SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
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OUR VIEW
Tax by gallon
or by the mile?
In 1919, Oregon was the fi rst state to charge a tax per gallon of gas.
And the state could be one of the fi rst to charge everyone by miles driven.
Oregon’s gas tax is scheduled to climb from 36 cents a gallon up to 40
cents in 2024. But the state’s gas tax revenue is almost certainly heading
into a permanent swan dive. It won’t be enough to keep up the state’s
roads and bridges. Vehicles are getting more and more miles to the gal-
lon. And electric or other alternatives are going to slowly replace them.
The Oregon solution is pay as you go, not pay per gallon. You can sign
up for it now. OReGO participants pay 1.8 cents a mile. They get fuel tax
credits based on gas consumption. Very few Oregonians are enrolled —
about 700 — because the immediate benefi ts are limited.
House Bill 2342 tries to hit the accelerator for OReGO. It imposes a
mandatory per-mile road usage charge for registered owners and lessees
of passenger vehicles of model year 2027 or later that have a rating of 30
miles per gallon or greater. It would begin on July 1, 2026.
That makes sense, in some ways. The question is: Does it provide the
right incentives? What’s the goal?
One goal is to ensure there is enough revenue to keep the state’s roads
and bridges repaired. This bill could help with that.
Another goal, for some, is to encourage Oregonians to drive more fuel
effi cient vehicles or more electric vehicles. Better for the environment.
The gas tax already does it. This bill doesn’t really do much. There
would be an added elimination of title registration fees under the bill.
But if the goal is to give Oregonians a nudge, this bill adds a perverse
incentive — new charges on more fuel effi cient vehicles.
The bill could be altered so the pay as you go formula takes into
account the fuel effi ciency of the vehicle. That might encourage more
Oregonians to go electric or pick a more fuel-effi cient choice.
The complication is how that policy would impact lower-income Orego-
nians.
Want to buy an electric car? The long-term costs can have clear ben-
efi ts. The upfront cost is usually more and that can be what people focus
on.
The gas tax was never progressive. Should Oregon look to do more
with a nudge for electric cars? If the Legislature simply opts to provide
incentives for electric cars, it could be leaving some Oregonians behind.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City Herald. Columns, letters and
cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of
the Baker City Herald.
Your views
Encouraging our future
space explorers
Good news is always worth
remarking upon. Monday, April
19 marks a signifi cant event in
the history of the human race.
NASA’s Mars helicopter made
its fi rst fl ight on the surface of
our most explored neighboring
planet. We, America, did it again!
A monumental step forward in
space and planetary exploration.
Good news is always welcome
and this achievement gives our
coming generations an uplifting
reason to concentrate on getting a
proper education from the earliest
grades on up through college sci-
ence courses. Let us all agree on
an educational process that gives
each student the ability to excel
in the real world sciences and
mathematics required to succeed
in their lives. To do anything less
would be to cheat them of their
future.
It is incumbent upon us, the
taxpaying parents and grand-
parents, to demand that our
school system provide a proper
education to the students without
the destructive indoctrination
mandated by the Oregon Depart-
ment of Education. Our property
taxes fund our school district and
we have an obligation to supervise
the process here. Many of our
teachers are concerned for the stu-
dents. Still, they received their full
salary while working from home,
leaving our children without
classroom interactions. Worse yet,
several also received unemploy-
ment money in addition to their
salary! That is outrageous.
Our latest school superinten-
dent has failed to create an alter-
native learning process to raise
the educational outcomes when he
had a chance to prove his worth to
our community. Instead he wants
to spend millions of dollars with
no history of satisfactory outcomes
authored by him. His salary alone
would fund at least two or three
new teachers. Even more if the
teachers’ salaries were in line with
local working folks’ incomes.
That raises another question
— do we really need a teacher’s
union at all? Unions protect the
entrenched incompetents at the
expense of the communities and
they support those movements
seeking to destroy our historic
way of life and culture. It is time
for us to change things to ensure
the children’s futures. I have met
so many of our young people and
they are a great bunch. If we love
our community and its children
we need to stand up and demand
the school provide the quality of
education the coming generations
need.
