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A4 Opinion wallowa.com March 22, 2017 Wallowa County Chieftain Take message on taxes to heart To fight O regon voters place a top priority on K-12 public schools but don’t really trust the state to tax and Voice of the Chieftain spend wisely on education, new opinion polling indicates. As our nation and world Our Capital Bureau reported become more complex and earlier this week on a poll demanding, any sense that commissioned by the Oregon schools aren’t fulfilling their School Boards Association. All vital mission is certain to polls, especially those sponsored provoke anxiety. While more by entities with a vested interest money is rarely, if ever, a in their findings, must be viewed complete solution to any with intelligent skepticism. But problem, Oregonians are the new poll results ring true. strongly inclined to bolster According to the poll, 60 school funding. Ninety- percent of the public believes three percent of voters say any new tax money should be it’s important to fund K-12 earmarked for state education education. Nearly two-thirds and should be combined with would support boosting taxes spending cuts elsewhere. on corporations if the proceeds Ironically, this mirrors what were certain to go to schools. the business community itself But the state just has indicated it would support. overwhelmingly rejected new Legislators need to take this to corporate taxes in the form of heart. Ballot Measure 97. This was Oregonians are big believers despite the objective fact that in public schools. You don’t companies contribute less need a poll to know this. Time to state coffers than voters spent in any Oregon community commonly believe — less or neighborhood is a revealing than 6 percent of general fund lesson in how schools are revenue, by the Oregon School fundamentally bound up in our Boards Association’s reckoning, lives and our sense of who we while citizens believe the are as a people. We’re united number is around 36 percent. around the idea that schools In rejecting Measure 97, impart essential knowledge and voters didn’t trust that new social skills, partnering with revenue would be well spent families in preparing children and feared the taxes would be for lives every parent hopes passed on to us in the form of will be financially rewarding, higher prices. And as a matter of intellectually gratifying and fact, Oregon firms already pay a emotionally fulfilling. lot of taxes — an effective rate Anxiety of 7.6 percent, third highest in EDITORIAL the far West. Budget gap Faced this year with a $1.6 billion gap between revenue and expenses, legislators are struggling to find enough money for all the state’s priorities, including more for schools. A majority of the public may say they support targeted cuts coupled with some tax fix, but the devil is very much in the details. The Tax Foundation on Monday released its latest analysis of fiscal burdens in the 50 states and Washington, D.C. It found Oregon ranks 10th in state and local tax burden as a percentage of state income. It has the sixth-highest individual income tax collections per person in the country, $1,814 compared to the U.S. average of $967. On the other hand, it is smack in the middle in terms of state and local property taxes — 25th, with average collections of $1,350, less than the national average of $1,462. It’s worth adding that the Tax Foundation gives Oregon good marks for its current business tax climate, rating it 10th best in the country. So it’s fair to say Oregonians aren’t undertaxed, an understanding reflected in the continuing strong rejection of a general sales tax, even if it went to education, according to the poll. But it’s also fair to observe that a state’s citizens get what they pay for. Some of lowest-tax states on the Tax Foundation’s 2017 index — Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama — aren’t models of civic success. Difficult choices So what should we do in Oregon? Clearly, some very difficult choices will need to be made. Most Oregonians want to protect and enhance public education, but will have to recognize that doing so will force undesirable cuts elsewhere. Elected leaders and state agencies have to embrace the same conclusion, that it is time to zealously root out wasteful spending, while circling the wagons around schools and a few other paramount priorities. On the tax front, the new polling suggests considerable support for dedicating 2 percent of income tax kicker funds to K-12 education — particularly a rainy day fund to see schools past budget crises like the one they currently face. Beyond this, a business tax hike with strict links to education might just stand a chance. Voters feel they have been burned too many times. State leaders must commit to governing in accordance with the wise words of that favorite primary school role model, Dr. Seuss’ Horton: “I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.” Promise only what you can reasonably achieve, tax only enough to achieve it, and then rigorously keep your promises. wildfires, Oregon must cap pollution I’ve been fighting fires in the Pacific Northwest for sixteen years, many of them in Oregon. During that time, I’ve helped fight or manage some of the largest fires in the histories of three different states. From my vantage point as a wildland firefighter, and as someone who has served as a fire lookout for many years, I can see that the seasons are shifting. I can see that the cli- mate is changing. When I first started my career as a fire- fighter, the West was at the tail end of what they were calling an eight-year drought cy- cle. There was an emerging trend in which fires were becoming larger, faster moving and more unpredictable. It’s 2017 now, and — despite a wet year — drought condi- tions persist for longer, and affect our com- munities over more years, rather than less. It seems that the drought which was once an intermittent cycle, is now part of a new reality. In 2015, for the first time in its 110- year history, the U.S. Forest Service spent more than 50 percent of its annual budget on firefighting at the expense of other pro- grams. Just 20 years ago, firefighting made up only 16 percent of the annual budget for the Forest Service. This is more than a drought that can be cured by one blessedly wet winter; years of warmer temperatures, lower snowpack, and drier conditions — due to climate change — all compound to cre- ate unhealthy air for our most vulnerable community members, and a major threat to the way of life for those who live near Oregon’s beautiful open spaces. At