Page 4A
East Oregonian
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Publisher
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Nickels and dimes
The message to Oregon legislators
pay for PERS. Brown suggested that
from Gov. Kate Brown’s staff last
money could come from Oregonians’
week was that PERS has an immediate
unclaimed property, increased
problem.
collections of debts owed to the state,
Yet the solutions proposed by the
lawsuit settlements, a potential tax
governor are modest at best.
amnesty program, higher-than-usual
capital gains and estate taxes, and other
The problem is the Oregon Public
Employees Retirement
sources. Revenue from
System has too little
Oregon Lottery
“At least we new
money to pay its
games also could help
projected pension
along with
got them to a schools,
benefits. That gap, whose
community colleges
universities, pay for
size ranges from $15
place where and
billion to more than $20
PERS.
billion depending on what
The governor’s
they’re admit- proposed
assumptions are made, is
legislation also
PERS’ unfunded actuarial
ting they have would create — but not
liability. And to fill that
pay for — a matching
gap, schools, cities,
a problem.” fund to encourage
counties and the state are
employers to act faster,
— Sen. Bill Hansell,
spending increasingly
instead of letting their
R-Athena
larger shares of their
current budget needs
budgets on PERS.
overwhelm their eventual
Each PERS employer, of which there PERS obligations. For example, the
state might match 25 cents for every
are about 915, has its own unfunded
dollar paid by a PERS employer. It
liability. School districts generally are
would be up to the 2019 Legislature to
in the worst shape, with their unfunded
fund that matching program.
liability averaging 176 percent of their
Those are good ideas. As state Sen.
payroll.
Brown will ask the 2018 Legislature, Bill Hansell noted, it’s good that the
governor recognizes immediate action is
which convenes Feb. 5, to pull money
needed.
from other sources and put it into
“At least we got them to a place
an account to help school districts
Staff and AP photos
Gov. Kate Brown, left, has said PERS has an immediate problem and suggested a
way the state can address it. State Sen. Bill Hansell, right, said it’s good the gover-
nor is at least talking about the problem.
where they’re admitting they have
a problem,” Hansell told the East
Oregonian Monday.
Still, it’s disappointing that this is all
Brown could come up with from last
year’s blue-ribbon task force on the
PERS unfunded liability. And it’s even
more discouraging that Brown won’t
take up PERS benefits reforms. Not in
this year’s legislative session; maybe
not in next year’s, either.
Brown says she doesn’t want to try
approaches that will be thrown out by
the Oregon Supreme Court. Instead,
she and the Legislature must recognize
their Catch-22: The only way to know
whether further reforms will pass legal
muster is to enact them and have them
tested in court.
Of course, that will require going
toe-to-toe with the unions in an election
year, and we’re not convinced Brown
will do that, either.
Instead of shying from productive
reforms, the governor and legislators
should embrace them with the
knowledge that they dare not count on
the PERS savings until the subsequent
litigation settles.
That would be a more courageous
approach than Brown’s modest PERS
proposals for the 2018 Legislature.
OTHER VIEWS
Trump and the ‘r-word’
D
YOUR VIEWS
Measure 101 represents
larger health care failure
It strikes me as odd how intelligent
people on both sides of an argument auger
themselves so deeply into an issue that,
well, they cannot see the forest for the trees.
Measure 101 is a classic case. It does
not even matter whether you are for or
against it; what should matter is under-
standing that 101 is just using old baling
twine to fix a badly broken cart.
Dr. Hayden, a leading opponent to 101,
in his Oregonian editorial pointed out that
it is not a matter of whether we should pay
to hold Oregon’s Medicaid system together,
but how to pay. He touches on the very root
of the problem, maybe without knowing it.
We have far and away the most expensive
health care in the world with abysmal
health outcomes for the money.
Many proponents of 101 are willing to
throw whatever it costs to attempt to cobble
together the failed health care system in
our country. That is noble, but in the end it
is futile. Our system cannot hold up much
longer under these inefficient patches that
fail to address the real problems both within
the healthcare system and the outside forces
that have driven it to this breaking point.
An editorial in the East Oregonian
called 101 a Band-Aid. Actually, it is a
small Band-Aid being applied to the very
large, soaked bandage: the Affordable Care
Act. It is a failed attempt to staunch the
hemorrhage of money we spend on health
care. Both President Obama and (retired)
Senator Baucus, the author of Obamacare,
said that the two primary goals were to
reduce the exorbitant costs of health care
in this country and to provide access for all
citizens to quality health care. It has failed
at both. Insurance is not health care.
This is why we are arguing over Measure
101. If we, the people, do not hold the feet of
our elected ones to the fire to honestly address
health care in our country, we will face many
more 101s in the future. I’m not talking about
the “anti-fix” Representative Walden and
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.
the elitist Republicans in D.C. proposed, nor
the hollow words of so many Democrats,
including Senator Merkley who also puts
politics ahead of the people of our country.
Measure 101 is proof that we need to
look at, for example, the 34 other countries
of the Organization for Economic Co-op-
eration and Development, all of which
have health care systems that: a) cost less
than our country, b) provide health care to
ALL their citizens, and c) have far better
health outcomes than our country. All these
countries, like our country, are “committed
to democracy and the market economy.”
