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TH E BULLETIN• THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 2013
The Bulletin
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tart worrying. The Oregon Legislature is going to be considering a new kind of tm when it meets this year. There is a proposed bill circulat- for the Legislature will be setting ing to levy a mileage tax on some the tax rate at the "right" level. cars that get more than 55 miles It's going to be tricky. per gallon. The state needs to get it Whitty said the average gas tax right to ensure those drivers aren't per mile for cars in Oregon is about thrown under the electric bus. 1.5 centspermile. The taxrate could Gas taxes in Oregon basically be set there. But imagine if you are pay for road repair and construc- a Prius owner. Some models get tion. As more people drive hybrids about 47 miles per gallon and pay or alternative fuel vehicles, there about 0.61 cents per mile in gasoline could be a problem. taxes, Whitty said. If a Prius owner Theproposal is focused on apart upgraded to a model that got more of that issue, capturing revenue than 55 miles per gallon, he would from electric or plug-in hybrids. be paying more in gas tax. There are atleast three good That would be weird, Whitty ideas embedded in the plan for the sard. system — privacy, flexibility, and it The tax rate should also be set starts small. so that it covers actual road repair Oregonians aren't going to like and construction needs. It should it if the government is tracking ev- not be set just to keep ODOT's reverywhere they go. So the Oregon enue where it is now. Department o f T r a nsportation ODOT sent us some numbers plans to provide options for driv- on gasoline taxes and state reveers to stay disconnected from any nue over the past 10 years. They do GPS tracker. not clearly prove much of anything James Whitty, who is working about the impact of hybrids or alon the plan for ODOT, says drivers ternative fuel vehicles. There are a will also be able to choose among host of other variables in play — a providers of the service, including tax change, gas price changes and private sector companies, from a the recession. list certified by ODOT. He said priOne headsmacking statistic vate companies will likely be able ODOT did send along is a decline to provideservices more cheaply. in the average miles per gallon for The mileage-based system is all vehicles on Oregon roads. It starting small — with the dozen or was 18.1 mpg in 2001 and 16.9 mpg so types of vehicles that get more in 2010. than 55miles per gallon. That cutoff The proposed legislation is likepoint was pickedbecause 54.5miles ly a move toward taxing all Oregon per gallon is the fleet standard that drivers on mileage rather than per automakers must hit by 2025. gallon. The Legislature needs to One of the most difficult tasks ensure it doesn't drive us crazy.
'Cliff' may be averted, but critical problems remain
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residentBarack Obama and the 112th Congress have failed us again. Yes, they averted many of the scariest immediate aspects of the "fiscal cliff." And we agree with U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, that a "yes" vote was the right move in the last few hours of the latest battle. The risks of stalemate, including the chance of fallinginto another recession, were too extreme. But it's another stop-gap measure. Our leaders addressed none of the underlying problems, and we now face battles in the next few months on the debt ceiling and the expiring government spending bill. In the short term, the resulting uncertainty hurts our efforts to climb out of our current slowgrowth economy. Businesses don't expand, jobs don't get created, and people don't spend more when they don't have confidence in the consistency and stability of economic decision-making. And the immediate expiration of the payroll tax cut means workers face
a 2 percent loss of income, which could further slow the economy and increase unemployment. Ironically, the vast majority of the Bush tax cuts were made permanent with this legislation, something Republicans might have cheered a few years ago. But now we face the reality of deficits that have grown dramatically in the last few years, with no end in sight. The most important failure, h owever, starts with a l ack of honesty. By framing the conflict around the supposed failure of the rich to pay enough, the president avoids the critical conversation. We need to face up to the fact that the nation has made promises about low taxes and high benefits that it can't keep. There simply aren't enough rich people to pay the bill, no matter how high their tax rate. Voters like the idea of high benefits with someone else paying the bill, but the numbers don't add up. Until the president is willing to deal honestly with this reality, the nation remains at risk.
N© H (
M Nickel's Worth Our own form of terrorism With all the carnage, fear and now serious debate about assault rifles and mass killings, al-Qaida seems to have lost its effect on America. It seems we have our very own f orm o f t e r r orism w i t hout a l -
Qaida's help. We're trying to cope and learn how to deal with daily fear and danger. Arm the teachers? B ullet-proof backpacks fo r k i n dergarteners?This sounds like an effective form of terrorism that alQaida must be very pleased with. More AK-47s for everyone. Has America gone mad? I'm seriously starting to think so.
schools, even during Christmas. School libraries refuse to shelve Bibles. Many schools have even banned the word "Christmas." Even the City of Bend now erects a "holiday" tree. And in the world according to Hollywood, there is no God and all Christians are fools. Before we spend untold billions on arming schools, may I suggest we lower the wall a bit that fences God out? The holiness and love of God and the civilizing nature of Christianity made this country the shining light of virtue it once was and can do so again, if given the chance.
