B-2
OPINIONS
THE NEW MEXICAN Sunday, July 27, 2014
The West’s oldest newspaper, founded 1849 Robin M. Martin Owner Robert M. McKinney Owner, 1949-2001 Inez Russell Gomez Editorial Page Editor
Ray Rivera Editor
OUR VIEW
Pojoaque’s compacts a nonstarter
T
he frustration Pojoaque Pueblo has with the state of New Mexico over gambling compact negotiations is obvious. Else, why submit a proposal for a new compact that is ridiculous? Provisions include what should be these dead-in-thewater notions. A lower gambling age, to 18 from 21. Alcohol served alongside the slot machines and poker tables. The ability to cash welfare or Social Security checks at the casinos. Accepting IOUs from gamblers (we wonder, is the logical next step that pueblo security could break people’s legs for nonpayment?). Finally, Pojoaque Pueblo wants to stop all revenue-sharing payments to the state. Obviously, whoever wrote these must have had a good chuckle as the terms were being set down. We’re surprised the writer didn’t throw in kids’ poker camps as part of the deal. Let’s start them early. Still, there’s logic in this madness. In Pojoaque Pueblo’s view, the state is not negotiating new compacts in good faith, so rather than continuing to negotiate locally, pueblo officials took their compact to the U.S. Department of the Interior for approval. That’s allowed under the federal law authorizing gaming, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Federal authorities should reject Pojoaque’s current proposal out of hand so serious discussions can begin. No one — especially pueblo leaders — wants to see tribal members and neighbors cashing Social Security checks at the casino and losing their month’s earnings. However, we suspect the pueblo set forth such outlandish terms to keep business ventures solvent. Buffalo Thunder and Cities of Gold, with 1,500 employees, can’t operate without enough revenue. Pojoaque is playing hardball to safeguard its economic interests, those of the people of the pueblo and of its employees. While we understand the pueblo’s position, it’s time for more realistic negotiations. The state, perhaps, wants more than its fair share of tribal income, especially in a recession when gambling revenues are flat. That negotiating position should soften, not in relation just to Pojoaque, but all tribes. (After all, if the governor doesn’t want to raise taxes on anyone, why single out Indian tribes to pay more? That goes against the conservative notion of letting people and businesses keep more of their earnings.) By going to the federal authorities, Pojoaque simply is aiming to keep more of what it makes. That figure will not be 100 percent, but federal authorities likely could be more generous than Gov. Susana Martinez’s negotiators. At least that’s what the tribe is gambling on. All gaming tribes should have the same revenue-sharing provisions. The best outcome would be for the state to tone down its rhetoric and reopen negotiations with Pojoaque Pueblo. Comments by Gov. Martinez’s spokesman, Enrique Knell, won’t help in defusing the situation, more’s the pity. Witness this statement: “The terms requested by the Pueblo of Pojoaque are characteristic of its reckless and unreasonable approach to negotiations. These terms raise serious questions about predatory practices, responsible gaming, and the safety of visitors to Buffalo Thunder and Cities of Gold.” That’s unnecessary and over the top. It’s likely Pojoaque Pueblo will stay its course with federal authorities rather than return to the state for further negotiations. In that case, the Interior Department must put the kibosh on the terms of this first compact proposal. Both Martinez and Attorney General Gary King are being asked for comment on Pojoaque’s proposal. We would expect condemnations of the current terms, but set forth in rational, non-inflammatory language. Our congressional delegation should weigh in as well, especially U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, since the pueblo’s casinos are in his district. New Mexico does not want gambling gone wild. Then, perhaps, the real work can begin in figuring how much income the tribe keeps and how much it pays into the state’s general fund — a pot of money, we might add, whose existence benefits all citizens in the state, even those on tribal lands.
