A4
BAKER CITY
Opinion
WRITE A LETTER
news@bakercityherald.com
Saturday, December 3, 2022 • Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Will Legislature
scuttle
mortgage
interest
deduction?
T
he mortgage interest deduction has been popular
with homeowners. It has been beloved by real
estate agents.
Economists dislike it. Many Democrats in the Legis-
lature have had their eye on changing it. And although
Gov.-elect Tina Kotek didn’t say she wanted it gone in
campaign stop after campaign stop, she has been willing
to look at changes to it, too.
It does seem like the Legislature is gearing up to make
changes to tax policy, tax rates and tax exemptions. On
Monday, Nov. 28, an interim legislative committee kicked
off the first of three meetings on revenue in Oregon.
Our advice: Don’t watch that meeting. Lots of useful
historical background. But dry. Little hint of what the
Legislature might do.
If you were placing bets, a pretty sure one would be leg-
islation to change or do away with the mortgage interest
deduction in the next session.
You may like your mortgage interest deduction if you
are lucky enough to be purchasing a home. Helps keep
your taxes down. It may encourage people to buy homes.
But the arguments against it are many, consistent and
may be winning.
According to the language in Oregon law, taxes are
supposed to be things like fair, not regressive, evenly dis-
tributed and efficient.
The mortgage interest deduction fails to tick some of
those boxes in some ways, as a state report laid out.
Most of the benefit goes to higher-income taxpayers.
That’s because generally you get more tax benefit from
buying a more expensive home.
Taxpayers in more urban counties benefit more.
Minorities benefit less because they are less likely to
own a home.
The argument is it also helps to drive up the cost of
housing, because of the presumed benefit created by the
deduction.
And it is also a lot of money. The mortgage interest de-
duction is estimated to cost the state about $1 billion in
foregone revenue from 2021-2032.
So, is it any wonder legislators are looking at it?
For instance, one proposal has been to eliminate it or
reduce it and use the money to help more people with
housing.
You could argue that there are other more pressing
issues with Oregon’s tax system. There is dramatic vari-
ation in tax rates for historical reasons among counties
and among cities. The interplay between tax rates, Mea-
sure 5 and Measure 50 created other oddness in prop-
erty taxes paid between even similar homes. Oregon’s
corporate activity tax is a pyramiding tax structure on
businesses that brought in a lot more money for educa-
tion $1.4 billion in 2021, but just look at Oregon’s K-12
education performance. Not quite where we would want
it to be.
Out of all the possibilities for changes, it may be the
mortgage interest deduction that will be debated. Tell
your legislator if you want it to stay or go.
█
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.
CONTACT YOUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS
President Joe Biden: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington,
D.C. 20500; 202-456-1111; to send comments, go to www.whitehouse.gov.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: D.C. office: 313 Hart Senate Office Building, U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-3753; fax 202-228-3997. Portland office: One
World Trade Center, 121 S.W. Salmon St. Suite 1250, Portland, OR 97204; 503-
326-3386; fax 503-326-2900. Baker City office, 1705 Main St., Suite 504, 541-278-
1129; merkley.senate.gov.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: D.C. office: 221 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-5244; fax 202-228-2717. La Grande office: 105
Fir St., No. 210, La Grande, OR 97850; 541-962-7691; fax, 541-963-0885; wyden.
senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz (2nd District): D.C. office: 1239 Longworth House Office
Building, Washington, D.C., 20515, 202-225-6730; fax 202-225-5774. Medford
office: 14 N. Central Avenue Suite 112, Medford, OR 97850; Phone: 541-776-
4646; fax: 541-779-0204; Ontario office: 2430 S.W. Fourth Ave., No. 2, Ontario, OR
97914; Phone: 541-709-2040. bentz.house.gov.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 254 State Capitol, Salem, OR 97310; 503-378-3111;
www.governor.oregon.gov.
Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read: oregon.treasurer@ost.state.or.us; 350
Winter St. NE, Suite 100, Salem OR 97301-3896; 503-378-4000.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen F. Rosenblum: Justice Building, Salem, OR
97301-4096; 503-378-4400.
Oregon Legislature: Legislative documents and information are available
online at www.leg.state.or.us.