Somewhere in town, playing
on the school playgrounds are
the future explorers who may
walk the sands of Mars, build-
ing towards a future we can only
imagine. The fallout from the our
space explorations has enriched
our lives with technological and
scientifi c wonders. Who can deny
a child the opportunity to look out
at the night skies and say, “We
are out there and more of us are
coming!”
Rick Rienks
Baker City
Criminal trials and irresponsible politicians
President Joe Biden incurred the
wrath of some people earlier this
week when he said he was “praying”
that the jury in the Derek Chauvin
murder trial would reach the “right
verdict.”
Biden’s statement was even more
conspicuous than the typical presi-
dential musings because of when he
made it.
At that moment, on Tuesday, April
20, the jury was still deliberating.
Biden didn’t utter the word
“guilty.” But considering he had
phoned George Floyd’s family the
day before to sympathize with their
situation, it wasn’t exactly a matter
of conjecture that the president be-
lieved Chauvin had committed the
crimes for which he was on trial.
The jury, of course, concurred.
The president’s comments on Tues-
day to reporters in the Oval Office
strike me as a trifle strange in their
lack of specificity.
“I’m praying the verdict is the right
verdict, which is ...” Biden paused
briefly then continued: “I think it’s
overwhelming, in my view.”
Biden went on, as if to defend his
decision to make any statement at
that time, even a seemingly hedging
one: “I wouldn’t say that unless the
jury was sequestered now, not hear-
ing me say that.”
The president couldn’t know
for certain, though, that the jurors
wouldn’t read or hear his statement
before they reached a verdict.
“Sequestered” is supposed to mean
that jurors are isolated, protected
from possible outside influences that
aren’t part of the trial.
But as another high-profile crimi-
nal trial proved, even a sequestered
jury can be exposed to potentially
prejudicial comments from politi-
cians.
And that trial happened half a
century ago, when communication
technology was crude compared with
JAYSON
JACOBY
today’s interlocking wifi networks
and the immediate, ubiquitous
spread of information they make
possible.
I watched a fair amount of news
coverage of the Chauvin trial
verdict, and in particular references
to Biden’s statements during the
deliberations. I was surprised that
none of the commentators, at least
among those I sampled, referenced by
way of comparison what was, at least
until O.J. Simpson stepped into a Los
Angeles courtroom in 1995, likely the
most publicized criminal trial in U.S.
history.
The trial I was thinking of also took
place in L.A. The defendants were
Charles Manson and three of his
murderous acolytes — Susan Atkins,
Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van
Houten.
They, along with Charles “Tex”
Watson, were accused of commit-
ting the August 1969 Tate-LaBianca
murders. Manson, though he didn’t
actually inflict any of the wounds, was
the mastermind of the spree and thus
equally culpable in a legal sense. The
crimes spawned “Helter Skelter,” the
best-selling true-crime book co-written
by Vincent Bugliosi, who prosecuted
the Manson Family.
All were found guilty and sentenced
to death, Watson being tried and con-
victed separately in a later trial.
Their death sentences were
commuted to life in prison a year or
so later when California temporar-
ily abolished capital punishment.
Although all were eligible for parole,
none has been released. Atkins died in
prison in 2009, Manson in 2017.
I expected to see multiple references
to the Manson trial if only because the
comparison makes Biden’s comments
seem relatively tame. And it seems to
me that the national media, generally
speaking, are not averse to glossing
over his statements that, had they
been uttered by a previous presi-
dent (his immediate predecessor, for
instance), likely would have provoked
horror, and perhaps tears, among
many prominent pundits.
(Biden’s hysterical claim that
Georgia’s new election law is worse
than Jim Crow laws being a notable
example. The outrage over that obnox-
ious comparison lasted ... well, it never
really got started.)
