C4 Wednesday, April 7, 2010 • THE BULLETIN
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Dugan for DA
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eschutes County District Attorney Mike Dugan will confront something unusual on next month’s ballot: an opponent.
Ever since 1990, when he defeated Leonard Parker, Dugan has reclaimed his position by crushing “write in” on the May ballot. With opposition like that, even the Detroit Lions could win a few games. Challenger Patrick Flaherty worked under Dugan for more than eight years, rising to chief deputy DA before leaving in 2001. For most of the past decade, Flaherty has done criminal-defense work. Flaherty is, indeed, qualified to be district attorney. But the question voters should ask next month is whether installing him in Dugan’s chair will improve the district attorney’s office. We don’t think so. Which isn’t to say Dugan’s a shooin. He is particularly vulnerable on two fronts. The first is his office’s role in the David Black disaster. We won’t rehash the details here, but Black has suffered an injustice to which Dugan’s office contributed. But this episode should be weighed against Dugan’s tenure as Deschutes County’s top prosecutor, which spans nearly 24 years. He has been, with very few exceptions, a very good DA. There’s a reason Dugan’s rarely been challenged for re-election. Dugan’s second vulnerability is his avid campaigning in favor of Measures 66 and 67. The two tax hikes are, indeed, bad public policy. But Dugan’s advocacy says nothing about his competence as a DA. In any case, the person with whom voters have a beef is Dugan’s wife, Rep. Judy Stiegler. She voted for the tax hikes last year. But when they were referred to the ballot, she disappeared. As strong opponents of the tax measures, we understand the impulse to lash out at Dugan. But doing so
would be counterproductive. Besides tossing aside one of the state’s most experienced district attorneys, it would create turmoil among the office’s 18 deputy district attorneys. These are the people who handle the county’s criminal cases, and they do so very well. Lobbing a ballot-box hand grenade in their direction would be a good idea only if it improved the function of the DA’s office, and voters have no reason to believe that it would. If you set aside David Black’s treatment and Dugan’s tax-hike campaigning, Flaherty’s case for election virtually disappears. He says he’d like to give individual prosecutors greater authority to settle cases on their own. He also believes Dugan’s office is inefficient, arguing that two prosecutors frequently appear in the courtroom when only one would suffice. He also believes Dugan too often uses Ballot Measure 11 as a plea-bargain club, though he doesn’t know if this phenomenon is more pronounced in Deschutes County than elsewhere. This is a weak foundation upon which to build an oust-the-incumbent campaign. Flaherty argues that Dugan is a living testament to the value of term limits. It’s “not the DA’s office anymore,” he told us this week. “It’s the office of Mike Dugan.” We’d understand this argument better if district attorneys, like legislators, made policy. But they don’t. In effect, they’re elected legal administrators, and in that sense experience helps far more than it hurts. But let’s concede the point and assume that the DA’s office has become the Office of Mike Dugan. What really matters is whether the Office of Mike Dugan is serving the people of Deschutes County well enough to justify another four years. The answer is yes.
Back reform candidates
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edmond Superintendent Vickie Fleming isn’t defensive about the fate of Oregon’s Race to the Top application, which she helped prepare. While Tennessee and Delaware waltzed away with hundreds of millions of dollars, Oregon emerged from the competition’s first round with the innovation equivalent of a scarlet letter. Said Fleming this week: “I think we got exactly what we deserved and that we have to get serious about the reforms they’re proposing or we’re not going to be competitive in any way, shape or form. We’ve got to have some hard conversations politically and on the ground.” Federal evaluators identified a number of shortcomings, including a weak system for evaluating teachers and a rigid certification process that keeps many potentially good teachers out of the classroom. Nobody thinks fixing these problems will be easy. But with the May primary just around the corner, now’s a good time to have some of the “hard conversations” Fleming mentioned.
