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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Thursday, November 9, 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 Tip of the hat; kick in the pants A kick in the pants to the continuous stream of bad news and wasted tax dollars emanating from the Oregon Health Authority. The state program has an annual budget of $10 billion per year — and not all that money is going to provide quality health care to Oregonians. The authority is on the hook for $74 million in overpayments to Medicaid providers in three years, problems that may have been caused by technical glitches that kept the organization from verifying eligibility for federal health benefits. And that’s not all: OHA officials also hatched, though failed to carry out, a plan to discredit a Portland- area medical provider with negative stories in the press. That dastardly plan helped bring about a change in management at the agency, which we would argue came none too soon. And all of these mishaps are under the specter of the colossal Cover Oregon failure, where hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars went down the tubes. Understandably, Oregonians have lost much of their trust and faith in the OHA. That’s when political opponents can pounce, and Republicans are. Oregon Secretary of State Dennis Richardson said last week that an audit of the state’s Medicaid program, expected to be complete by early December, will highlight management problems. And you can bet the leading Republican candidate for governor, Knute Buehler, will use the millions of dollars wasted or misused by OHA high up in his talking points Many experts, both partisan and nonpartisan, blame Oregon’s one-party Democratic rule for the OHA’s poor management and refusal to correct or own up to mistakes. The culture of protecting one’s “team” to the detriment of Oregon as a whole must end. A tip of the hat to Oregon State Police for donating old bomb-detecting robots to the Umatilla Robotics Team. The crew of students will get hundreds of hours of education out of them — learning as they dissect, rebuild and operate the machines. And these robots were no longer useful to OSP, as they have since been replaced by newer technologies. So instead of gathering dust in government storage somewhere, the robots will have a positive effect on the lives of area students. That’s the best outcome for outgoing technology, and we appreciate when we see government entities look for ways to help each other. 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 National park fees rising too quickly W Baker City Herald e pine for the halcyon era when America’s national parks were known for the grandiosity of their mountains and cliffs and trees rather than the size of their fee increases. These days, though, you’re more likely to read about how many bills you’ll have to slide from your wallet to enter a national park, not the elevation of Mount Rainier’s summit, or how many feet there are between El Capitan’s base and its top. The latest proposal from the National Park Service is to boost the entrance fee during the busiest five-month period at 17 parks, most of them in the West, from $25 or $30 per vehicle to $70. This comes while the ink is still fresh on the new lifetime passes that people 62 and older can buy to gain admission to national parks and other recreation sites managed by federal agencies. On Aug. 28 the price for those passes rose from $10 to $80. In both cases the purpose is to give the Park Service more money to maintain its visitor centers, trails and other facilities. The agency, which is part of the Department of the Interior, estimates its deferred maintenance tally was $11.3 billion as of September 2016. Our chief complaint about both the lifetime pass price hike and the proposed higher entrance fees is the scale of the increases. Most vacationers, we’d wager, would at most mumble something about “inflation” if they had to pay, say, 5 or 10 bucks more to drive into Yosemite or Grand Canyon or Mount Rainier, which are among the national parks where the entrance fee could jump to $70 next year. But the prospect of shelling out an additional $40 to $45 likely would prompt some people to turn back at the park entrance. Which makes Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s words, which are intended to justify the fee increases, ring hollow. “We need to have a vision to look at the future of our parks and take action in order to ensure that our grandkids’ grandkids will have the same if not better experience than we have today,” Zinke said. “Shoring up our parks’ aging infrastructure will do that.” Trouble is, people who can’t afford or aren’t willing to pay the drastically increased fees won’t have much of an experience at all, since they won’t be seeing anything of the parks except the entrance gates in their rear-view mirrors. We don’t question the need for more money to maintain national parks. But it’s not the public’s fault that that work has been deferred so long that Parks Service officials have concluded it’s necessary to nearly triple entrance fees at some of the more popular parks. We think a series of smaller, annual or every-other-year entrance fee increases is a more reasonable approach, and one that doesn’t unduly punish park visitors. The publicity that the Park Service’s proposal provoked might serve one useful purpose — alerting Americans to the maintenance backlog in some of our more cherished pieces of public land. The prospect of having to pay so much more to visit those places might convince people to lobby their representatives in Congress to allocate more money to the agency. Because if you follow the money, as