The past 100 years From The Santa Fe New Mexican: July 27, 1914: Alamogordo — With peaches quoted at a dollar each and water $5.75 a gallon, the cost of living, for at least two citizens has taken an alarming jump in Alamogordo and vicinity. A young man from Old Mexico swiped five peaches from the orchard 2 miles south of town and was fined $15 and costs. Costs amounted to $5. The costly half gallon of water was purchased at Orogrande. O. Hootman took the liberty of throwing a half gallon of scalding water on a stray Jersey bull which had been wandering around town. “Hoot mon,” said Justice Culver, “ ’twill cost you five and costs, a grand total of $5.75.”
An idiot’s guide to inequality W
e may now have a new “most after World War II when growth was unread best-seller of all time.” strong and inequality actually diminData from Amazon Kindles ished. Likewise, a major research paper suggest that the honor may go to Thomas from the International Monetary Fund in Piketty’s Capital in the TwentyApril found that more equitable First Century, which reached societies tend to enjoy more No. 1 on the best-seller list this rapid economic growth. year. Jordan Ellenberg, a profesIndeed, even Lloyd Blankfein, sor of mathematics at the Unithe chief executive of Goldman versity of Wisconsin, Madison, Sachs, warns that “too much … wrote in The Wall Street Journal has gone to too few” and that that Piketty’s book seems to inequality in America is now eclipse its rivals in losing read“very destabilizing.” ers: All five of the passages that Inequality causes problems Nicholas readers on Kindle have highby creating fissures in societies, Kristof lighted most are in the first 26 leaving those at the bottom feelThe New York pages of a tome that runs 685 ing marginalized or disenfranTimes pages. chised. That has been a classic The rush to purchase Piketproblem in “banana republic” ty’s book suggested that Americountries in Latin America, cans must have wanted to understand and the U.S. now has a Gini coefficient inequality. The apparent rush to put it (a standard measure of inequality) down suggests that, well, we’re human. approaching some traditionally poor and So let me satisfy this demand with my dysfunctional Latin countries. own “Idiot’s Guide to Inequality.” Here u Third, disparities reflect not just are five points: the invisible hand of the market but also u First, economic inequality has worsmanipulation of markets. Joseph Stiglitz, ened significantly in the U.S. and some the Nobel Prize-winning economist, other countries. The richest 1 percent in wrote a terrific book two years ago, The the U.S. now own more wealth than the Price of Inequality, which is a shorter and bottom 90 percent. Oxfam estimates that easier read than Piketty’s book. In it, he the richest 85 people in the world own notes: “Much of America’s inequality half of all wealth. is the result of market distortions, with incentives directed not at creating new The situation might be tolerable if a wealth but at taking it from others.” rising tide were lifting all boats. But it’s lifting mostly the yachts. In 2010, 93 perFor example, financiers are wealthy cent of the additional income created in partly because they’re highly educated and America went to the top 1 percent. hardworking — and also because they’ve u Second, inequality in America is successfully lobbied for the carried interest destabilizing. Some inequality is essentax loophole that lets their pay be taxed at tial to create incentives, but we seem to much lower rates than other people’s. have reached the point where inequality Likewise, if you’re a pharmaceutical actually becomes an impediment to ecoexecutive, one way to create profits is nomic growth. to generate new products. Another is to Certainly, the nation grew more lobby Congress to bar the government’s quickly in periods when we were more Medicare program from bargaining for equal, including in the golden decades drug prices. That amounts to a $50 billion
annual gift to pharmaceutical companies. u Fourth, inequality doesn’t necessarily even benefit the rich as much as we think. At some point, extra incomes don’t go to sate desires but to attempt to buy status through “positional goods” — like the hottest car on the block. The problem is that there can only be one hottest car on the block. So the lawyer who buys a Porsche is foiled by the CEO who buys a Ferrari, who in turn is foiled by the hedge fund manager who buys a Lamborghini. This arms race leaves these desires unsated; there’s still only one at the top of the heap. u Fifth, progressives probably talk too much about “inequality” and not enough about “opportunity.” Some voters are turned off by tirades about inequality because they say it connotes envy of the rich; there is more consensus on bringing everyone to the same starting line. Unfortunately, equal opportunity is now a mirage. Indeed, researchers find that there is less economic mobility in America than in class-conscious Europe. We know some of the tools, including job incentives and better schools, that can reduce this opportunity gap. But the U.S. is one of the few advanced countries that spends less educating the average poor child than the average rich one. As an escalator of mobility, the American education system is broken. There’s still a great deal we don’t understand about inequality. But whether or not you read Piketty, there’s one overwhelming lesson you should be aware of: Inequality and lack of opportunity today constitute a national infirmity and vulnerability — and there are policy tools that can make a difference. Contact Nicholas Kristof at Facebook. com/Kristof, Twitter.com/NickKristof or by mail at The New York Times, 620 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10018.
