head to the next
legislative session knowing they
face the difficult job of balancing a
remarkably off-kilter budget.
Cuts must be made. Jobs and
programs will be lost. Public health
care will get worse and our already
moribund education system will
suffer. With a new administration set
to take over the White House next
year, there will be no help coming
from Washington, D.C.,: Much if not
all of Obamacare will be struck from
the books and Medicare as we know
it will likely end.
Education, where the Measure 97
money was ostensibly going to be
directed, will be hit the hardest. And
schools in this state can’t take much
more of a beating. Our graduation
rate — a key indicator of future
success — is among the lowest in
the country, and the path out isn’t
through cutting programs. But there
will be no other choice.
Believe us, we’d love to find
some good news for you if we could.
But state tax rates aren’t going to go
down because of cuts to supposedly
non-essential state outlays. And
PERS payments, the courts have
ruled, cannot be touched. For now it
must be labeled an essential outlay.
This belt-tightening comes at a
bad time for the state, which had
only recently got back to many
pre-recession levels.
Governor Kate Brown, who
supported Measure 97, has admitted
“there will be some very tough
budget choices to make.”
As so many leaders are tested,
so too will Brown in her attempt
to guide the state through this
difficult stretch. Can she bring the
corporate community to the table for
a compromise? Can she do the same
with Republicans for a legislative
solution, perhaps being forced to
give up something she values, like
the Clean Fuels Standard?
In editorial meetings before
the last election, representatives
of Oregon’s anti-M97 business
community said they would be
happy to sit down with their
opposition and with the state were
the measure to fail.
They spent millions of dollars,
fighting tooth and nail to defeat
the measure, which they could not
abide. But they did say something
less extreme could prove palatable,
and could be something the Oregon
business community could get
behind.
We hold them to their word
on at least coming to the table.
Governor Brown should facilitate
that discussion, and look for ways
to address the budget deficit without
resorting to the heavy hammer of the
ballot measure.
The legislature should take
up the challenge, too. It must get
serious and look for bipartisan ways
to address the budget that don’t
undermine good recent investments.
Perhaps another “grand bargain”
will be struck next session — one
that stands up to legal scrutiny and
helps keep Oregon’s budget at a
manageable level.
Perhaps, but probably not. In the
next months and years, Americans
and Oregonians are going to have to
think long and hard about what they
care about. Cuts are likely — which
ones help and which ones only
exacerbate current problems?
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
Loud EOTEC construction
disturbing residents
I live on Airport Road just outside of
Hermiston city limits. While the Eastern
Oregon Trade & Event Center has been
viewed as a forward step for the future
of Hermiston and Eastern Oregon, it has
become an albatross for the Airport Road
residents.
There are more than 20 homes
with more than 40 residents who have
had to endure excessive noise, traffic,
construction and related dust.
I have been in contact with multiple
city and county officials and none have
offered a reasonable solution. Most
recently I received a tough luck response
from the EOTEC board when I met with
them after the meeting on Nov. 18.
Essentially EOTEC is operating
with no noise regulation and they are
taking advantage. My complaint with
the city/county dispatch involved an
incident where a low frequency boom
could be heard loudly inside my home
a quarter of a mile away — noise that
was so loud that it continued to wake my
six-month-old child up until midnight.
Another incident involved my neighbor,
who called three times in one night about
a low frequency boom that lasted until
3 a.m.
It seems some EOTEC members and
supporters have a tough luck attitude.
I just want to make sure that our
community knows the other side of this
story.
On the city of Hermiston’s website,
one of the reasons they claimed they
were moving the Umatilla County Fair to
EOTEC was because the city could not
resolve many of the noise issues related
to the fair. So essentially they have
moved a more persistent noise problem
into the Airport Road neighborhood,
especially since they are attempting to
hold events every weekend.
EOTEC is a joint corporation formed
by the city of Hermiston and Umatilla
County. It appears that they have no
intention on regulating themselves
anytime soon.
Chris Waine
Hermiston
Hard to make sense of
Murdock’s tirade
Mr. Murdock: Thanks to the East
Oregonian, in which you were once
heavily involved, and to the right
provided every citizen by the U.S.
Constitution, I have this opportunity to
respond to your recent op-ed. Please help
me understand what you wrote.
One, as an elected official after the
extremely bitter campaign just ended,
wouldn’t it be your responsibility to
reach across the divide to help unite and
heal, rather than gloat?
Two, part of the division you
complained about, that rural Oregon
voted for the candidate who won the
Electoral College and urban Oregon
voted for the candidate who won the
popular vote by nearly a million votes,
isn’t that a gap you ought to help both
sides understand, and work together, not
bitterly decry?
Three, leaders are usually elected
who have positive goals to forward their
communities. You, sir, seem to have
dismal regard for our great state in which
we both have the privilege to live.
