The Portland Oregonian

The Oregonian Quotes Phillip Longman on the VA

Communications — Thu, 10 May 2007 12:01:00 -0400

Richard Nystrom was in the Air Force serving in the Korean War when an Army dentist put temporary fillings in two teeth. The work was faulty, and the teeth eventually rotted under the fillings...Forty years later, Nystrom needed the dental work redone. But it's taken him a decade of appeals just to get an exam. Today, he's missing 17 teeth and is too self-conscious to smile. He chews with two molars. And living on $1,200 a month, the 76-year-old Tigard resident cannot afford to pay a private dentist $5,000 to fix his teeth... There is no shortage of complaints such as Nystrom's about the difficulty in establishing eligibility for VA health care. His story and those of other older veterans offer a warning to an agency bracing for the return of tens of thousands of military men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan... Once deemed eligible, veterans face an eight-tier system of prioritization when they seek health care that takes into account issues such as service-connected disabilities, combat wounds, whether they were a prisoner of war and net worth...The pool of veterans being treated by the VA is increasing -- from… more

Jacob Hacker Interviewed on New Book by The Oregonian

Communications — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:40:00 -0400

To hear Jacob Hacker talk, U.S. workers are increasingly being asked to become actuaries for their own economic doom.

Pension plans are evaporating. Health-insurance costs are climbing. More than ever, incomes rise and fall from year to year.

The American middle class feels more on the edge of financial ruin than any time since World War II.

Why? That's the subject of Hacker's new book, "The Great Risk Shift" (Oxford University Press, $26).

The Yale University political science professor and native Oregonian's theory is simple: Government, corporations and insurers once shouldered the costs of workers' retirement, health care and job security. No more, Hacker says. Increasingly, families carry those risks, and they're growing ever-more weary and financially incapable of doing so.

An example: The proportion of families earning between $20,000 and $40,000, without health insurance, has risen from 25 percent in 2000 to nearly 40 percent, he says. "We're seeing problems that were once really confined to the very bottom of our economic pyramid moving up to affect the middle class," he says...

Q: So, there's unrest among the public, but that's not being transferred into political debate?

A: It may be soon. The economy is actually featuring more prominently in this election than… more

Len Nichols on the Failing Health Care System in The Oregonian

Communications — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 20:17:00 -0400

Health care costs clobbered Peggy Tate and sent her to economic purgatory after her husband died of cancer five years ago.

The 51-year-old Scappoose woman took out a second mortgage to pay $30,000 in costs not covered by her husband's insurance. She also has monthly payments for diabetes medicine, her son's medical needs, state-subsidized health insurance and more than $10,000 of medical debt on credit cards. Altogether, medical bills eat about 40 percent of the $2,500 a month she earns running a home day-care business....

Rising health care costs hit Tate harder than most, but a growing portion of Oregon's middle class also is seeing health care carve into household budgets...

The United States spends more than twice as much per person on health as the average industrial nation. Yet the World Health Organization ranked the U.S. 37th in the world in overall health care, based on life expectancy, infant mortality and spending on chronic illnesses.

"That puts us right between Slovenia and Costa Rica -- countries that should beat us in soccer but not at health care," says Len Nichols, a health economist and director of health policy at the New America Foundation, a bipartisan think tank in Washington.

"We have way too many… more

Portland: Lost in Its Own Reflection

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Few cities in North America are as widely feted as Portland. For many, Portland represents the epitome of "smart" urbanism, a paragon that puts other, less-brainy places to shame.

Pilgrims travel once or twice a month from as far as California and Canada to study Portland's transit system, economic development and land-use strategies. Lots of educated people, trees, clean air and good buzz help Portland get on all the right lists--from "most livable," "most fit," "healthiest," "most competitive," "most literate" and "best for walking."

It's enough to make even a modest city booster blush. But before you all turn red, is all this praise deserved?

Much like its bigger soul mate, San Francisco, Portland isn't an old-style "city of big shoulders" but a lifestyle choice for the enlightened elite. They're the people who read more than average, walk or bicycle regularly and drink lots of good coffee.

Portland is becoming what I call an Ephemeral City. What do ephemeral cities do? Not much by traditional standards. They don't create a lot of jobs for working or middle-class people. Instead they mostly exist to celebrate themselves and provide an attractive setting for visitors and would-be migrants.

But can a city survive--and thrive--primarily as a marketer of an urban experience?

An ephemeral city doesn't compete with lesser places--you know, those ugly cities with functional warehouses and factories, Wal-Marts and strip malls--for jobs, companies or investors. An ephemeral city's economy relies largely on a high level of self-esteem among its residents.

Four decades ago, author Neil Morgan used the term "narcissus of the West" to describe an already self-indulgent San Francisco. Now it's time for the City by the Bay to move over--the City of Roses wants to take its place in front of the mirror.

To some extent, this high regard, like that of any well-chiseled middle-age narcissist, reflects something of a Portland reality. Portland, as its boosters are forever telling everyone, is a physically attractive place. Parts of the city--like the much ballyhooed Pearl District--look very much like famed urbanist Jane Jacobs' idealized urban district.

