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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 15, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Wednesday, March 15, 2017 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 You can’t save daylight Last weekend we “sprang more sunlight?” he wrote. We’re the ones being fooled, and forward,” swapping an hour of after decades of expanding Daylight rest for an hour of evening light. Saving Time, the tide of the public The precise details of that magical transaction, however, are still fuzzy is turning against the practice. Bills have been put forth in more than a to our sleep-deprived brains. It’s the beginning of Daylight dozen state legislatures ordering their respective states to no longer follow Saving Time, a human manipulation Daylight Saving Time, or push back of the clocks and, in 2017, an the changeover until outmoded and later in the year. unnecessary action. Human (Until 2005, the If you, too, have spring forward used been unreasonably biochemistry to take place in late tired the last few changes naturally April but it has been days, you can moving probably blame it on with the seasons steadily forward until, this the changeover. A little history: year, when it went and we don’t effect in early The first organized need to artificially into effort to tamper March.) with time to give In reality, we manipulate time to people a little more should do away enjoy summer or with it completely. daylight was in 1908 in Canada. It made Human biochemistry survive winter. its way to the U.S. a changes naturally few years later, was with the seasons embraced in some of our bigger cities and we don’t need to artificially and taken national in 1942. Tinkering manipulate time to enjoy summer or survive winter. continues to this day. The goal at its inception was And there’s good news: If you partly to conserve energy, but experts like your daylight, you can keep your are split if it has any effect at all, and daylight. The same amount exists some argue it actually has a negative regardless of what your watch says. So beyond the minor effect. This includes the fact that inconvenience of changing each there are more automobile deaths in of the clocks in your life twice a the days after springing forward. Pop science’s favorite spokesman, year and being robbed of a precious Neil deGrasse Tyson, summarized weekend hour each spring (only to be the silliness of DST on Sunday on his repaid — without interest — in the Twitter feed: fall), keeping a routine just because “What would aliens say if told that it’s a routine is silly. Earthlings shift clocks by an hour to And we wouldn’t want aliens fool themselves into thinking there’s laughing at us. 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 Repeal health bill forgets the rural elderly As a psychologist who came frequently to Pendleton, I saw many people whose lives were seriously disrupted by lack of health care. The Affordable Care Act gave many such people hope. Greg Walden is central in crafting the proposed health insurance bill in the House that will radically change the ACA. This bill will have a serious effect on many of his constituents. In 2016 over 29,000 people in this congressional district received their health care through the ACA Marketplace, and 105,000 people received health care through expanded Medicaid. For many of these people, insurance will not be available under Walden’s bill. The most extreme instances are frightening. According to Kaiser Family Foundation data, a 64-year-old living on $25,000 income a year in Pendleton will pay almost $8,100 more each year in insurance premiums than they do now under the ACA. This bill has tax cuts, but no one making less than $100,000 will see a penny of this money. Those who benefit the most are millionaires, who will get an average of $54,130 in tax cuts a year. Obamacare needs to be fixed. But this plan will hurt too many of the people who Greg Walden represents, especially those who are most vulnerable. Representative Walden, please don’t forget these people. Dr. Carol Greenough Tualatin Limited facilities shortchanging Hermiston students I am writing to encourage a yes vote on the upcoming school bond election in May. Hermiston is the largest and fastest growing city in Eastern Oregon. A recent population study by Portland State University forecasts that the Hermiston School District will continue to increase its student population by a total of 800 students by 2023, a short seven years from now. In my opinion, that prediction is a modest estimate given the greater than expected growth in student enrollment over the last ten years. (It is my under- standing that student enrollment has exceeded the estimated student popula- tion growth by this same university over the last ten years.) Our elementary schools are over- crowded now and the district is using modular buildings to make room for our current students. By replacing Rocky Heights and Highland Hills Elementary Schools and building an additional elementary school, the needs of serving our elementary students can be met. Plus, an addition to the high school will add needed additional classrooms for our older students. If this bond measure is not passed, our children will still need someplace to go to school if we do not build and remodel. An additional 56 modular classrooms would be needed to make room for these students. The money to purchase or lease these modular class- rooms will come from funds intended for the education of these students, thereby shortchanging our students’ education. I feel the Hermiston community looks forward to growth and is willing to shoulder the challenges that come with that growth. It is said that good schools make for good communities. Please join me in voting for the Hermiston School Bond so we can give our community and our kids the schools they deserve. The original Obamacare lie ou hear it from