A4
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2021
Baker City, Oregon
Write a letter
news@bakercityherald.com
EDITORIAL
What
does it
take to
run for
governor?
If it takes 15 pages to convince somebody
you are an Oregon resident, well, it could be the
evidence is so overwhelming that there’s a lot
to say!
It could be that the argument is not so great,
so might as well throw everything in there. Or
it could just be complicated.
Which brings us to the 15 pages by law-
yers for Nicholas Kristof, arguing yes, he is a
resident of Oregon and is qualifi ed to run for
governor.
Kristof indisputably won the Pulitzer Prize,
twice. The fi rst time was for his reporting of the
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and a second
time for his columns for the New York Times
on genocide in Darfur. (You can read the pieces
at tinyurl.com/Kristofchina and tinyurl.com/
Kristofi nDarfur. Worth it.)
Kristof indisputably is also Oregon grown,
raised in Yamhill. He indisputably owns prop-
erty there.
Whether he is an Oregon resident may be
mostly true or mostly not true. It’s mostly ar-
gued so he might be governor. He may meet the
requirement for “a resident within this state”
for a period of “three years next preceding his
election.” It’s not axiomatic. We can’t tell you
what a court would decide.
The 15 pages read like a combination of
learned treatise, campaign fl yer and some odd
facts. We learn legal history of the concept of
residency. We repeatedly are told Kristof consid-
ered Oregon home. He would mention he was
“home” in his columns, referring to Oregon. We
learn “he made a signifi cant investment to con-
vert his Yamhill family farm from growing cher-
ries to cider apples and wine grapes.” His family
“keeps personal items like clothing” at the home
in Oregon. The family dog’s name: Crystal.
It also says in 2000, he registered to vote in
New York state. He switched it to Oregon in De-
cember 2020. And in New York, you must be a
resident of New York to vote in New York. Does
that mean he is not a resident of Oregon three
years preceding the Nov. 8, 2022 election? Or is
voting not enough to determine residency?
We’d like to see him run because he’s smart.
We would like to hear his vision for Oregon,
what policies he would choose to get us there
and why we should believe he would be good
at governing.
It would be a worse race without him. The
Democratic Party primary may be the only part
of the race that really matters in the governor’s
election. And that fi eld is crowded with candi-
dates such as House Speaker Tina Kotek and
state Treasurer Tobias Read, and the less well
known. Kristof would give voters another choice
and we imagine a meaningfully different one.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the
Baker City Herald. Columns, letters and car-
toons on this page express the opinions of the
authors and not necessarily that of the
Baker City Herald.
Are Washington’s massive
spending plans worth the cost?
By RACHEL GRESZLER
There seems to be something for
everyone in the massive spending pack-
ages now working their way through
Congress. And with a price tag of $4.6
trillion, or $37,400 per household, offering
something for everyone — be it govern-
ment-paid family leave, monthly child
payments, free community college, union
dues write-offs, a $12,500 electric vehicle
tax credit or new bike paths — is easy.
Politicians who want to grow govern-
ment like to talk about how great this
grab-bag will be for workers, for families
and for the economy. And they promise
that only big corporations and really
wealthy people will pay higher taxes.
But that’s like selling a souped-up
Lincoln Navigator to a family that wants
a minivan, reasoning that both require
the same down payment.
Families deserve to know how much
big-government policies will cost them —
not only in taxes, but in how those poli-
cies will affect their paychecks and the
prices they pay for everything from gas
and groceries to utilities and child care.
Let’s start with taxes, which already
consume more of Americans’ budgets
than food, housing and clothing com-
bined.
President Joe Biden promised that he
wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making
less than $400,000, but Congress’s offi cial
nonpartisan scorekeepers said that his
plan would raise taxes on millions of
middle-class families.
Beginning in 2023, taxes would rise
for nearly 6 million taxpayers that make
less than $100,000. By 2027, more than
half of all families earning between
$75,000 and $100,000 would pay more in
taxes. Taxes would even rise on hundreds
of thousands of families making less than
$20,000 a year.
Of course, taxes aren’t the only thing
that affects families’ budgets.
The income that workers earn, and
the prices they pay for goods and services,
also determine a family’s bottom line.
The proposed corporate tax rate of
26.5 percent would put the U.S. at a
competitive disadvantage. Even China’s
Communist Party only levels a 25 per-
cent corporate tax rate.
Corporations seem like an easy target
for tax hikes because we tend to think
of them in abstract ways — as corporate
logos and big buildings. But logos and
buildings don’t pay taxes. People do.
Across the U.S., companies would be
hit with large tax hikes that economists
agree would mostly be paid for by em-
ployees of those businesses through lower
wages, less work and fewer benefi ts.
