Page 4A
East Oregonian
Friday, January 12, 2018
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
Tip of the hat,
kick in the pants
■ As we prepare for the beginning
of the Legislature, we tip our hat to
one priority that Gov. Kate Brown
hopes to accomplish during the short
session.
That priority is affordable housing.
Her proposal to allow the state to
temporarily waive fees and education
requirements — in favor of on the job
training experience — for construction
professionals to obtain supervisory
licenses makes sense. We especially
appreciate the idea of instituting
low-cost Business Oregon loans that
would allow subcontractors to work on
affordable buildings in rural Oregon.
■ Yet we can’t help but offer a kick
in the pants to her initial plans for
tackling PERS this sessions, which
look like nothing more than kicking that
clunky can farther down the road.
As we have reported, the state is
facing an unfunded liability of about $25
billion. Yet Brown’s proposal is to create
a fund to encourage public employers
to save money for their employees’
retirement costs.
For doing so, the state would
contribute about 25 cents for every
dollar saved. Yet, it’s unclear what
effect this would have on the unfunded
liability, and once again doesn’t
decrease the amount that taxpayers are
contributing to the retirement plans of
public employees (which caused this
whole mess in the first place.)
We need serious reforms and a real
plan. Every year we don’t get them, the
problem gets worse.
■ We give a tip of the hat
to Department of Interior
Secretary Ryan Zinke’s plan for a
reorganization of the Department
of Interior, which is much too
Washington-centric for a department
that deals almost exclusively with
Western lands.
We haven’t been pleased with much
of Zinke’s actions as Interior secretary,
not least of which was incorrectly
rigging his fishing rod when headed out
for his “regular guy” photo op. His more
impactful mistakes include a shockingly
destructive and almost universally
unwanted offshore drilling plan, and
File photo EO Media Group
Gov. Kate Brown
his recommendation to reduce the size
of national monuments across the West
goes against a century of tradition. His
gigantic increase in admission fees for
national parks seems similarly foolish.
But we think his plan for
reorganization is smart, and can help
reduce the anger behind rural Westerners
and the federal bureaucracy that owns
much of the land that surrounds them.
According to national reporting,
Zinke plans to shift tens of thousands
of workers to new locations in the west.
The department has 70,000 employees
nationwide.
This is a bipartisan issue — many
Western Republicans and Democrats
favor moving the Bureau of Land
Management headquarters to the region,
perhaps to Denver or Albuquerque
where many Interior folks are already.
While the devil is always in the
details, we believe getting more Interior
employees out of the Beltway into the
country to which they serve is a crucial
step toward improving outcomes.
OTHER VIEWS
Trump’s threat to democracy
T
YOUR VIEWS
Sen. Ron Wyden is in the
pocket of Big Sugar
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is in
the pocket of the nation’s beet and cane
sugar cartels. Wyden continually votes to
maintain the U.S. sugar program. Why? It
is really quite simple: Sen. Wyden received
well over $72,000 in political donations
from the sugar cartels since coming to
Washington in 1981.
Thanks to Sen. Wyden and others, the
U.S. sugar program continues. The sugar
program is a Soviet-style command and
control scheme that restricts planting and
imports. This inflates the price of sugar
in the United States to almost double
the world price. So, when you go to the
store to buy a snack cake or anything
sweetened, you pay more. According to the
Congressional Budget Office, the program
means Americans pay $3.5 billion every
year in increased grocery costs, which
breaks down to upwards of $50 per family.
In Sen. Wyden’s 36 years in office,
he repeatedly voted against sugar
reform, costing each Oregon family an
additional $1,800 for groceries. You
have to ask yourself, is my senator really
fighting to make life better, or is he just
another politician in it for the campaign
contributions? It’s time for Senator Wyden
to step up and end this costly government
giveaway to the cartels.
The Independent Bakers’ Association is
an international trade association that fights
to protect the interests of mostly family-
owned wholesale bakers and allied trades.
Nicholas A. Pyle, president
Independent Bakers’ Association
Washington, D.C.
Measure 101 just another tax
from Legislature that spends
Tax, tax, tax — our Democratic
controlled state legislature recently voted to
push another tax on the people of Oregon.
This insidious tax measure is disguised
as an assessment by the drafters of this
measure. But calling this tax an assessment
is like putting lipstick on a pig, hoping to
fool the Oregon voters into thinking their
eating beef.
It is a tax on you, the taxpayer — a
tax on our health care insurance, state
health care organizations, school medical
insurance, college student insurance, small
business, nonprofits and our hospitals.
But, of course, it exempts big
corporations, unions and insurance
companies and, of course, the state
Legislature from this tax. It is a tax on
our health care system for you and me,
exempting the elite. Make no mistake, the
costs incurred by business will be passed on
to you.
The sneaky Democrats moved the
election to January when everybody is still
recovering from the holidays, hoping for
a low voter turnout. Tell these Democrat
politicians “no” and take back our health
care system.
It’s too bad they couldn’t use that gas
tax they passed to subsidize the alcohol
producers, or the bike tax, or maybe the
vehicle registration tax to prop up Medicaid
for illegals. I’ve been waiting for the
Democrat-controlled legislature to start
taxing toilet paper — that’s about the only
thing they haven’t tried putting a tax on.
