A4
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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news@bakercityherald.com
Tuesday, August 23, 2022 • Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
County seeks to
legalize public
road access
F
or a route that’s steep, narrow, strewn with
rocks and inaccessible to many vehicles, the
Pine Creek Road has attracted quite a lot of
attention the past 2 years.
And quite a lot of litigation.
But the controversy over this road on the east side
of the Elkhorn Mountains, about a dozen miles north-
west of Baker City, isn’t surprising.
The issue isn’t the condition of the road, but where
it goes.
The road not only accesses several parcels of pri-
vate property, some of which have cabins, but it leads
to some of the more scenic alpine country in Baker
County. After passing through swathes of private
property, the road enters the Wallowa-Whitman Na-
tional Forest. It’s the access route to Pine Creek Reser-
voir, a popular place for visitors to see mountain goats
on the eastern slopes of Rock Creek Butte, at 9,106
feet the tallest summit in the range. The road ends at
an unofficial trail that crosses a ridge and descends to
Rock Creek Lake, another jewel of the Elkhorns.
It was inevitable, then, that people would be up-
set after David McCarty bought the largest chunk
of private land in the area, 1,560 acres, in September
2020, then installed a locked gate at the east end of his
property.
Baker County commissioners reacted to the subse-
quent public outcry by cutting the lock.
After McCarty filed a lawsuit against the county in
April 2021, commissioners started the process, un-
der Oregon law, of declaring the road a public right-
of-way. Commissioners gave final approval, on Aug.
17, to a resolution doing so, and ordering all gates
and other obstacles to be removed. The requirements
didn’t take effect immediately, as the resolution is in a
60-day appeal period.
Commissioners’ legal action was appropriate
considering the importance of the road and its de-
cades-long history of public access. Unfortunately,
that access had never been formalized. In court fil-
ings McCarty has pointed out that before he bought
the property he reviewed a title report that showed no
public rights-of-way across his property coinciding
with the road.
McCarty’s suit, in which he is asking the county
to pay $730,000 if the road is deemed to be public,
is still active. So is the lawsuit that two couples, who
own property adjacent to McCarty’s, filed in late July.
They’re asking for at least $250,000 each for loss of en-
joyment of their property.
The Pine Creek Road controversy illustrates the
potential issues that can arise when a road has been
customarily used by the public for decades, but never
actually had a legal right-of-way. This is hardly sur-
prising, considering such issues weren’t necessarily
important when the county was young.
The county’s new resolution doesn’t end the dispute
over Pine Creek Road — the two lawsuits are pending.
But ideally the commissioners’ action will legally,
and permanently, establish the public’s right to travel a
road that has been a popular route into the high coun-
try of the Elkhorns, and access for private landowners,
for decades.
— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor
YOUR VIEWS
Sarcasm and stereotyping
intended to highlight
problems
That someone took um-
brage with my last letter to the
editor is unsurprising. I ste-
reotyped by design. My goal
was to show the un-researched
kneejerk reactions and hypoc-
risy that permeates our locale.
It was meant as a humorous
smack.
The quiet zone is a smart,
logical and very worthy pur-
suit. I certainly apologize if
in any way I made that goal
more difficult to achieve,
since it will not be voted on by
our good, smart, hard-work-
ing, welcoming community
members. I think not. I am
also confident that inside my
“disparaging circle” I am not
alone. I’m guessing there are
others who don’t feel obliged
to accept or respect everyone.
Respect is a two-way street.
My sarcasm and stereotyping
was meant to annoy and irri-
tate, just as I am annoyed, ir-
ritated and appalled on a daily
basis, “Let’s Go Brandon,” “Joe
and the Ho Gotta Go” “Move
Oregon’s Border”. ... There is
a little shop downtown with
a notice posted threatening
you if you enter with a mask?
There exists a flag on one of
our lovely city streets “F” Joe
Biden and F you for voting for
him”? The pickup trucks wav-
ing the Confederate flag. Who
is making who feel less than or
othered? Not conducive to any
lovey dovey feelings emanat-
ing from this guy.
The deep partisan trenches
already exist. ... no digging
necessary. Many of the words
and hand gestures hurled our
way during both the Pride and
Woman Rights walks were
hardly filled with kindness
and respect. Let’s not forget
about the BLM rally (intimi-
dators brandishing assault ri-
fles actually showed up for this
small respectful gathering?)
Hard to make peace with that.
If I offended with my outland-
ish, cartoonish stereotypes
maybe you should be look-
ing at why? I leave you with a
quote from Salman Rushdie:
“The moment you declare
a set of ideas to be immune
from criticism, satire, deri-
sion or contempt, freedom of
thought becomes impossible.”
Mike Meyer
Baker City
OTHER VIEWS
After a year under Taliban rule,
Afghans feel the price of peace
EDITORIAL FROM
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE:
A
fghanistan today under
Taliban rule virtually
mirrors what the coun-
try was like before the Ameri-
can invasion in October 2001.
Girls cannot attend sec-
ondary school. Once again,
women no longer work as
lawyers, judges or police offi-
cers. Men must wear beards
and traditional Afghan garb.
As it was before, moral-
ity police scan streetscapes
to make sure women are in
burqas and accompanied by a
male relative.
The country has been fire-
walled from any Western
influence. Movies, foreign
broadcasts and music have all
disappeared.
A year after the Taliban
retook Kabul and imposed
its oppressive brand of gov-
ernance, Afghanistan enjoys
peace. But that peace comes
at a stiff price — acquiescence
to a fundamentalist, backward
way of life that cannot be de-
fied.
For the U.S., Afghanistan
poses a profound foreign pol-
icy quandary.
The country is starving.
Following the Taliban take-
over, Afghanistan’s economy
collapsed. Unemployment
and food prices skyrocketed.
Afghan families are selling
their household belongings
to survive.
The United Nations
World Food Program says
more than half of the coun-
try’s population isn’t getting
enough food, and 25 out of its
34 provinces are experiencing
acute malnutrition at emer-
gency levels.
Afghanistan’s central bank
has $7 billion that could help
buoy the country’s economy,
but it’s in the wrong place. Af-
ter the Taliban took over the
country, the Biden adminis-
tration froze the $7 billion that
the Afghan central bank had
previously deposited in the
Federal Reserve Bank in New
York. That money remains
frozen. In February, Biden de-
cided to set aside half for fam-
ilies of Sept. 11 victims to pur-
sue in court. The other $3.5
billion was supposed to aid the
Afghan people, but this week
the Biden administration an-
nounced it would continue to
keep that money frozen.
The reason? Ayman al-Za-
wahri.
The al-Qaida leader was
killed July 31 by a U.S. preci-
sion drone strike as he stood
on a balcony at a safe house in
a Kabul neighborhood where
many Taliban leaders live.
Though the Taliban deny
providing al-Zawahri safe ha-
ven, it’s abundantly clear that
they were indeed sheltering
him. The house he was in be-
longs to a top aide of Sirajud-
din Haqqani, the Taliban’s
interior minister and head of
terrorist group the Haqqani
network.
After the strike, Secretary of
State Antony Blinken said the
Taliban had “grossly violated”
the terms of the withdrawal
accord reached between the
extremist group and the U.S.
Essentially, the Taliban
gave Biden little choice but
to continue the freeze on the
$3.5 billion in Afghan assets
held in the U.S. Releasing
that money to the Taliban re-
gime risks seeing it end up in
the hands of terrorist groups.
Though the Taliban portray
themselves as a legitimate
government with the best in-
terests of the Afghan people
in mind, their continued alle-
giance to al-Qaida and uncon-
scionable treatment of women
say otherwise.
Taliban leaders know what
they have to do. Allow women
to pursue any career track they
wish, permit girls to attend
secondary school and do away
with crude tools of oppression
such as the regime’s morality
police.
And, of course, Taliban
leaders must prove to the U.S.
and the rest of the world that
they no longer align them-
selves with terror groups.
Words won’t be enough.
It will be up to the U.S. to
decide when the regime has
shown it no longer is a terror
enabler, and hence a threat to
the West.
Until then, it must be
treated as a pariah state. Gov-
ernments that harbor terror-
ists can’t expect the rest of the
world to lend a helping hand.
Domestically, the Taliban can
help themselves by helping
their people — not with re-
strictive edicts and brute force,
but with basic rights.