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the vast
majority of universal health care systems
around the globe work far better than our
very expensive and very broken system. Our
system — driven by corporate insurance as
well as profit-based Big Med and Pharma —
is probably the epitome of a failure of the free
market system. It would take a column this
size just to outline the massive administrative
inefficiencies and redundancies within our
healthcare system that drive costs way up
before you or I can even see our doctor.
It’s time our country implements a
“Medicare For All” type system for all our
citizens, which will achieve the goals of
bringing costs down and improving health
outcomes.
Rick Meis
Halfway
One year in 100 words
Saturday, Jan. 20 marks the one year
anniversary of President Donald Trump’s
inauguration. We’re asking readers to
send a 100-word review of his first year
in office. How has it compared to your
expectations? Has your perception of him
changed after a full year in office? What
do you expect in his second year?
Send your thoughts by email to
editor@eastoregonian.com or to our
office at 211 SE Byers Ave., Pendleton,
OR, 97801. Include your name, city of
residence and a phone number.
onald Trump has been
accountant. “I think that the guy is
obsessed with race the entire
lazy. And it’s probably not his fault,
time that he has been a
because laziness is a trait in blacks.”
public figure.
“I think sometimes a black may
It started in the 1970s and ‘80s,
think they don’t have an advantage
when he was a New York real estate
or this and that,” Trump said on
mogul. His casinos and apartment
television in 1989. “I would love to
buildings had a record of treating
be a well-educated black, because I
black people differently from white
really believe they do have an actual
David
people. In 1989, he inserted himself, Leonhardt advantage.”
for no good reason, into one of New
Trump referred to a Hispanic
Comment
York’s rawest racial controversies,
Miss Universe as “Miss House-
by taking out ads calling for the
keeping.”
execution of (wrongfully accused) suspects
He repeatedly described Barack Obama
in the Central Park jogger rape case.
as unqualified, lazy or un-American: He
More recently, Trump’s political rise
claimed Obama wasn’t born here, was
was built on — and there is no other
“a terrible student,” played golf instead
accurate way to say it — racism. He
of working and “issued a statement for
became a star on the right by promulgating Kwanzaa but failed to issue one for
the lie that the nation’s first black president Christmas.”
was born in Kenya. Trump then launched
Trump explained his Muslim ban was
his presidential campaign with a speech
“no different” from the internment camps
describing Mexicans as rapists. His
for Japanese-Americans during World War
signature proposals were building a wall
II.
to keep out Mexicans and banning all
He said a federal judge hearing a
Muslims, including U.S. citizens abroad,
case about Trump University had “an
from entering the country.
absolute conflict” because the judge was “of
The media often falls back on euphe-
Mexican heritage.”
misms when describing Trump’s comments
Trump frequently casts heavily black
about race: racially loaded, racially
cities as dystopian hellscapes. “Our inner
charged, racially tinged, racially sensitive. I cities, African-Americans, Hispanics are
understand why, too. It’s better to err on the living in hell,” he said.
He is slow to mention terrorism or hate
side of caution with something as explosive
crimes committed by white people, like the
as the r-word.
2017 killing of an Indian man in Kansas.
But here’s the truth: Donald Trump is a
He frequently criticizes prominent
racist.
African-Americans for being unpatriotic,
Yes, some of his individual comments
ungrateful and disrespectful. He referred to
aren’t about only race. (You can favor less
immigration without being a racist.) Yet the one as a “son of a bitch.” He called Puerto
Ricans who criticized his administration’s
full picture is clear as can be.
response to Hurricane Maria “politically
He treats people differently based on
motivated ingrates.”
their race. Specifically, he treats people
He has retweeted white nationalists
who aren’t white worse than people who
without apology. He called some partici-
are. That — as Trump’s ally, Paul Ryan,
pants in a white-supremacist march “very
once said — is the textbook definition of
fine people.” He was reluctant to distance
racism.
himself from David Duke, the former Ku
After Trump’s vulgar insult about
Klux Klan leader. He has tweeted anti-Se-
Haitians last week, I set out to compile a
mitic caricatures and neo-Nazi conspiracy
definitive list of his racist comments, with
theories.
help from colleagues and readers. The full
In a meeting about Pakistan, he
version is online and includes video where
wondered aloud why a Korean-American
available.
I realize that this exercise may feel like a intelligence analyst briefing him was not
particularly depressing way to mark Martin working on North Korea policy.
While speaking with Navajo war
Luther King’s birthday. (For spiritual
veterans, Trump mocked Sen. Elizabeth
cleansing, I recommend taking a little
Warren as “Pocahontas.”
time today to watch one of King’s great
At a 2016 rally, Trump pointed to one
speeches.) But today, of all days, is one to
attendee and said: “Oh, look at my Afri-
recognize who Trump is.
can-American over here. Look at him.”
The president of the United States is
Trump said last year that recent
a racist, in thought and in deed. He is
immigrants from Haiti “all have AIDS”
pursuing policies designed to harm blacks,
and that Nigerians, once seeing the United
Latinos, Arabs and Asian-Americans. The
States, would never “go back to their
country can’t effectively fight back — and
huts.” Last week, Trump vulgarly called
undo the damage — unless we acknowl-
for less immigration from Haiti and more
edge reality.
from Norway. His specific point was that
The most damning evidence is Trump’s
Haitians were inferior to Norwegians.
own words:
■
“Black guys counting my money! I hate
David Leonhardt is an op-ed columnist
it,” Trump once said, according to a former
for The New York Times.
colleague, while complaining about an
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. 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.