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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 13, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, December 13, 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 Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW Others step in where governor is silent Addressing Oregon’s annual Leadership Summit a year ago, Gov. Kate Brown made no mention of the biggest financial crisis facing state government: PERS, the underfunded, bloated retirement system for public employees. Nada. Zilch. A year later and a month after being elected governor in her own right, Brown spoke again to 1,200 leaders from business, government and academia gathered in Portland. She mentioned PERS once. She used the rest of her seven-minute speech to lecture Oregon’s business community about its responsibilities to the state. Gov. Brown continues to proclaim that the courts have left her no constitutional options for reducing the pension program’s $22 billion deficit. That’s nonsense, of course. State Sens. Betsy Johnson and Tim Knopp have put forth several ideas, most of which passed scrutiny from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Counsel. Now, another state leader has weighed in. Katy Durant served for 11 years on the Oregon Investment Council, a panel of citizens that sets investment policy for the state’s $69 billion public trust fund portfolio, which includes PERS, the Common School Fund and the State Accident Insurance Fund. Durant retired from the board last week, but not before she offered a warning and a list of sensible solutions to the PERS crisis. According to The Oregonian, Durant wrote Gov. Brown, challenging her to show “bold leadership” on PERS. Without that, Durant wrote: “This house of cards will quickly collapse, leaving Oregon in a fiscal crisis.” “Failure to act quickly and decisively will result in a severe imbalance” between the pension fund’s growing liability and the state’s ability to meet it, Durant wrote. She then offered several proposals. Among them: • Increase the full retirement age for public employees from 58 to 67 to match Social Security. • Move elected officials out of PERS and into a 401(k) type system to eliminate the conflict of interest in voting for their own benefits. • Reduce the assumed rate of return on fund investments to a more realistic level. • Require public employees to contribute to their pension plan. • Make annual debt payments of about $1 billion. Durant’s proposals — along with those by Johnson and Knopp — deserve thorough consideration by the governor and lawmakers. These reforms would help ensure the long-term sustainability of PERS and allow our schools and local governments to better address current needs. Doing nothing — Gov. Brown’s default position on this matter and too many others — is unacceptable and would amount to an abdication of her responsibility as our state’s chief executive. 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. Culture Corner I f the presidential election caught you by surprise, you owe it to yourself to try to understand. Stereotyping a wide swath of our country isn’t helpful. And cable television and social media lack the depth and humanity to find true knowledge. Personal stories and honest conversation is the most helpful way. And J.D. Vance’s memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” is the most enlightening approach available today. Published earlier this year and without a mention of Donald Trump, the current bestseller does an excellent job of shedding a light on the voters in the Rust Belt states that flipped the last election. Vance, a Kentucky hillbilly transplanted to an Ohio steel town, is the son of a drug-addicted mother and the product of a long line of lawbreakers and troublemakers. Still, generation by generation their livelihoods improved. Along the way, family, faith and community provided supports. Yet now poor whites feel worse about their future than any other demographic in the country. They disliked Obama immensely (he represented a path forward that didn’t include them) and they voted for Trump in droves. Vance rose above his station, became a Marine and served in Iraq, returned home and graduated from Yale Law School. He is a staunch conservative — Peter Thiel blurbed the book — yet he is no partisan. He faults people who have failed to better themselves, yet blame the government for their problems. He writes of hillbillies: “We can’t trust the evening news. We can’t trust our politicians. Our universities, the gateway to a better life, are rigged against us. We can’t get jobs. You can’t believe these things and participate meaningfully in society.” He faults government, too, for trying to help poor people without really understanding them. The outreach, in Vance’s eyes, does more hurt than help. This memoir is the opposite. There is plenty of sadness and anger in its pages, but those emotions are overwhelmed by a murky truth that would do us good to try to understand. ■ Tim Trainor is opinion page editor of the East Oregonian. The tainted election T he CIA, according to The of interest are unprecedented, and quite Washington Post, has now possibly unconstitutional — intends to determined that hackers working move U.S. policy radically away from for the Russian government worked to the preferences of most Americans, tilt the 2016 election to Donald Trump. including a pronounced pro-Russian This has actually been obvious for shift in foreign policy. months, but the agency was reluctant to In other words, nothing that state that conclusion before the