the saying goes, you’ll find a lot more of it in Washington, D.C., than in the cars and campers of families wanting to see Half Dome or Old Faithful. It’s not the public’s fault that work on our national parks have been deferred so long. OTHER VIEWS The clash of social visions E very tax plan is a social vision The intellectual case for general and a statement of values. corporate tax reform is strong. The social vision embedded Countries across the world have in the House Republican tax plan is been cutting corporate rates. The straightforward: to take money away United States now has the highest from affluent professionals in blue corporate rates in the OECD and states and to pump up corporations as the third-highest rates in the world. the engine for broad economic growth. Cutting those rates would attract Or to put it more bluntly, investment, unlock money trapped David Republicans think the whole country Brooks abroad and increase wages for many would be better off if we take money families. Economists vary widely in Comment away from the Democrats’ rich their estimates, but Larry Kotlikoff people and give it to their own (more of Boston University estimates, on productive) rich people. the high end, that a lower corporate tax rate The plan raises taxes on affluent could increase working-household income by professionals in blue states in several ways. roughly $3,500 annually. First, it caps the mortgage interest deduction None of this is to say that the Republican at loan principal of $500,000 instead of $1 plan is worth supporting. I personally oppose million. According to an it because of the way analysis by Christopher it explodes the deficits. Ingraham at The Washington Second, the level of largesse Post, only about 2.5 percent to corporate shareholders is of Americans are paying frankly ridiculous. It piles off mortgages on homes one corporate tax cut on valued over $500,000. top of another like piling a These are mostly in places chocolate sundae on top of like California, New York, chocolate cake on top of a Boston and Washington, Toblerone bar. D.C. This is not a column Second, the Republican about the workability or plan cuts the deduction advisability of this or that for state and local taxes. plan. This is a column about In 2014, according to the sort of social vision that The Economist, nearly 90 serves as a predicate for that percent of the benefit from plan. this deduction flowed to The Republicans those making more than have a social vision. The $100,000 a year. Once again, this tax hike hits Republican vision is that the corporate sector mostly those in high-tax blue states. is more important to a healthy America than Third, the bill taxes investment income the professional and nonprofit sector. The earned by private universities with at least Republican vision is that companies that 500 students and assets not directly tied to thrive in the red states, like manufacturing educational objectives of more than $100,000 and agriculture, are more important for the per student. It imposes a 20 percent excise tax country than the industries that thrive in blue on nonprofit executives who make more than states, like finance, media, the academy and $1 million. the movies. This is the beginning of the full-bore What, by contrast, is the Democratic Republican assault on the private universities, vision? Are Democrats going to spend the next which are seen as the power centers of blue few months defending the mortgage interest America — rich, money-hoarding institutions deduction and other tax breaks for their own that widen inequality and house radical rich? left-wing ideologies. It could be that economic policy is Fourth, the bill preserves high top marginal becoming tribal just like everything else in our tax rates on individual income and even raises politics. In that world, parties use their time rates in some cases on the very rich. Over in power to nakedly shift the tax code for the the past few decades when Republicans have benefit of their own donors. talked about tax reform, they have generally It would be nice if our tax code wasn’t red talked about sharply cutting the top marginal or blue but distinguished between social goods rate to 25 percent or even 15 percent. But this and social bads. I’d love to see a tax code plan keeps the top rate at 39.6 percent. And that rewarded investment and discouraged then it throws in some peculiarities. As The consumption. That would mean cutting taxes Wall Street Journal noted, under the plan a on earnings but raising revenue through a married couple would face a 45.6 percent top progressive consumption tax. I’d love to rate on earnings between $1.2 million and see a tax code that punished pollution but $1.6 million. encouraged social cohesion. That would mean These changes could leave the rich paying taxing carbon but increasing tax credits for an astonishingly high percentage of their working people and families with children. income in taxes. Scott Sumner of EconLog You may or may not like my vision, but calculates that when you throw in state and it’s more elevated than the visions that are local taxes, rich Californians would face a tax now emerging, which are a dressed-up version rate of 62.7 percent. of the spoils system: more money for my Republicans would take the revenue from political friends and less for my political foes. these tax hikes (and much more) and they ■ would use it to lighten the load borne by David Brooks has been a New York Times corporations. Op-Ed columnist since 2003. The Republic vision is that the corporate sector is more important to a healthy America than the professional and nonprofit sector. 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.
