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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
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letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
or email editor@eastoregonian.com.