If higher taxes and lower incomes
weren’t bad enough, another squeeze to
families’ budgets will be higher prices.
After $6.5 trillion in COVID-19 spend-
ing, and the Federal Reserve buying
more than half of the massive increase
in U.S. debt over the past year, the risks
of infl ation are high. Another $4.6 trillion
in spending between the $1.1 trillion
infrastructure package and the $3.5
trillion big government socialist package
would further stoke infl ation and fi scal
crisis risks.
And fi nally, so-called green energy
policies will drastically increase costs
for ordinary Americans, while creating
special benefi ts for wealthy Americans
and corporations. For example, the cur-
rent $2,500-$5,000 electronic vehicle (EV)
tax credit that overwhelmingly benefi ts
corporations, California residents and
individuals with more than $100,000 of
income would be increased to as much
as $12,500, even as ordinary Americans
receive zero tax credits — and higher
energy bills.
While the Green New Deal is not
included whole cloth, one of the deal’s
sponsors, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said
that “the Green New Deal is in the DNA”
of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation spending
package.
According to an analysis from the
Heritage Foundation, the Green New
Deal would cost every American $1,991
per year over the next decade, or nearly
$8,000 per year for a family of four.
Combined, higher taxes, lower
incomes, higher prices and added energy
costs could cost the typical American
household $100,000 over the next decade.
Compared to $37,400 per household in
new government spending, that’s a pretty
raw deal for ordinary Americans.
Instead of trying to sell Americans
on policies that redistribute workers’
earnings and redirect families choices,
lawmakers should seek policies that help
all Americans achieve rising incomes, and
greater freedom to pursue the choices
that are best for them.
Rachel Greszler is a research fellow in
economics at The Heritage Foundation
(heritage.org).
OTHER VIEWS
Newsom must stop COVID-19 mixed messages
Editorial from The Mercury News:
It’s easy to think Gov. Gavin New-
som did the right thing Oct. 1 when he
announced a statewide COVID-19 vac-
cination mandate for school students
and staff members.
Give the governor credit for getting
the concept right. But closer scrutiny
reveals a decidedly mixed message of
the kind that Californians have come
to expect from Newsom on matters
dealing with the coronavirus.
Vaccines save lives and are the
effective tool available to fi ght the pan-
demic. We support the concept of local,
state and federal vaccine mandates.
The governor’s reluctance to impose
a statewide mandate for younger stu-
dents until the vaccines have the full
approval from the FDA is understand-
able. But what’s keeping Newsom from
requiring that staff members must
be vaccinated by, say, Dec. 1, since the
FDA has already cleared the vaccines
for adults? Or students 16-and-older,
for that matter, since they, too, have the
FDA’s stamp of approval.
The governor said that staff mem-
bers would not have to be vaccinated
until the school term after the vaccines
have full approval from the FDA for
students grades 7-12 and K-6. Unless
vaccine makers get the OK for those
two groups by Jan. 1, that means staff
may not be be required to be vacci-
nated until at least the fall of 2022. In
what world does that make sense?
It mirrors the inconsistency of the
governor’s July 26 announcement of a
vaccine mandate for all state employ-
ees and workers in health care and
high-risk congregate settings.
“As the state’s largest employer, we
are leading by example and requiring
all state and health care workers to
show proof of vaccination or be tested
regularly, and we are encouraging local
governments and businesses to do the
same,” Newsom said. “Vaccines are safe
— they protect our family, those who
truly can’t get vaccinated, our children
and our economy. Vaccines are the way
we end this pandemic.”
But when the powerful state prison
guards’ union protested, the governor
caved. His administration resisted the
mandate for prison workers, despite
more than 50,000 California state pris-
oners testing positive for COVID-19
and 240 inmate deaths. It took a Sept.
27 federal judge’s ruling to enforce the
state mandate for prison guards. As
of Sept. 28, CalMatters reported that
fewer than half of California’s prison
guards had been fully vaccinated.
Newsom’s mandate for students
also includes a religious and personal
belief exemption. California has been
down that path before with its vaccine
mandate for contagious diseases such
as the measles. It took state Sen. Rich-
ard Pan’s legislation to close loopholes
that anti-vaxxers used to skirt the
state requirement.
In 2015, California was one of only
20 states to permit a personal belief
exemption for philosophical reasons,
and 80% of parents who declined
MMR vaccines for their kids used that
excuse. More than 10,000 kindergarten
students used waivers due to parents’
personal beliefs to avoid MMR vaccina-
tions.
Vaccine mandates provide the clear-
est path to a return to normalcy. The
governor should back his tough talk
with actions that match his words.