election happened on Election Day or is out of fear that it would be seen as happening now is normal. Democratic Paul taking a political role. Krugman norms have been and continue to be Meanwhile, the FBI went public 10 violated, and anyone who refuses to Comment days before the election, dominating acknowledge this reality is, in effect, headlines and TV coverage across the complicit in the degradation of our country with a letter strongly implying that it republic. This president will have a lot of legal might be about to find damning new evidence authority, which must be respected. But beyond against Hillary Clinton — when it turned out, that, nothing: he doesn’t deserve deference, he literally, to have found nothing at all. doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. Did the combination of Russian and FBI And when, as you know will happen, the intervention swing the election? Yes. Clinton administration begins treating criticism as lost three states — Michigan, Wisconsin, and unpatriotic, the answer should be: You have Pennsylvania — by less to be kidding. Trump is, by than a percentage point, and all indications, the Siberian The victor was Florida by only slightly more. candidate, installed with If she had won any three of the help of and remarkably rejected by the those states, she would be deferential to a hostile foreign president-elect. Is there any power. And his critics are the public, and won reasonable doubt that Putin/ people who lack patriotism? the electoral college Comey made the difference? Will acknowledging And it wouldn’t have the taint on the incoming only thanks to been seen as a marginal administration do any foreign intervention good? Maybe it will stir the victory, either. Even as it was, Clinton received almost consciences of at least a few and grotesquely 3 million more votes than Republicans. Remember, her opponent, giving her a inappropriate, par- many, though not all, of the popular margin close to that things Trump will try to do tisan behavior on can be blocked by just three of George W. Bush in 2004. So this was a tainted senators. the part of domestic Republican election. It was not, as far Politics being what it as we can tell, stolen in the law enforcement. is, moral backbones on sense that votes were counted Capitol Hill will be stiffened wrong, and the result won’t if there are clear signs that be overturned. But the result was nonetheless the public is outraged by what is happening. illegitimate in important ways; the victor was And there will be a chance to make that rejected by the public, and won the electoral outrage felt directly in two years — not just in college only thanks to foreign intervention and congressional elections, but in votes that will grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior on determine control of many state governments. the part of domestic law enforcement. Now, outrage over the tainted election The question now is what to do with that past can’t be the whole of opposition politics. horrifying knowledge in the months and years It will also be crucial to maintain the heat ahead. over actual policies. Everything we’ve seen One could, I suppose, appeal to the so far says that Trump is going to utterly president-elect to act as a healer, to conduct betray the interests of the white working- himself in a way that respects the majority class voters who were his most enthusiastic of Americans who voted against him and the supporters, stripping them of health care and fragility of his electoral college victory. Yeah, retirement security, and this betrayal should be right. What we’re actually getting are wild highlighted. claims that millions of people voted illegally, But we ought to be able to look both false assertions of a landslide, and denigration forward and back, to criticize both the way of the intelligence agencies. Trump gained power and the way he uses it. Another course of action, which you’ll see Personally, I’m still figuring out how to keep many in the news media taking, is to normalize my anger simmering — letting it boil over the incoming administration, basically to won’t do any good, but it shouldn’t be allowed pretend that everything is OK. This might — to cool. This election was an outrage, and we might — be justified if there were any prospect should never forget it. of responsible, restrained behavior on the part ■ of the next president. In reality, however, it’s Paul Krugman joined The New York Times clear that Trump — whose personal conflicts in 1999 as an Op-Ed columnist. CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES U.S. Senators Governor Ron Wyden Kate Brown Washington office: 221 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg. Washington, DC 20510 202-224-5244 La Grande office: 541-962-7691 Senator Jeff Merkley Bill Hansell, District 29 Washington office: 313 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 202-224-3753 Pendleton office: 541-278-1129 160 State Capitol 900 Court Street Salem, OR 97301-4047 503-378-4582 900 Court St. NE, S-423 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1729 Sen.BillHansell@state.or.us Representatives Greg Barreto, District 58 U.S. Representative Greg Walden Washington office: 185 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 202-225-6730 La Grande office: 541-624-2400 900 Court St. NE, H-38 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1458 Rep.GregBarreto@state.or.us Greg Smith, District 57 900 Court St. NE, H-482 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1457 Rep.GregSmith@state.or.us 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.
