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East Oregonian
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
CHRISTOPHER RUSH
Publisher
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Oregon’s leaders need
long-term strategies
I
n the words of State Economist
Mark McMullen, Oregon’s
economy “is still pretty
hunky-dory.”
The current period of economic
growth is on its way to becoming the
longest on record, with little chance of
a recession within the next year. As a
result, the state is collecting far more in
taxes than previously projected.
But if any legislators and other state
officials are making plans for spending
that extra dough, forget about it. Here
are three reasons:
First, the most obvious is Oregon’s
unique kicker law. It could result in
more than $550 million being returned
to taxpayers as rebates on their 2019
personal income taxes.
The kicker remains popular with
taxpayers, although a strong argument
can be made that voters eventually
should funnel that money into
government rainy-day reserves instead.
Historically, some Oregon recessions
came on the heels of big kicker payouts.
Second, we know good economic
times cannot last forever, which is
why economist McMullen referred to
Oregon being in a “pre-crisis” mode.
It appears the state will enter the
2019-21 budget period with $1.2 billion
to $1.8 billion in reserves, which might
be unprecedented. “However,” says
the Oregon Economic and Revenue
Forecast issued last week, “such
reserves would barely be sufficient to
withstand a typical recession’s impact
on state revenues, let alone account
for the increase in public services and
programs during downturns.”
Third, our state government still
has no overall strategy of economic,
educational, environmental, social
and related goals; or, how financial
decisions — taxing and spending —
AP Photo/Andrew Selsky, File
Dark clouds hover over the Capitol in Salem in January.
can most effectively achieve those
priorities. Instead, the state budgets
incrementally — department by
department, program by program, crisis
by crisis. What is urgent overwhelms
what is most important.
Meanwhile, the global pace of
change intensifies each day. Oregon
lags in affordable housing; an adequate,
timely transportation network; worker
retraining in the face of inevitable
automation; and other areas. Each of
those will have an economic impact,
pro or con.
It’s long past time for the Legislature,
state leadership and the public to
set long-term strategies to ensure
prosperity for the state and its residents.
OTHER VIEWS
The Donald Trump of
Silicon Valley
H
YOUR VIEWS
Better options for country’s
wild horses
The final statement in your editorial
on the wild horse problem hit the nail on
the head. “Clearly, something needs to be
done, because what’s already been done
hasn’t worked.”
I have long advocated that these surplus
animals be slaughtered and the meat be
given to the poor. The Oregon Food Bank
and Farmers Ending Hunger have told me
the meat would be beneficial, but it was
too emotional an issue for them to pursue.
Apparently providing the poor a lean, high
protein food source lacks appeal.
Maybe I should have proposed these
animals be slaughtered and the meat
offered to those who value organic foods.
I know there was a study that found 65
percent of the U.S. population would not
eat horse meat. That implies 35 percent
might. This number is probably greater
than the percentage of the population who
regularly buy organic. Inasmuch as these
animals have received no medications,
additives, etc., they should qualify as
organic. It is a well established fact that
horse meat is nutritionally superior to
beef. In Iceland it is the cheapest meal on
restaurant menus. Also quite tasty. In the
1940s and 1950s horse meat, according to
Time Magazine, was the number one meat
consumed in Portland, Oregon.
At a Fish and Wildlife meeting in
Pendleton in the early 1970s someone in
the audience asked an official what kind
of management plan did they have for the
inevitable overpopulation of horses that
would occur with the passage of the free
roaming horse law. The official said “they
were concerned.” I naively suggested they
issue tags and have a drawing like they
did for other big game. The F&W official
immediately asked the news reporter not
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.
to print that. They didn’t. Maybe the time
has come.
At the end of the day, we need to set
aside our emotions if we want to provide
a thriving environment for sage grouse,
antelope, deer, elk, big horn sheep, native
fish and a healthy horse population. Yes,
I do enjoy seeing these horses, but I don’t
want there to be more than 26,715 horses,
a number range scientists have determined
to provide an appropriate balance.
Carlisle Harrison
Hermiston
McLeod-Skinner ready to
take on Walden
The midterm primary election is over
and we now know who we can support
that will help bring sense to Congress. And
her name is Jamie McLeod-Skinner.
Jamie is a native of the eastern and
southern Oregon region and will bring a
real knowledge of our issues and values
to Congress. She has the experience,
knowledge and common sense to solve the
grave issues currently facing our district,
state and country. She also exhibits the
absolute integrity that Washington is so
lacking in at the present time.
In conversations with Jamie and hearing
her speak, it is apparent that in addition
to her extensive knowledge of Eastern
Oregon issues, she will be a strong voice
for insuring that affordable health care is
available to all Oregonians and she will
work hard to see that the rural and semi-
rural residents of our district will have
livable wage jobs.
These are the issues and Jamie
McLeod-Skinner is the person who will
bring the intelligence, experience and
integrity to congress to do just that job.
Jack Lorts
Fossil
e is prone to unhinged
out whether that can happen (some
Twitter eruptions. He can’t
actually think it can), though the
solution will not come from finding
handle criticism. He scolds
the next John Sculley to discipline
the news media for its purported
Musk’s Steve Jobs. The Apple of
dishonesty and threatens to create
the 1980s was a brilliant idea with
a Sovietlike apparatus to keep
a terrible leader.
tabs on it. He suckers people to
Tesla, by contrast, today is a
fork over cash in exchange for
Bret
terrible idea with a brilliant leader.
promises he hasn’t kept. He’s a
Stephens The terrible idea is that electric
billionaire whose business flirts
Comment
cars are the wave of the future, at
with bankruptcy. He’s sold himself
least for the mass market. Gasoline
as an establishment-crushing
iconoclast when he’s really little more than has advantages in energy density, cost,
infrastructure and transportability that
an unusually accomplished BS artist. His
electricity doesn’t and won’t for decades.
legions of devotees are fanatics and, let’s
The brilliance is Musk’s Trumplike ability
face it, a bit stupid.
to get people to believe in him and his
I speak of Tesla chief executive Elon
Musk, the Donald Trump of Silicon Valley. preposterous promises. Tesla without
Musk would be Oz without the Wizard.
Not long ago, a wise friend with an
Much of the blame for the Tesla fiasco
enviable Wall Street reputation wrote me
goes to government, which, in the name
to describe his astonishment with Tesla,
of green virtue, decided to subsidize the
calling it “a situation unlike anything I
hobbies of millionaires to the tune of a
have ever seen.”
$7,500 federal tax credit per car sold,
“The stock market valuation of a well-
along with additional state-based rebates.
known company is stratospheric,” he said,
Would Tesla be a viable company without
“while at the same its bonds are viewed as
the subsidies? Doubtful. When Hong Kong
junk.”
got rid of subsidies last year, Tesla sales
“Meanwhile,” he added, Musk “plays
fell from 2,939 — to zero. It may be unfair
to his audience with constant tweets of
to describe Tesla as Solyndra on wheels,
claims that go largely, repeatedly and
but only slightly.
visibly unfulfilled. And the SEC, which is
But the Tesla story isn’t just about
supposed to prevent companies like this
the perils of misdirected government-
that raise money from the public on false
led development and clever rent-seeking
pretenses, sits idly by.”
entrepreneurs. And it isn’t about the
Strong words — too strong, if you ask
virtue signaling of those who like their
the satisfied customers of Tesla’s Model
environmentalist bona fides to come with
S (base price, $74,500) and X ($79,500).
vegan-friendly upholstery. It’s about hubris
But Tesla is supposed to be the auto
and credulity — the hubris of the few
manufacturer of the future, not a bauble-
to pretend they know the future and the
maker for the rich.
credulity of the many to follow them there.
The company has rarely turned a profit
Electric vehicles were supposed to
in its nearly 15-year existence. Senior
executives are fleeing like it’s an exploding be the car of the future because we were
running out of oil — until we weren’t.
Pinto, and the company is in an ugly fight
And Musk was supposed to be a visionary
with the National Transportation Safety
because he spoke in visions, for which
Board. It burns through cash at a rate of
there will always be a large receptive
$7,430 a minute, according to Bloomberg.
audience. Casting about for a cause and
It has failed to meet production targets for
a savior to believe in is what too many
its $35,000 Model 3, for which more than
Americans do these days, perhaps as a
400,000 people have put down $1,000
result of casting off the causes and saviors
deposits, and on which the company’s
we used to believe in.
fortunes largely rest.
Trump long ago figured out that truth
Also, the car is a lemon. Like the old
Borscht Belt joke, the food is lousy and the is whatever he thinks he can get away
with, a cynical kind of wisdom he rode all
portions are so small.
the way to the White House and whose
So much, then, for Elon Musk solving
consequences we live with every day.
climate change or everything else he
With Musk the consequences are hardly
has promised to do, like building cities
as serious, but the essential pattern is the
on Mars or (much more preposterously)
same. Maybe he’ll next try to sell us on a
solving LA traffic. At this point, it would
time machine and promise rides to anyone
be enough for Musk to save his company
and the jobs of its 37,000 or so employees. willing to make a $10,000 deposit. Tesla
could surely use the cash.
For them and their families, saving the
■
world first requires that Musk turn a profit
Bret Stephens won a Pulitzer Prize for
on his existing business, not spin tales
commentary in 2013. He began working as
about his future ones.
a columnist at The New York Times in April.
I’ll leave it to market analysts to figure
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