COMMENTARY: CHARLES E. SCHUMER
Partisan primaries need to end WASHINGTON olarization and partisanship are a plague on American politics. Political scientists have found that the two parties have each grown more ideologically homogeneous since the 1970s. The Senate hasn’t been so polarized since Reconstruction; the House has not been so divided since around 1900. As measured by laws passed, the current Congress is on track to be among the least productive in our republic’s history. How did this happen? One of the main causes has not gotten enough attention: the party primary system. The reasons behind the shocking primary defeat last month of Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, who was then leader of the Republican majority in the House, are still being debated, but there is no doubt that his defeat highlighted the pernicious effects of the predominant “winner-takeall” party primary system. Even in one of the country’s most Republican districts, Cantor was not conservative enough for the fairly small proportion of highly energized, ideologically driven voters who turned out for the primary. The partisan primary system, which favors more ideologically pure candidates, has contributed to the election of more extreme officeholders and increased political polarization. It has become a menace to governing. From 10,000 feet, the structure of our electorate looks to be healthy, with perhaps a third of the potential voters who are left-leaning Democrats, a third who are right-leaning Republicans and a third who are independents in the middle.
P
Editorial page editor: Inez Russell Gomez, 986-3053, igomez@sfnewmexican.com, Twitter @inezrussell
But primaries poison the health of that system and warp its natural balance, because the vast majority of Americans don’t typically vote in primaries. Instead, it is the “third of the third” most to the right or most to the left who come out to vote — the 10 percent at each of the two extremes of the political spectrum. Making things worse, in most states, laws prohibit independents — who are not registered with either party and who make up a growing proportion of the electorate — from voting in primaries at all. Two additional factors exacerbate the problem of party primaries. The first are the deep-pocketed interests that often lie at the extremes. The loosening of campaign finance restrictions by the Supreme Court has unleashed a flood of “independent” political spending by these special interests. The second is the redistricting process. Technology has allowed parties that dominate their state legislatures to draw districts that will almost never elect a candidate of the opposing party. Each party maneuvers, once a decade, to manipulate the boundaries to its advantage. One of the reasons the Senate is, for all its flaws, still more moderate than the House is that there is no redistricting, since senators are elected statewide. We need a national movement to adopt the “top-two” primary (also known as an open primary), in which all voters, regardless of party registration, can vote and the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, then enter a runoff. This would prevent a hard-right or hard-left candidate from gaining office with the support of just a sliver of the voters of the vastly
diminished primary electorate; to finish in the top two, candidates from either party would have to reach out to the broad middle. California, which probably mirrors the diversity of America more than any other state, was racked by polarization until voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2010 that adopted a “top-two” primary system. The move has had a moderating influence on both parties and a salutary effect on the political system and its ability to govern. Louisiana has used a similar system since the 1970s, and Washington state since 2008. Voters in Colorado and Oregon will consider proposals later this year. If it works in these states, it can work in others. In late June, Sena Thad Cochran, a conservative Mississippi Republican, won a runoff primary over an even more conservative challenger, Chris McDaniel, with the support of Democrats, many of them African American, who crossed over to vote for him. While there are no guarantees, it seems likely that a top-two primary system would encourage more participation in primaries and undo tendencies toward default extremism. It would remove the incentive that pushes our politicians to kowtow to the factions of their party that are most driven by fear and anger. For those of us who are in despair over partisanship and polarization in Congress, reform of the primary system is a start. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, was elected to the House in 1980 and to the Senate in 1998. This first appeared in The New York Times.
BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM