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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