Republicans, When Barack Obama ran for pundits and even some president, he faced a choice. He could Democrats. It’s often said in continue moving the party to the a tone of regret: I wish Obama had center or tack back to the left. The done health reform in a bipartisan second option would have focused on way, rather than jamming through a government programs, like expanding partisan bill. Medicare to start at age 55. But The lament seems to have the Obama and his team thought a plan ring of truth, given that not a single that mixed government and markets David Republican in Congress voted Leonardt — farther to the right of Clinton’s — for Obamacare. Yet it is false — could cover millions of people and Comment demonstrably so. had a realistic chance of passing. That it’s nonetheless stuck They embarked on a bipartisan helps explain how the Republicans have approach. They borrowed from Mitt landed in such a mess on health care. The Romney’s plan in Massachusetts, gave a big Congressional Budget Office released a role to a bipartisan Senate working group, jaw-dropping report Monday estimating incorporated conservative ideas and won that the Republican health plan would take initial support from some Republicans. The insurance from 24 million people, many of bill also won over groups that had long them Republican voters, and raise medical blocked reform, like the American Medical costs for others. The bill Association. effectively rescinds benefits But congressional Lying can be Republicans ultimately for the elderly, poor, sick and middle class, and funnels the decided that opposing any bill, an effective money to the rich, via tax cuts. regardless of its substance, The AARP doesn’t like the political tactic. was in their political interest. bill, nor do groups representing The consultant Frank Luntz Believing your wrote an influential memo in doctors, nurses, hospitals, the disabled and people with advising Republicans to own alternative 2009 cancer, diabetes and multiple talk positively about “reform” sclerosis. Other than that, Mrs. also opposing actual facts, however, while Lincoln, it’s a great bill. solutions. McConnell, the If Republicans still pass is usually not so Senate leader, persuaded his it, they will take political colleagues that they could smart. ownership of the flawed U.S. make Obama look bad by health care system — after denying him bipartisan cover. making it much more flawed. Sen. Tom At that point, Obama faced a second Cotton, R-Ark., has said the bill is so bad that choice — between forging ahead with a it would “put the House majority at risk next substantively bipartisan bill and forgetting year.” On the other hand, if Republicans fail about covering the uninsured. The kumbaya to pass their own bill, they’ll look weak and plan for which pundits now wax nostalgic incompetent, which is also not a good look to was not an option. voters. The reason is simple enough: Obamacare How did the party’s leaders put themselves is the bipartisan version of health reform. in this position? The short answer is that they It accomplishes a liberal end through began believing their own hype and set out to conservative means and is much closer to the solve a problem that doesn’t exist. plan conservatives favored a few decades ago Obamacare obviously has flaws. Most than the one liberals did. “It was the ultimate important, some of its insurance markets troll,” as Michael Anne Kyle of Harvard — created to sell coverage to the uninsured Business School put it, “for Obama to pass — aren’t functioning well enough. Alas, Paul Republican health reform.” Ryan, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump Today’s Republican Party has moved so are not trying to fix that problem. They’re far to the right that it no longer supports any trying to fix a fictional one: saving America plan that covers the uninsured. Of course, from a partisan, socialistic big-government Republican leaders are not willing to say as takeover of health care. much, because they know how unpopular that To understand why that description position is. Having run out of political ground, is wrong, it helps to recall some history. Ryan, McConnell and Trump have had to Democratic attempts to cover the uninsured invent the notion of a socialistic Obamacare stretch back almost a century. But opposition that they will repeal and replace with ... to universal government-provided insurance something great! This morning they were also was always too strong. Even Lyndon Johnson, left to pretend that the Budget Office report with big congressional majorities, could pass was something less than a disaster. programs only for the elderly and the poor — Their approach to Obamacare has worked over intense opposition that equated Medicare quite nicely for them, until now. Lying can with the death of capitalism. be an effective political tactic. Believing your So Democrats slowly moved their own alternative facts, however, is usually not proposals to the right, relying more on private so smart. insurance rather than government programs. ■ As they shifted, though, Republicans shifted David Leonardt is the managing editor of even farther right. Bill Clinton’s plan was The Upshot, an arm of the New York Times, quite moderate but still couldn’t pass. and an op-ed columnist for the paper. Y Bonnie Luisi, school board member, Hermiston Taxes are expensive! The East Oregonian reported March 9 that the Hermiston school property taxes were $4.09 per $1,000. That may be true for the basic tax, but the various school taxes are very close to 50 percent of the total property tax. I have a modest home valued at about $150,000. My tax payment last year was $2,804.24, with the various school taxes (including bond issues) at $1,363.35 or 49 percent of the total tax. Enough is enough! Vote no on more taxes. Jim Tiede Hermiston 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. Be heard! Comment online at www.eastoregonian.com