Here’s what happened in August
1970 while the Manson trial was
underway — this was months before
it went to the jury for deliberation:
President Richard Nixon, who
like Biden was an attorney, and
presumably should have known
better, referenced the Manson trial
while speaking at a conference of law
enforcement officials.
Nixon, whose loathing for the
press likely wasn’t surpassed, among
presidents, until Donald Trump was
elected, talked about the incessant
media coverage of the Manson trial.
Nixon’s most noteworthy statement
was this, referring to Manson:
“Here is a man who was guilty,
directly or indirectly, of eight murders.
Yet here is a man who, as far as the
coverage is concerned, appeared to be
a glamorous figure.”
Nixon’s press secretary tried to
cover for his boss — this, along with
headache-inducing feats of linguistic
obfuscation, being the primary tasks
of that unpleasant job — noting that
the president neglected to include the
word “alleged” in his comments.
Nixon himself soon issued a state-
ment that refuted his own earlier
words without actually admitting
that he fouled up.
Nixon’s gaffe, as I mentioned,
is much more inappropriate than
Biden’s. The chief difference, of course,
is that Nixon spoke while the trial
was happening.
Yet I still find the comparison
between these two premature presi-
dential proclamations a compelling
one — mainly because of Biden’s
flimsy attempt at justification based
on the jury being sequestered during
its deliberations.
Because the controversy over
Nixon’s comments didn’t end with his
belated semi-apology.
The Manson jury, unlike the
Chauvin jury, was sequestered dur-
ing the trial.
Yet the day after Nixon’s state-
ment, Manson leaped from his seat
at the defense table in the courtroom
and brandished, directly in front of
the jury box, the front page of the Los
Angeles Times bearing a headline
in inch-high type of the sort usually
reserved for moon landings and the
beginnings and ends of wars: “Man-
son Guilty, Nixon Declares.”
The jurors were questioned about
what they had seen, and what they
thought about the headline.
Several had read the entire head-
line.
And some of the jurors didn’t
appreciate the president presuming
to inject his opinions into what was,
after all, a matter that was their
exclusive bailiwick.
“I think if the president declared
that, it was pretty stupid of him,” one
juror said.
“Well, my fi rst thought was, ‘that’s
ridiculous,’ ” said another.
“No one does my thinking for me,”
was a third juror’s response.
I’ve not seen evidence to suggest
that any jurors in the Chauvin trial
knew of Biden’s comments while
they were deliberating.
Certainly Chauvin wasn’t cavort-
ing about the jury room with a
newspaper in his hand.
Yet it seems to me that although
these two trials, separated by 50
years, are quite different, both illus-
trate the tendency for politicians to
butt into matters before they ought
to.
And Biden’s comments were
hardly the most inappropriate spo-
ken by a politician this week.
Maxine Waters, a Democratic U.S.
representative from the Los Angeles
area, said during Chauvin’s trial that
were he acquitted, protests should
“get more confrontational. We’ve got
to stay on the street, and we’ve got
to be more active. We’ve got to make
sure that they know that we mean
business.”
Besides lacking enough respect
for the judicial process to even wait
for the jury to begin deliberating, as
Biden did, Waters also included an
implicit threat — make the right
decision or you’ll be responsible
for more mayhem in the streets of
American cities.
Waters also called for Chauvin to
be convicted of fi rst-degree murder.
Except he wasn’t even charged
with that crime.
Waters’ comments were so
egregiously inappropriate that they
prompted criticism from Judge Peter
Cahill, who presided over Chauvin’s
trial. Cahill called Waters’ state-
ments “abhorrent,” and the judge
said the comments could lead to the
jury’s verdict — unknown at that
time — being reversed on appeal.
If nothing else would convince
reckless politicians to resist the urge
to comment until a jury has fi nished
its work, this episode might.
Just imagine Chauvin, who might
spend the rest of his life in prison for
killing Floyd, instead being freed,
and owing his freedom to Waters.
Strange bedfellows indeed.
Jayson Jacoby is editor
of the Baker City Herald.