“Backwater” is a negative term,
which I guess is what you meant to
convey, a picture of stagnation and
decline. The term does not belong in the
same sentence with Oregon. Or have you
not looked around the county you serve?
Commissioner Murdock, you hold
one of the three most powerful offices
in local government. May I respectfully
suggest that you give up your crabby
swagger and offer us common voters a
vision for a better Oregon and a better
Umatilla County?
OTHER VIEWS
The danger of a single identity
O
ver the past few days we’ve
argued, this mentality makes the
seen what happens when
world more flammable. Crude tribal
you assign someone a single
dividing lines inevitably arouse
identity. Pollsters assumed that most
a besieged, victimized us/them
Latinos would vote only as Latinos,
mentality. This mentality assumes
and therefore against Donald Trump.
that the relations between groups are
But a surprising percentage voted for
zero sum and antagonistic. People
him.
with this mentality tolerate dishonesty,
Pollsters assumed women would
misogyny and terrorism on their own
David
vote primarily as women, and go
Brooks side because all morality lays down
for Hillary Clinton. But a surprising
before the tribal imperative.
Comment
number voted against her. They
The only way out of this mess is
assumed African-Americans would
to continually remind ourselves that
vote along straight Democratic lines, but a
each human is a conglomeration of identities:
surprising number left the top line of the ballot ethnic, racial, professional, geographic,
blank.
religious and so on. Even each identity itself
The pollsters reduced complex individuals
is not one thing but a tradition of debate about
to a single identity, and are now embarrassed.
the meaning of that identity. Furthermore,
But pollsters are not the only people guilty
the dignity of each person is not found in the
of reductionist solitarism.
racial or ethnic category
This mode of thinking
that each has inherited, but
is one of the biggest
in the moral commitments
problems facing this
that each individual has
country today.
chosen and lived out.
Trump spent the entire
Getting out of this mess
campaign reducing people
also means accepting the
to one identity and then
limits of social science.
generalizing. Muslims are
The judgments of actual
only one thing, and they
voters are better captured
are dangerous. Mexicans
in the narratives of
are only one thing, and
journalism and historical
that is alien. When Trump
analysis than in the
talked about African-Americans he always
brutalizing correlations of big data.
talked about inner-city poverty, as if that
Rebinding the nation means finding shared
was the sum total of the black experience in
identities, not just contrasting ones. If we
America.
want to improve race relations, it’s not enough
Bigots turn multidimensional human
to have a conversation about race. We also
beings into one-dimensional creatures.
have to emphasize identities people have
Anti-Semites define Jewishness in a certain
in common across the color line. If you can
crude miniaturizing way. Racists define both
engage different people together as Marines
blackness and whiteness in just that manner.
or teachers, then you will have built an
Populists dehumanize complex people into the empathetic relationship, and people can learn
moronic categories of “the people” and “the
one another’s racial experiences naturally.
elites.”
Finally, we have to revive the American
But it’s not only racists who reduce
identity. For much of the 20th century,
people to a single identity. These days it’s the
America had a rough consensus about the
anti-racists, too. To raise money and mobilize
American idea. Historians congregated around
people, advocates play up ethnic categories to
a common narrative. People put great stock in
an extreme degree.
civic rituals like the pledge. But that consensus
Large parts of popular culture — and pretty is now in tatters, stretched by globalization,
much all of stand-up comedy — consist of
increasing diversity as well as failures of civic
reducing people to one or another identity and education.
then making jokes about that generalization.
Now many Americans don’t recognize
The people who worry about cultural
one another or their country. The line I heard
appropriation reduce people to an ethnic
most on election night was, “This is not my
category and argue that those outside can
America.” We will have to construct a new
never understand it. A single identity walls off national idea that binds and embraces all our
empathy and the imagination.
particular identities.
We’re even seeing a wave of voluntary
The good news is that there wasn’t mass
reductionism. People feel besieged, or they’re
violence last week. That could have happened
intellectually lazy, so they reduce themselves
amid a civic clash this ugly and passionate.
to one category. Being an evangelical used
That’s a sign that for all the fear and anger
to mean practicing a certain form of faith.
of this season, there’s still mutual attachment
But “evangelical” has gone from being an
among us, something to build on.
adjective to a noun, a simplistic tribal identity
But there has to be a rejection of single-
that commands Republican affiliation.
identity thinking and a continual embrace of
Unfortunately, if you reduce complex
the reality that each of us is a mansion with
individuals to one thing you’ll go through life
many rooms.
clueless about the world around you. People’s
■
classifications now shape how they see the
David Brooks became a New York Times
world.
Op-Ed columnist in 2003. He is currently a
Plus, as philosopher Amartya Sen has
commentator on PBS.
Bigots turn
multidimensional
human beings into
one-dimensional
creatures.
Don Reese
Echo
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.