As even the governor now recognizes, Oregon is speeding toward a budgetary cliff. The economy isn’t producing enough tax receipts to satisfy the ever-increasing appetite of state government, and Oregonians are tired of tax and fee hikes. These are ideal conditions to push educational reforms that improve productivity. Policymakers might not be able to turn the funding spigot any further, but they can invite the best and brightest into the classroom even if they haven’t undergone traditional teacher training. They can adopt policies that improve the accuracy of teacher evaluations. They can reward the best teachers appropriately while motivating weak teachers to improve or leave. Oregonians who want their state to adopt such common-sense reforms should choose their legislative and gubernatorial candidates accordingly. If the struggle to push Oregon’s educational establishment into the modern age is a “hard conversation,” to borrow Fleming’s metaphor, then it’s one in which Oregonians themselves have the last word. It’s called a vote.
My Nickel’s Worth Massages are good I want to start with commending Deschutes County for having the foresight to take care of its employees. As far as the county paying out $136,000 last year for massages, 2.9 percent of this going to me as an LMT, let’s see a figure that compares pharmaceutical payments with all the alternative treatment options combined. I can guarantee that the amount paid out for drugs would far outweigh the cost of massage, acupuncture, etc. You may say that this is not a fair comparison. People need those drugs to be “healthy.” Well, there is a chance that with the proper preventive care those drugs would not even be needed. More importantly, people should be given the choice on how to care for themselves. If people want to seek out alternative options, they should not be judged, nor should those that seek a more “western” style of medicine. The word we should focus on here is choice. We all want less expensive health care, right? Well, the county so happens to have seen the big picture and is ahead of its time with the benefits it can offer to employees and feel it is saving money for that reason. Commissioner Tammy Baney is even quoted in the article saying, “(The massage benefit) has not proven to be a big strain on the budget.” So what’s the problem here, folks? Stacey Wimberley Bend
Pointless drug war In response to Diana Hopson (“Legal-
ize drugs”), legalizing drugs might very well cause similar troubles as the current practice of “war on drugs.” Portugal decriminalized drugs in 2001. Recently the CATO Institute did a report on how things have gone in Portugal since the change (www.cato.org/pub_display. php?pub_id=10080). It is a report well worth reading. According to Webster’s, decriminalize is defined as “to eliminate or reduce the penalties for.” In the same dictionary, legalize is defined as “to make legal or lawful.” When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked (during an interview regarding the murders. Hopson referred to) if decriminalization was an option, she replied “no.” Hopson stated, “Unless our own government has a stake in this war on drugs,” obviously this is the situation, otherwise decriminalization would, at least, be considered an option. The “war on drugs” is profitable, as is the “war on terror.” I am not happy to say such a thing; it actually terrifies me. I recently listened to an interview on an OPB station that was discussing why America seems to be on the brink of revolution. Perhaps one of the reasons is the refusal of the government to at least consider decriminalization of drugs as an option to the apparently never-ending war on drugs and the multitude of deaths that “war” has caused. Tina Towler Madras
Live with less I guffawed while reading “Calls can leave Bend Fire tapped” on March 28. What about tapped taxpayers? This January, Oregonians increased
personal income taxes and created a de facto sales tax. Since 2007, our federal government has increased national debt with corresponding taxes by billions to bail out a failed government financial system. Government then added billions more to bail out failed automobile companies. Next, government added additional billions to pay for a failed government mortgage industry. In March, government blasted Americans with more taxes to pay for government health care. Don’t forget recently passed new taxes for Deschutes County sheriff services and COCC. It’s time government understands, there is no money left! Government will always create reasons to demand more money, but at what cost? Every time additional money is requested for more government programs, we must ask two questions: First, can we afford it? Second, what will it do to our rights and individual freedoms? I can’t afford, nor do I want or need, more government. It’s time government makes do with what it has. If that means less service, then so be it. I’m willing to accept the risk. Less service should come from nonessential government programs only. Prudent, frugal Americans are continually cutting back and living with less. It’s time government does the same. Thomas Jefferson believed if we can prevent government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they will be prosperous and content. Gladys Biglor Bend
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Demographics, economic competitiveness will serve U.S. well
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ccording to recent polls, 60 percent of Americans think the country is heading in the wrong direction. The same percentage believe that the U.S. is in long-term decline. The political system is dysfunctional. A fiscal crisis looks unavoidable. There are plenty of reasons to be gloomy. But if you want to read about them, stop right here. This column is a great luscious orgy of optimism. Because the fact is, despite all the problems, America’s future is exceedingly bright. Over the next 40 years, demographers estimate that the U.S. population will surge by an additional 100 million people, to 400 million overall. The population will be enterprising and relatively young. In 2050, only a quarter will be over 60, compared with 31 percent in China and 41 percent in Japan. In his book “The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050,” uber-geographer Joel Kotkin sketches out how this growth will change the national landscape. Extrapolating from current trends, he describes an archipelago of vibrant suburban town centers, villages and urban cores.
