Editorials

Oh, for God's sake!

There's a small pile of confetti on my desk. I took an x-acto knife to all the money in my wallet to get rid of the offensive "In God We Trust."

I don't know who we are supposed to trust -- certainly not Martha Stewart, Arthur Andersen, Merrill Lynch or WorldCom -- but I don't want to offend anyone when I fork over my cash.

I bought a bottle of white-out so I can get rid of that embarrassing "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" bit in the Declaration of Independence.

Okay, I understand that some people don't like any hint of the spiritual or metaphysical in their public discourse. I'm pretty undemonstrative in that regard myself.

But the folks who would leach every expression of faith in a higher power out of our civic culture are stretching the fabric of our history and constitution to do it.

The First Amendment (of which we newspaper folks are quite fond) states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." In the context of the times, that meant no state church, no "Church of America" mimicking the Church of England.

The founders most certainly did not intend that any reference to a deity be expunged from public life. Those guys -- some of whom were notorious "free thinkers" -- invoked God all the time, right out in public. Not in any self-righteous way; but in the way of people who were making up history as they went along and sought higher wisdom and strength wherever they could find it.

No one compels anyone to say "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. No one compels anyone to recite the pledge at all.

Yeah, kids might feel pressure, but don't you think they feel more pressure to dress cool and listen to the right music? Perhaps we should declare backwards ball caps, baggy jeans and Britney Spears unconstitutional.

Now that's something I could get behind.

Jim Cornelius, Editor

Legislature's budget is dishonest

So soon after Enron and WorldCom, a cowardly and dishonest Oregon Legislature has put forth a budget that needs accounting tricks to solve the state's budget crisis.

And they cry that they have been working so hard. Let's see them make rent and day care and car insurance and doctor's bills, let alone health insurance, on a wage of $10 or $12 or even $13 an hour. Then they can whine.

If it was the Oregon Legislature, they wouldn't have to pay those bills. They would tell the landlord that rather than pay the rent in December, they will pay it a few days later, in January. That way, they can tell the bank where they are trying to get a loan that their rent was actually less this year.

The bank normally wouldn't loan money to buy chicken for dinner tonight, even though everybody agrees the family shouldn't starve. The bank would ask hard questions, such as, what will we have for dinner tomorrow night, and where will THAT money come from?

Not the Oregon Legislature. They are going to borrow money to pay the bills for this year by issuing bonds that will take decades to pay off. So in the future, we will have to pay for what we need then, AND we will be paying on a loan for this year. What will we have for dinner tomorrow? How will we plug the budget hole in two years? The Oregon Legislature will worry about that later.

Tell THAT to the bank.

There is a strong hint of rain over the mountains. In fact, this is still Oregon, and it rains here often enough, even on the "dry" side. The Oregon Legislature is going to take the education endowment fund, call it a "rainy day" fund, and pay some more bills. Then that, too, will be all gone.

As a rainy day fund, that is like renting a towel in the middle of a storm instead of buying a coat. Of course, if they buy a coat, they will have to admit that the sun doesn't always shine.

And in the ultimate act of cowardice, the Oregon Legislature is turning the hard decisions back to the voters, so they can hold up their hands at election time and say, "see... I didn't raise any taxes, my hands are clean."

Sometimes you can't do hard work with clean hands. Accounting tricks, irresponsible borrowing, deficit spending, all hidden under clever words of family values. What a tragedy has befallen the Republican Party, what a tragedy for Oregon.

Eric Dolson, Publisher