Chuck Chase
Baker City
Quick takes
Donald Trump’s disgraceful comments prove that he does not even know what
makes America great
— @RonWyden
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the
East Oregonian editorial board. Other
columns, letters and cartoons on this page
express the opinions of the authors and
not necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
wo political scientists
the intelligence community, the
specializing in how
news media, the opposition party
democracies decay and die
and Congress. But to his great
have compiled four warning signs
frustration, American institutions
to determine if a political leader is a
have mostly passed the stress test
dangerous authoritarian:
with flying colors.
1. The leader shows only a weak
“President Trump followed
commitment to democratic rules.
the electoral authoritarian script
2. He or she denies the legitimacy
Nicholas during his first year,” Levitsky and
of opponents. 3. He or she tolerates
Kristof Ziblatt conclude. “He made efforts
violence. 4. He or she shows some
to capture the referees, sideline the
Comment
willingness to curb civil liberties or
key players who might halt him,
the media.
and tilt the playing field. But the
“A politician who meets even one of
president has talked more than he has acted,
these criteria is cause for concern,” Steven
and his most notorious threats have not
Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both professors been realized. … Little actual backsliding
at Harvard, write in their important new
occurred in 2017.”
book, “How Democracies Die,” which will
That seems right to me: The system
be released next week.
worked.
“With the exception of Richard Nixon,
And yet.
no major-party presidential candidate met
For all my confidence that our
even one of these four criteria over the last
institutions will trump Trump, the chipping
century,” they say, which sounds reassuring. away at the integrity of our institutions and
Unfortunately, they have one update:
norms does worry me. Levitsky and Ziblatt
“Donald Trump met them all.”
warn of the unraveling of democratic norms
We tend to assume that the threat to
— norms such as treating the other side as
democracies comes from coups or violent
rivals rather than as enemies, condemning
revolutions, but the authors say that in
violence and bigotry, and so on. This
modern times, democracies are more likely
unraveling was underway long before
to wither at the hands of insiders who gain
Trump (Newt Gingrich nudged it along in
power initially through elections. That’s
the 1990s), but Trump accelerated it.
It matters when Trump denounces the
what happened, to one degree or another, in
“deep state Justice Department,” calls
Russia, the Philippines, Turkey, Venezuela,
Ecuador, Hungary, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka,
Hillary Clinton a “criminal” and urges “jail”
Ukraine, Poland and Peru.
for Huma Abedin, denounces journalists as
Venezuela was a relatively prosperous
the “enemy of the American people” and
democracy, for example, when the populist
promises to pay the legal fees of supporters
demagogue Hugo Chávez tapped the
who “beat the crap” out of protesters. With
frustrations of ordinary citizens to be
such bombast, Trump is beating the crap out
elected president in 1998.
of American norms.
A survey that year found that the
I asked the authors how we citizens
Venezuela public overwhelmingly
can most effectively resist an authoritarian
believed that “democracy is always the
president. The answer, they said, is not for
best form of government,” with only
Trump opponents to demonize the other
one-quarter saying that authoritarianism is
side or to adopt scorched-earth tactics, for
sometimes preferable. Yet against their will, this can result in “a death spiral in which
Venezuelans slid into autocracy.
rule-breaking becomes pandemic.” It’s
“This is how democracies now die,”
also not terribly effective, as we’ve seen in
Levitsky and Ziblatt write. “Democratic
Venezuela.
backsliding today begins at the ballot box.”
Rather, they suggested protesting
Likewise, the authors say, no more than
vigorously — but above all, in defense of
2 percent of Germans or Italians joined
rights and institutions, not just against the
the Nazi or Fascist parties before they
ruler. They emphasized that it’s critical to
gained power, and early on there doesn’t
build coalitions, even if that means making
seem to have been clear majority support
painful compromises, so that protests are
for authoritarianism in either Germany or
very broadly based.
Italy. But both Hitler and Mussolini were
“If these actions are limited to blue-state
shrewd demagogues who benefited from
progressives, the risk of failure and/or
the blindness of political insiders who
deeper polarization is very high,” Levitsky
accommodated them.
told me in an interview. “Extraordinary
Let me say right here that I don’t for a
measures are sometimes necessary to
moment think the United States will follow
defend democracy, but they should rest on
the path of Venezuela, Germany or Italy.
extraordinary coalitions — coalitions that
Yes, I do see in Trump these authoritarian
include business leaders, religious leaders
tendencies — plus a troubling fondness
and crucially, as many conservatives and
for other authoritarians, like Vladimir
Republicans as possible.”
Putin in Russia and Rodrigo Duterte in
■
Nicholas Kristof grew up on a sheep and
the Philippines — but I’m confident our
cherry farm in Yamhill. Kristof, a columnist
institutions are stronger than Trump.
for The New York Times since 2001, writes
It’s true that he has tried to undermine
op-ed columns that appear twice a week.
institutions and referees of our political
He won the Pulitzer Prize two times, in
system: judges, the Justice Department,
1990 and 2006.
law enforcement agencies like the FBI,
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