John Shepherd
Ken Beemer
Sisters
Bend
Take a look at ourselves
Oppose evil with God and good
This is written in response to Ann Byers and her letter "Guns kill children" in the Dec. 20 Bulletin. Guns actually don't do anything themselves and they certainly don't have the ability to pull their own trigger. We, as a society, always like to blame someone or something whenever anything goes wrong. That's the easy way out and it's simple. But maybe we should take a look at ourselvesand see ifm aybe we are to blame. We have raised a generation of children who don't have the respectthey should for non-violence and the reverence for life. How have we done this — you, me, our neighbors? We have let them watch violent movies and TV, left them home unsupervised while we both worked to pay for all of the toys we have, turned a blind eye to their drug use, and let them play violent video games instead of playing and exercising outdoors.
How do we address the Newtown school shooting'? Is it a mental health issue? A gun rights issue? A violent-movie-and-games issue'? A schoolsecurityissue? I believe it is a moral issue on a national scale. Newtown, along with all the other senseless shootings, exposes a rising tide of evil in our culture. We used to oppose evil with God and with good. Evil is not something that can be medicated or legislated away. Evil is something from which we must turn away by turning to God, the source of all
good. But instead of turning to God, our nation is walling him off, using the fictitious constitutional wall of separation of church and state to remove God further and further from the public square. God is nowhere to be seen in
Have we honestly provided them with a good example? When was the last time you heard of some old person shooting up a school or any other situation or even young
people 50 years ago? These are hard questions and the answers are not as simple as banning guns or assault weapons. It's time to take a closer look at ourselves and not jump to simple but incorrect conclusions. Jim Persing Redmond
Precious preborns slaughtered As we all consider the horror of the massacreof the 27 at the grade school in C o nnecticut, we h ave corporate grief being shared all throughout this nation — indeed, the whole world. I am seriously concerned about a nation, however, that can so easily dismiss the taking of many thousands of little lives every month right here in our United States. How, you ask? Precious preborn little ones are being slaughtered in the name of convenience every single day. It isn't as if these little ones have done anything wrong or are unwanted by plenty of couples who are barren. Self-centeredness and fearare often the cause ofthis enormous loss of life. Let us grieve in a uniform pattern! Any female who can conceivecan deliver a child, even if not for her own parenting. To kill the little one living in the womb is no different than killing the precious little ones and their teachers in Connecticut. Charlotte Kolzow Bend
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Better solutions needed to keep our schools safe By Cameron Scott ith all t h e c haos occurring today and our nation becoming increasingly divided on security in our schools and gun control, something has
ber here is the criminal perpetrator typically spends a great amount of time and goes to great lengths planning the event. The restricting or banning of guns will not change this underlying criminal t o be done. Politicians are l N M y F u r thermore, yl EW behavior. jumping on the gun-control gun control, once implebandwagon, some possimented, will only begin bly seeing this as an opportunity to our journey as a nation down a slippush their agenda(s) on an emotional pery slope of stripping responsible nation. Americans of their constitutional Don't get me wrong, I'm just as rights. heartsick as a nyone about these Think about it. What will be next'? recent tragedies. There is nothing Freedom of r eligion? Freedom of more tragic than a child's death and speech? Freedom from unreasonable we should all resolve to honor those search'? Even the strictest gun control small victims as well as the adults laws are not going to stop a persistent who selflessly gave their own lives in criminal. an attempt to protect them. We need What tends to be downplayed is to strengthen our resolve to protect the fact that both the Newtown and one another. It's always easier said Clackamas shooters committed prethan done. meditated criminal acts of stealing The important thing to remem- these weapons prior to their shooting
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rampages. In no way did they go out and legally obtain these weapons. According to reports, the Newtown shooter appeared to have tried to purchase a weapon from Dick's Sporting Goods and was turned down. He then apparently murdered a responsible, legal gun owner to obtain his goal of procuring a weapon — his own mother, no less. No gun law in the world is going to stop this type of determination. How could this horrible tragedy have happened and how could it be mitigated? In regards to mental health, we are now r ealizing the long-term lack of resources and degradation of family values and morals. We are facing a generation of adults desensitized to graphic violence and respecting no one. These are people who cannot, will not, or are unable to articulate or differentiate the issues of morals, accountability, reality
and responsibility — or, as I call it, "MARR." It can be argued when we had God and the Bible in our schools, we had a positive moral compass and foundation from which to develop. Whether or not one believes in the Bible is not the issue. Common sense dictates that when you build upon a solid foundation of what's right and w r ong, you get positive results. t I m the first one to admit we need more security in the schools. The modern world we live in is dangerous. But regardless of what plan gets implemented, it's going to cost money. I propose, rather t han h aving armed guards (the first target of a shooter) at schools, we use what might be a win/win situation? Use an effective, kid-friendly, nonlethal force in the form of trained
dogs and volunteer handlers (who could be teachers, staff and volunteers, or someone else). The advantage would be that threat response time would be negligible. In addition, a shootout with the criminal could be avoided while the dog neutralizes the threat — or, at the very least, provides a barrier between the criminal and victims, slowing down the criminal and allowing extra time for escape. Trained dogs would also be able to locate and be alert to the presence of drugs, explosives, weapons and other potential threats to safety. With students exposed to these protective service animals rather than more guns, a result could be the development of a school servicea nimal t r a i ning p r o g ram f r o m which children would benefit while giving back to the community. n
— CamerOn cam o SCOtt liVeS in Bend.