COLUMN
Deceptive marketing of the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’
BY E.J. ANTONI
T
he so-called Inflation Reduc-
tion Act is one of the greatest
examples of deceptive market-
ing around today. Not only will the
legislation fail to reduce inflation, it
will further increase prices.
Inflation is fundamentally a prob-
lem of too much money chasing too
few goods and services.
It was hardly a surprise: In the last
two years, the government has spent,
borrowed and printed trillions of dol-
lars while also hamstringing produc-
tion in the economy.
The result was a vast increase in
the amount of money in circulation
without comparable growth in the
size of the real economy. All that ex-
tra money bid up the price of goods
and services, a phenomenon we call
inflation.
Unfortunately, this latest piece of
legislation in Washington does noth-
ing to solve the problem. It does not
reduce the amount of money in circu-
lation. Worse, it reduces the quantity
of goods and services through mea-
sures like higher energy taxes and ex-
cessive regulation.
People underestimate just how
much energy affects the price of ev-
erything we do and everything we
buy.
Before an item can be placed on a
store shelf, it had to be transported
there, whether on a train, a ship, a
plane, a truck or even all of these. En-
ergy is used not just in transportation
and manufacturing, but also in sup-
plying services.
The modern world could not func-
tion without electricity. More than
60% of electricity in the U.S. comes
from coal, oil and natural gas. Addi-
tional taxes on those fuel sources un-
der this new legislation will drive up
electricity prices, which will trickle
down into higher prices everywhere
in the economy.
Yet this legislation is marketed as
providing relief to consumers — a
bald-faced lie.
Meanwhile, natural gas is not only
a widely used fuel for both power sta-
tions and home use, but also used in
producing countless chemicals that go
into making even more products. Ad-
ditional taxes on natural gas will make
all these more expensive.
Once again, the marketing around
this legislation is not merely mislead-
ing, but exactly opposite its actual ef-
fects.
The higher prices that stem from
these tax increases on energy will ulti-
mately decrease the amount of goods
and services that consumers can af-
ford. As fewer goods and services are
traded, the economy contracts. In
June, sky-high energy prices proved
a sure-fire way to decrease consumer
purchases. Gasoline consumption in
July fell to levels below where it was
two years prior — during the pan-
demic when there were mandatory
lockdowns, causing people to drasti-
cally cut back their driving.
As if the energy taxes were not bad
enough, the legislation provides for
87,000 new IRS agents. We’re told
they’re intended to hound tax-cheat-
ing billionaires, but this is just more
deceptive marketing. There are fewer
than 3,000 billionaires in the country,
and they already face high audit rates.
The new army of agents will allow the
IRS to perform an additional 1.2 mil-
lion audits a year, far exceeding the
number of billionaires supposedly in
the crosshairs. The claims about only
going after those making more than
$400,000 a year is also just a politi-
cal talking point because when Con-
gress had the chance to enshrine that
into the statute, it was voted down by
Democrats – strictly on party lines.
The expansion of the IRS will target
the middle class. Unlike the claims of
going after tax cheats, the massively
expanded IRS will prey upon people
who are overwhelmed by a 10-mil-
lion-word tax code. In one experi-
ment, when 46 different tax profes-
sionals were given the same family’s
tax return to file, they produced
46 different estimates for what the
family either owed or was entitled to
in a refund.
Even if the IRS expansion is suc-
cessful in raising billions of dollars
from the already-squeezed middle
and working classes, that money
does not magically disappear from
the economy; the government will
simply spend it instead of house-
holds. The amount of currency in
circulation has not been reduced, it
has merely changed hands. In other
words, there is still no reduction in
inflation.
The talking points and even the
name of the Inflation Reduction Act
are misleading at best. The more one
digs into the legislation, the bigger
the lies become. Perhaps a single line
from the 1940s film “Pinocchio” best
sums up the marketing of this tax-
and-spend boondoggle: “A lie keeps
growing and growing until it’s as plain
as the nose on your face.”
E. J. Antoni is a research fellow for regional
economics at the Heritage Foundation’s
Center for Data Analysis and a Senior Fellow at
Committee to Unleash Prosperity.