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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 24, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, January 24, 2017 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 State budget looks bleak Oregon’s future looks bleak — at away from some people. PERS least per the Legislature’s budget bills continue to rise for schools and experts. government agencies. Voters added more costs in the ballot measures The Oregon State Police crime lab in Pendleton and the North they approved this fall. Coast Youth Correctional Facility Meanwhile, too many legislators could close. Teachers, counselors expected the budget hole would be and other school employees could filled by Oregonians. They counted lose their jobs; and class sizes could on voters this fall to pass the largest soar. Thousands of low-income corporate tax increase in state Oregonians could lose medical and history. Instead, voters wisely said dental. Justice could move more no. This budget crisis — this fiscal slowly in the state courts. The co-chairs of the Legislature’s fiasco — illustrates why Oregon Ways & Means Committee — needs a more disciplined and long- Democratic Sen. term approach to Richard Devlin of budgeting. “We’re Tualatin and Rep. uniquely good at Oregon will identifying problems Nancy Nathanson have nearly and spending of Eugene — last money to solve week presented $1.3 billion them. We’re not as their state budget more in revenue, vigorous at looking framework for the at efficiencies,” state next two years. but still faces Sen. Betsy Johnson, Unlike Gov. Kate a $1.8 billion D-Scappoose, said. Brown’s proposed The state lacks budget, it would rely shortfall. a guiding set of on existing revenue priorities for which instead of new programs and taxes. But unless services are most important and most the Legislature does raise taxes, cost-effective. So interest groups — Oregonians across the state would receive fewer services. many of them representing worthy causes — fight to make their case That debate — more taxes, cost with lawmakers every two years. efficiencies or both — will frame “The big challenge always is to this year’s legislative session, which provide the services people want begins Feb. 1. The irony is that Oregon will have and expect with the resources they give you,” said Sen. Bill Hansell, nearly $1.3 billion more in revenue to spend during 2017-19 than during R-Athena, who is starting his 35th year as a public official. the current two-year budget period. The budget framework released However, Oregon faces a $1.8 billion shortfall between that revenue Thursday leaves Hansell fighting to preserve the state police forensics and what the state would need to keep agencies, programs and schools lab in Pendleton and to ensure state funding to deal with wolves that prey operating at the same level as today. This gap was not a surprise. Many on livestock. On the other side of the state, lawmakers, especially Republicans, Johnson again is trying to save the had warned that the state budget North Coast Youth Correctional was on an unsustainable path even Facility. And across the state, though Oregon — especially urban legislators and parents are worried Oregon — had emerged from the that the state’s financial roller-coaster Great Recession. will hurt schools. The reasons have long been The Legislature’s No. 1 known. Federal funds that financed a vast expansion of the Oregon Health responsibility is to pass a balanced budget. That will happen. But will it Plan are being cut back, leaving be a responsible, forward-thinking Oregon to either pay a larger share budget? of that insurance or take coverage 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 What is a fair wage for teens? The (Bend) Bulletin L ess than a year ago, Oregon’s Democratic leadership forced a big hike in the state’s minimum wage through the Legislature. Now lawmakers want taxpayers to pick up the tab to address one of its known disadvantages — a disproportionate impact on teen employment. Oregon Senate Bill 290 asks taxpayers to pay part of the wages of young workers. The proposal would allow employers of workers ages 16-25 to claim a credit for a portion of taxes owed to the state, thus lessening the employer’s cost in hiring a younger person. Young people are uniquely disadvantaged by minimum wage laws, because the rules force employers to pay the same minimum wage for a beginner as for an experienced adult. SB 290 would lessen that negative impact, but taxpayers would be picking up at least part of the cost, as much as 3 percent of the wages of a 16-year-old. It’s not a good approach. Oregon already had one of the highest minimum wages in the nation when the 2016 increase was approved. The law created a three-tiered system that recognizes the different costs of living across the state. The disproportionate impact on teens was well-known when lawmakers debated the increase, which Republicans staunchly opposed. Research shows younger workers are severely affected, and that the youngest lose the most. The new proposal was requested by the Senate Interim Committee on Workforce. It gives the biggest boost to hiring the youngest workers, with diminishing benefits after age 18 and again after age 21. Agricultural work in planting, cultivating or harvesting seasonal crops is not included. If approved, the new law would take effect in January 2018, leaving time for the Department of Revenue to write rules and procedures to implement it. Those rules would cost time and money for government to manage and for businesses to understand and satisfy. The bill implicitly acknowledges a critical problem that needs attention. The societal benefits of young people having jobs are many, including income and training, which helps build healthy citizens and healthy communities. A far better approach would be scaling back minimum wage requirements and including provisions for a lower minimum wage for younger workers. LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city and phone number. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. OTHER VIEWS Why 2017 may be the best year ever T here’s a broad consensus that the United States. Their obsession was world is falling apart, with every more desperate: keeping their children headline reminding us that life is alive. And the astonishing thing was getting worse. that those children, despite severe malnutrition, were all alive, because Except that it isn’t. In fact, by some of improvements in aid and health important metrics, 2016 was the best care — reflecting trends that are year in the history of humanity. And grander than any one man. 2017 will probably be better still. Some of the most remarkable How can this be? I’m as appalled Nicholas progress has been over diseases as anyone by the election of Donald Kristof that — thank God! — Americans Trump, the bloodshed in Syria, and so Comment very rarely encounter. Elephantiasis on. But while I fear what Trump will is a horrible, disfiguring, humiliating do to America and the world, and I disease usually caused by a parasite, leading applaud those standing up to him, the Trump a person’s legs to expand hugely until they administration isn’t the most important thing resemble an elephant’s. In men, the disease going on. Here, take my quiz: can make the scrotum swell to grotesque On any given day, the number of people proportions, so that when they walk they worldwide living in extreme poverty: must carry their scrotum on a homemade A.) Rises by 5,000, because of climate wheelbarrow. change, food shortages and Yet some 40 countries are endemic corruption. now on track to eliminate B.) Stays about the same. elephantiasis. When you’ve C.) Drops by 250,000. seen the anguish caused by Polls show that about 9 out elephantiasis — or leprosy, or of 10 Americans believe that Guinea worm, or polio, or river global poverty has worsened blindness, or blinding trachoma or stayed the same. But in fact, — it’s impossible not to feel the correct answer is C. Every giddy at the gains registered day, an average of about a against all of them. quarter-million people worldwide graduate There’s similar progress in empowering from extreme poverty, according to World women and in reducing illiteracy. Until the Bank figures. 1960s, a majority of humans had always Or if you need more of a blast of good been illiterate; now, 85 percent of adults are news, consider this: Just since 1990, more literate. And almost nothing makes more than 100 million children’s lives have been difference in a society than being able to read saved through vaccinations, breast-feeding and write. promotion, diarrhea treatment and more. If Michael Elliott, who died last year after just about the worst thing that can happen is leading the One Campaign, which battles for a parent to lose a child, that’s only half as poverty, used to say that we are living in likely today as in 1990. When I began writing about global poverty an “age of miracles.” He was right, yet the in the early 1980s, more than 40 percent of all progress is still too slow, and a basic question is whether Trump will continue bipartisan humans were living in extreme poverty. Now U.S. efforts to fight global poverty. A four- fewer than 10 percent are. By 2030 it looks page questionnaire from the Trump team to as if just 3 or 4 percent will be. (Extreme the State Department seems to suggest doubts poverty is defined as less than $1.90 per about the value of humanitarian aid. person per day, adjusted for inflation.) One reason for the Trump team’s For nearly all of human history, extreme skepticism may be the belief that global poverty has been the default condition of poverty is hopeless, that nothing makes a our species, and now, on our watch, we are difference. So let’s keep perspective. Yes, pretty much wiping it out. That’s a stunning Trump may cause enormous damage to transformation that I believe is the most important thing happening in the world today America and the world in the coming years, and by all means we should challenge him at — whatever the news from Washington. There will, of course, be continued poverty every turn. But when the headlines make me sick, I soothe myself with the reflection that of a less extreme kind, smaller numbers of there are forces in the world that are larger children will continue to die unnecessarily, than Trump, and that in the long history of and inequality remains immense. Oxfam humanity, this still will likely be the very best calculated this month that just eight rich men year yet. own as much wealth as the poorest half of Remember: The most important thing humanity. happening is not a Trump tweet. What’s Yet global income inequality is actually infinitely more important is that today some declining. While income inequality has 18,000 children who in the past would have increased within the U.S., it has declined on died of simple diseases will survive, about a global level because China and India have 300,000 people will gain electricity and a cool lifted hundreds of millions from poverty. All this may seem distant or irrelevant at a 250,000 will graduate from extreme poverty. ■ time when many Americans are traumatized Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and by Trump’s inauguration. But let me try to cherry farm in Yamhill. Kristof, a columnist reassure you, along with myself. for The New York Times since 2001, writes On a recent trip to Madagascar to report op-ed columns that appear twice a week. He on climate change, I was struck that several won the Pulitzer Prize two times, in 1990 and mothers I interviewed had never heard of 2006. Trump, or of Barack Obama, or even of the Poverty and health are both getting better. YOUR VIEWS Death of the Pendleton Development Commission What exactly is the Pendleton Development Commission and what is its function? We have a PDC advisory committee made up of eight citizen volunteers appointed by the mayor. Then we have the Pendleton Development Commission, which in essence is the city council. Confused yet? Why is there a council, a commission and a committee? It seems this setup was designed to create a sense of confusion within city government. When the city council decided to move the PDC meeting to the same evening as the council meeting, they were also confused, to say the least. They even considered having the meeting in a different room so they wouldn’t be confused about which meeting they were conducting. At the time, I thought about suggesting they just wear two different hats, but wisely held my tongue lest a new committee be proposed to decide the colors and appropriate lettering. As I watched the drama unfold with the Quezada family on the fate of the old city hall, it was apparent that they also seemed confused after meeting both the council and the commission that the two were one and the same. Here’s another shocker: Although city hall contends there is no parking problem, the downtown business sssociation is pressuring the PDC director to put pressure on the city council to force the Pendleton Police Department to enforce the downtown parking ordinance that has been in place for years. I’m sure once the PPD moved to the airport location, downtown parking enforcement dropped off the chief’s priority list altogether. A simple solution: Sell all the surplus unused property the city/PDC owns, purchase the old city hall from the Quezada family, rebuild it with money from the PDC/property sales, and turn it into a police station. The taxpayers get idle property back on the tax rolls, the PD gets a new home in a central location, the downtown business association gets a meter maid that doesn’t require a police cruiser, the Quezada family gets relieved of fines, and the PDC and council combine eliminating the confusion and the need for two hats and a meeting. Everyone wins but the hat company and, of course, the company that makes police cruisers. Rick Rohde Pendleton