The initial wave of suburbanization was sprawling and featureless. Tom Wolfe once observed that you only knew you were in a new town when you began to see a new set of 7-Elevens. But humans need meaningful places, so developers have been filling in with neo-downtowns — suburban gathering spots where people can dine, work, go to the movies and enjoy public space. Over the next 40 years, Kotkin argues, urban downtowns will continue their modest (and perpetually overhyped) revival, but the real action will be out in the compact, self-sufficient suburban villages. Many of these places will be in the Sun Belt — the drive to move there remains strong — but Kotkin also points to surging low-cost hubs on the Plains, like Fargo, Dubuque, Iowa City, Sioux Falls and Boise. The demographic growth is driven partly by fertility. The American fertility rate is 50 percent higher than Russia, Germany or Japan, and much higher than China. Americans born between 1968 and 1979 are more family-oriented than the boomers before them, and are having larger families.
DAVID BROOKS In addition, the U.S. remains a magnet for immigrants. Global attitudes about immigration are diverging, and the U.S. is among the best at assimilating them (while China is exceptionally poor). As a result, half the world’s skilled immigrants come to the U.S. As Kotkin notes, between 1990 and 2005, immigrants started a quarter of the new venturebacked public companies. The United States measures at the top or close to the top of nearly every global measure of economic competitiveness. A comprehensive 2008 Rand Corp. study found that the U.S. leads the world in scientific and technological development. The U.S. accounts for a third of the world’s research-and-development spending. Partly as a result, the average American worker is nearly 10 times
more productive than the average Chinese worker, a gap that will close but not go away in our lifetimes. This produces a lot of dynamism. As Stephen J. Rose points out in his book “Rebound: Why America Will Emerge Stronger From the Financial Crisis,” the number of Americans earning between $35,000 and $70,000 declined by 12 percent between 1980 and 2008. But that’s largely because the number earning more than $105,000 increased by 14 percent. Over the past 10 years, 60 percent of American adults made more than $100,000 in at least one or two of those years, and 40 percent had incomes that high for at least three. As the world gets richer, demand will rise for the sorts of products Americans are great at providing — emotional experiences. Educated Americans grow up in a culture of moral materialism; they have their sensibilities honed by complicated shows like “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” and “Mad Men,” and they go on to create companies like Apple, with identities coated in moral and psychological meaning, which affluent consumers crave.
As the rising generation leads an economic revival, it will also participate in a communal one. We are living in a global age of social entrepreneurship. In 1964, there were 15,000 foundations in the U.S. By 2001, there were 61,000. In 2007, total private giving passed $300 billion. Participation in organizations like City Year, Teach for America, and College Summit surges every year. Suburbanization helps. For every 10 percent reduction in population density, the odds that people will join a local club rise 15 percent. The culture of service is entrenched and widespread. In sum, the U.S. is on the verge of a demographic, economic and social revival, built on its historic strengths. The U.S. has always been good at disruptive change. It has always excelled at decentralized community-building. It has always had that moral materialism that creates meaning-rich products. Surely a country with this much going for it is not going to wait around passively and let a rotten political culture drag it down. David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times.