a time when we need firefighters more than ever, some may decide the job is just too dan- gerous. In Oregon, we have a goal to reduce Oregon’s our state’s climate pollution by at least 75 percent by the year 2050. We are not on track to meet that goal right now because, while it is the law, it is not being enforced: no one is being held accountable to meet it. Our legislature is currently con- sidering clean energy jobs legislation that can get us on track. We need to address the root cause of what is drying out our forests and making work more dangerous for fire- fighters. We need to cut climate changing pollution with a cap on pollution and rein- vestment in our communities and the clean energy that will keep us independent and resilient. As someone who loves the forest, these changes — both the subtle and the striking — are heartbreaking to witness. Firefight- ers are putting their lives and health on the line to protect the resources we love and need for a sustainable future, and it’s going to take all of us to stop climate change and keep our forests safe. ■ Kelly Coughlin is a wildland fire- fighter, fire lookout and Public Service Information Officer with U.S. Depart- ment of the Interior. She has fought many wildfires in Central and Eastern Oregon. USPS No. 665-100 P.O. Box 338 • Enterprise, OR 97828 Office: 209 NW First St., Enterprise, Ore. Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921 Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884 Enterprise, Oregon M eMber O regOn n ewspaper p ublishers a ssOciatiOn P UBLISHER E DITOR R EPORTER R EPORTER N EWSROOM ASSISTANT A D S ALES CONSULTANT O FFICE MANAGER Marissa Williams, marissa@bmeagle.com Tim Trainor, editor@wallowa.com Stephen Tool, stool@wallowa.com Kathleen Ellyn, kellyn@wallowa.com editor@wallowa.com Jennifer Powell, jpowell@wallowa.com Cheryl Jenkins, cjenkins@wallowa.com p ublished every w ednesday by : EO Media Group Periodical Postage Paid at Enterprise and additional mailing offices Subscription rates (includes online access) Wallowa County Out-of-County 1 Year $40.00 $57.00 Subscriptions must be paid prior to delivery See the Wallowa County Chieftain on the Internet www.wallowa.com facebook.com/Wallowa | twitter.com/wcchieftain POSTMASTER — Send address changes to Wallowa County Chieftain P.O. Box 338 Enterprise, OR 97828 Contents copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Education, wealth and generosity Last week, Wallowa Memorial hospital director Larry Davy told the Rotary Club that new doctors start their careers with $300,000-$400,000 of debt. I know that a doctorate in physical therapy can cost $200,000, and am sure that nurses, med techs, dentists, and many others in health care start their working careers with enor- mous debt. As a consequence, small hos- pitals and health care systems, in order to compete for top personnel, must get cre- ative. They help set up practices, either in-house or next-door — outfit clinics, labs and therapy spaces. Hospitals and clinics also have to pro- vide elaborate bookkeeping and accounting systems to handle the insurance companies, auditors and government regulations that are all part of modern medicine. In 1971, Dr. Sharff was a $4 office visit and we paid cash. He’d joke when someone would tap a shoulder while he was drinking coffee at the Homan Drug- store counter — “there goes four bucks” — and fill out a prescription, then tell me stories of getting paid in chickens and beef in his early days in Enterprise. It’s easy to idealize times and places in the past. My first ten years in a small Minnesota town with baseball, ice skating at recess, Uncle Al and fishing for wall- eye; Southern California, too, before the freeways, where you could see the snow on Palomar Mountain but didn’t have to live in it. Of course the Mexicans in my school, some of whose families had been in Cal- ifornia while it was still part of Mexico, MAIN STREET Rich Wandschneider were more likely to be placed in special education, and, as I recall, rarely got As in Spanish class because of their poor Cas- tilian pronunciation. My friend Richie’s parents would have had to go to Tijuana, Mexico to get married, because his Filipi- no father was prohibited from marrying a Caucasian in California — a law not re- pealed until 1948. But here is the thing: Richie went to a good college and then to UCLA Medical School. California might have been slow dealing with some minority issues, but it was in front of the nation on education. Get a 3.3 in high school and the California University System was free — we paid $50 a term in student fees. And, although the system might have been more difficult for Black, Latino or Asian students, Jackie Robinson’s mother packed him on a train from the South and put him through Cali- fornia schools and on to UCLA (an impos- sibility in much of the nation in the 1930s and 1940s.) Jackie went from college to breaking the color barrier in major league baseball, and California, right up to and through Sil- icon Valley, became an educational leader in the country. But they weren’t alone. My genera- tion of docs here in Wallowa County — Euhus and Palmer and Siebe — could get through medical school almost debt free, and if they promised two years of mili- tary or pubic health service, could have all med school debt forgiven. Teachers, too, could teach away col- lege debt with federal loans. It was a time when the country valued education and when we, the recipients of this largesse, were encouraged to find a calling. I do not remember one time being told how much money a teacher or doctor or engi- neer made. I remember being counseled to find something I loved, and to look at society’s needs for doctors and teachers, pharmacists and engineers. I was fortunate to live in a time when, according to author Charlie Peters, “gen- erosity” was the order of the day. It began in The Great Depression, when neighbors helped neighbors and women — and I remember my mom doing this into the 1940s — handed out sandwiches to mi- grants passing through town looking for work. And President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal put people to work in places like Wallowa County building roads and bridges, when the government brought electricity to small towns and farms and when — gradually — misogyny laws, discrimination against Jews (they, along with women and Blacks, were on quotas at professional schools) declined and Civil Rights legislation was passed. When we elected a Catholic president! According to Peters (full disclosure: I worked for Charlie at the Peace Corps See WEALTH, Page A6