State Sen. Lynn Findley (R-Ontario): Salem office: 900 Court St. N.E., S-403,
Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1730. Email: Sen.LynnFindley@oregonlegislature.gov
State Rep. Mark Owens (R-Crane): Salem office: 900 Court St. N.E., H-475,
Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1460. Email: Rep.MarkOwens@oregonlegislature.gov
OTHER VIEWS
Supreme Court should separate
sleazy lobbying from criminal kind
By STEPHEN L. CARTER
The U.S. Supreme Court
heard oral argument Monday in
the most important case you’ve
never heard of. Although Per-
coco v. United States has gen-
erated few headlines, its reach
could alter the way businesses
deal with regulators and legis-
lators.
The case arises from the 2018
conviction of one Joseph Per-
coco, who took a break from his
job in Governor Andrew Cuo-
mo’s office to run Cuomo’s re-
election campaign. During his
time away, a company having
trouble with state labor regula-
tors offered him $35,000 if he
could, let us say, make the prob-
lems disappear. Percoco placed a
few calls to key officials, the reg-
ulators backed off, and the com-
pany was happy. And Percoco
then returned to his senior role
in state government after Cuomo
won his new term.
Sure, sounds a wee bit grafty.
But the question the justices
agreed to consider isn’t whether
Percoco is a shining example
of ethical probity. The question
is whether he violated a federal
statute aimed at punishing pub-
lic officials who take bribes. The
jury found he did, and the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit rejected his defense that
the law didn’t apply to him be-
cause when he took the money
and placed the calls he was, tech-
nically, a private citizen.
The Second Circuit’s opin-
ion makes fun reading. The text
abounds with references to “The
Sopranos” and schemes to “keep
the ziti flowing.” But the relevant
issue isn’t whether Percoco was
a sleazy character who hatched
sleazy plans. The relevant issue
is whether those sleazy plans
violated a murky 1988 congres-
sional amendment that prohib-
its participation in “a scheme or
artifice to deprive another of the
intangible right of honest ser-
vices” — what’s become known
as “honest services fraud.”
Percoco argues that this lan-
guage is so broad that it could
apply to a huge number of peo-
ple, including lobbyists. To
show the influence top lobbyists
have, Percoco’s brief cites a 2012
study which found that lobbyists
whose key Senators leave office
lose a whopping $182,000 in an-
nual revenue.
The Justice Department re-
jects the analogy, arguing that
none of these well-connected
lobbyists function, even infor-
mally, as public officials. That
would be reasonable, except that
the test for who functions as a
public official is so murky — a
major factor is whether govern-
ment employees feel obliged to
treat the lobbyist’s requests as
commands. There are plenty of
lobbyists so powerful that the
lowliest bureaucrat trembles to
cross them.
Consider the very real case
of a legislator convicted under
the statute after voting the way
a lobbyist urged. In upholding
the conviction, the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Third Circuit
explained that even though en-
tertaining legislators was part of
the job, here the lobbyist — who
was also convicted — had enter-
tained the legislator too lavishly.
How much is too much? Read
the court’s guidance for yourself:
[A] lobbyist does not com-
mit honest services fraud ... if
his ‘intent was limited to the cul-
tivation of business or political
friendship.’ He commits those
violations ‘only if instead or in
addition, there is an intent to
cause the recipient to alter her of-
ficial acts.’
This guidance fails to guide.
It seems to say that a lobbyist is
innocent as long as the lobbyist
doesn’t lobby.
This is Percoco’s point, and it’s
a good one. Whatever one thinks
of his conduct, the way the lower
courts have construed the stat-
ute leaves prosecutors far more
leeway than Congress likely in-
tended. Critics who call the case
a classic example of prosecutorial
overreach aren’t entirely wrong.
The true problem isn’t the
prosecutors but the statute it-
self. Put Percoco aside and think
instead about the rest of us. A
minimum democratic fairness
demands that crimes be spelled
out with crystalline clarity. When
we interact with the government
that serves us, we should not be
left to guess whether we’re break-
ing the law.
█
Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg
Opinion columnist. A professor of
law at Yale University, he is author,
most recently, of “Invisible: The Story
of the Black Woman Lawyer Who
Took Down America’s Most Powerful
Mobster.”
