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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useful to OSP, as they have since been
replaced by newer technologies.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.