COLUMN
Marveling at America’s return to the moon
A
merica is going back to the moon
and I marvel, anew, at what our na-
tion can accomplish when it sets for
itself immensely difficult but straightfor-
ward goals.
As I watched the Space Launch System
rocket rise above the launchpad at Flor-
ida’s Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 15 I
felt something like the emotion I do when
I stand, just before the opening notes or
words of “The Star-Spangled Banner” ring
out, and place my right palm on my chest.
I don’t suppose any endeavor is immune
to the political discord that so often afflicts
our national conversations.
But a task such as NASA’s Artemis lunar
program, although daunting in its mechan-
ical complexity, is in another way blessedly
simple.
It either works or it does not.
When the countdown reaches zero the
details that dominate so many other topics
and so often lead us astray — how we feel,
in particular — are meaningless.
The rocket either fires or it does not.
As with all machines it knows nothing
of political affiliations or personal beliefs
about things for which there is no absolute
answer, but only opinions.
The only relevant question, when it
comes to the rocket, is whether the people
who designed and built the thing did their
work properly.
That alone determines whether the
rocket flies true.
And the same holds true for the later Ar-
temis missions, including the one that will,
as early as 2024, bring astronauts to an orbit
around the moon for the first time since the
final Apollo mission in 1972.
Perhaps only a year later, in 2025, Amer-
icans will also land on the lunar surface and
plunge their boots into the dust that Neil
Armstrong and the 11 who followed him
Jayson
Jacoby
made so famous more than half a century
ago.
Artemis is not universally praised, to be
sure.
But then neither was Apollo, despite the
widespread notion that America’s race to
the moon against the Soviet Union was
an anomalous example of national unity
during the 1960s, a decade marked by strife
over the civil rights movement and the
Vietnam war.
One of the chief disagreements regard-
ing our space program — albeit one largely
confined to scientists and academics,
and not shared by the general public — is
whether or not we ought to have astronauts
at all.
Some NASA critics argued then — and
not without logic — that unmanned space-
craft can accomplish the scientific goals of
exploration for considerably less money.
Sending humans into space, and keeping
them alive in a place utterly inimical to life,
is inevitably more complicated, and expen-
sive, than flinging machines out of Earth’s
atmosphere.
This complaint persists.
Alex Roland, an historian from Duke
University, recently told the Associated
Press, following the Nov. 15 launch, that “in
all these years, no evidence has emerged
to justify the investment we have made in
human spaceflight — save the prestige in-
volved in this conspicuous consumption.”
Roland’s implication — that NASA is in
effect letting vanity influence what should
be a purely scientific endeavor — ignores
the reality that Artemis, like Apollo and
Gemini and Mercury before it, are the
product of human curiosity and ingenuity.
I believe the value of those earlier pro-
grams — and in particular the six Apollo
missions that put 12 astronauts on the
moon — would be nothing like as great
as it was had the rockets carried only ma-
chines.
Sensors can measure all sorts of variables
with a precision people can never match.
Machines can collect samples of lunar
dust and rocks, can take fine photographs,
can tell us how hot and cold it gets, how
strong the pull of gravity is.
But no device can describe to us, back on
Earth, what it is like to see our planet rise
above the lunar horizon.
Or what it’s like to walk on the moon.
These observations might have little sci-
entific value, being inherently subjective.
But to the Americans whose tax dollars
pay for these missions, the words of an as-
tronauts resonate more powerfully than a
column of data ever could.
Machines can gather that data.
But only humans can, in effect, represent
the tens of millions of us who will never
leave our planet — only astronauts can re-
turn from their voyage and tell us how it
was, in ways we can understand.
We recognized the irreplaceable role of
the astronaut in the 1960s.
And I’m gratified that, despite the nearly
inconceivable advances in technology that
have happened since the final Apollo mis-
sion, we continue not only to acknowledge
the human role but to celebrate it.
For me — and I believe for most of us
— America won’t truly return to the moon
until one of us actually steps onto the lunar
surface.
I hope the astronauts are already working
out what they’ll say in that most monumen-
tal of moments.
█
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the Baker City Herald.