Rhapsodizers often miss the differences between Portland today and Jacobs' gritty Manhattan neighborhoods of more than 40 years ago. Those New York areas were home to large numbers of families and immigrants; they boasted both real bohemians (those without money) as well people who worked with their hands. Most residents were there for employment and family; many hoped they'd move up into a nicer neighborhood someday.

Upward mobility was the common theme of the time. Urbanites wanted to get ahead--not "soak" in the ambience--and saw the city as a means to get there. "A metropolitan economy, if it is working well, is constantly transforming many poor people into middle class people...greenhorns into competent citizens," Jacobs suggests. "...Cities don't lure the middle class, they create it."

Contrast that with genteel Portland, which increasingly places its bet largely on luring the hip, cool, iPod-toting creative class--"the young and the restless," as one story recently put it. These hipsters are supposedly the engine of the city's future.

But who isn't high on this agenda? Certainly it can't be families. Portland already has one of the lowest percentages of little tykes among American cities. The city schools are emptying out, down 14 percent in 10 years.

Nor, despite the obligatory liberal genuflection, it can't be ethnic minorities, either. Portland has one of the lowest percentages of minorities and immigrants of any major city on the Pacific Coast. Hardworking Latin laborers or opportunistic Asian traders--the canaries in the economic coal mine--seem to be opting instead for less-lovely but more commercially vital places such as Los Angeles, Phoenix or Houston.

If they're the leading drivers of Portland's future, what is the local "creative class" creating? So far, nothing exceptional in the way of jobs or new companies. Now clearly on the rebound, Oregon's economy started lagging the country's five years ago.

But so far the data suggests that the rebound is stronger in places like Medford and Eugene, as well as the burgeoning suburbs which, compared to their high-priced counterparts in California, are attractive not so much to hipsters but to families.

"People like the downtown, but the growth is elsewhere," notes local economist John Mitchell.

But the economy isn't the only place suburbia is doing better than the sophistos suggest. Like the "creative class," the city's much ballyhooed "green" planning policy has been less than wildly successful.

Even before Al Gore, looking out from one of his estates, discovered sprawl, Portland's planners declared war on single-family homes, backyards and insufficiently dense development. To stomp out such deviant behavior, the city--to the hosannas of the planning profession--proudly imposed tough restrictions, notably the urban growth boundary, on new development.

Unfortunately, Portland's green urbanism has produced some unexpected results. As regulation helped boost the housing prices in the close-in areas, the middle class has moved farther and farther out. It turns out that most families--yes, they still exist--usually opt not to raise their kids inside sardine cans if they can at all help it.

So Portland's sprawl has continued to spiral about as much, or even more, than most American regions, notes demographer Wendell Cox. Over the past few years Portland's population growth has slowed considerably, with the overwhelming majority of the Portland area's increases coming outside the city limits, and that percentage appears to be growing.

Some of this may be traced to the little-acknowledged fact about the creative class--at some point many grow up and move out. One prime destination appears to be fast-growing Washington County, which beat the pants off Portland in a recent ranking of most-tech-savvy places in USA Today.

Mass transit, the other linchpin of the Portland legend, also may be less a triumph than reported. According to the most recent Texas Transportation Study, drivers in greater Portland are stuck in traffic 39 hours a year, not far behind notoriously gridlocked Seattle, with 47 hours.

So if Portland's present accomplishments are less than stellar, what does the future hold ? Actually, it won't be too bad for those who like the way things are.

Given current trends, Portland's inner city will continue to be attractive to its core demographic niches. As an attractive Ephemeral City, it will remain a lifestyle pit stop for wayward twentysomethings and a lure for the financially secure's quest for quality of life.

It also might remain a blessed place for aging hipsters who can "create" for each other without enduring the hard competitive scene of Los Angeles, New York or even Seattle.

Population pressures may help. As the country grows to 400 million by 2050--due largely to the children of immigrants and babies raised out in the burbs--there'll be enough young people, childless couples and nomadic rich to keep the Pearl District hopping. Suburbanites may still wander into town on weekends to take in a play, a game or some high-quality cuisine.

There even may still be a buzz about the place. Burdened by the complexities of managing mid-21st century super-sprawl, planners might still come to marvel at a preserved, archaic urban environment, much like today's visitors to Florence or Venice.

It will likely be an aggressively pleasant place, kind of a nice post-graduate college town--a museum for 1960s values, a testament to good intentions and the enduring power of self-regard.

Investing Now in the Future of Our Children

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Many Oregonians face a personal savings crisis that society cannot afford to ignore. For example, nearly half of households headed by adults 55 or older in our state lack such retirement assets as pensions and annuities. Furthermore, among low-income households in Oregon headed by an adult older than 55, nearly three out of five households (60 percent) are without retirement assets.

One new idea to address this savings crisis in Oregon that should be given serious consideration by Oregon's congressional delegation is called the ASPIRE Act. Under this bipartisan bill, every child issued a Social Security number in America in 2007 and beyond, including about 45,000 kids annually in Oregon and 4 million nationwide, will automatically receive a $500 deposit into a "Kids Account." Children living in households below the national median income will receive an at-birth supplemental contribution of up to $500.

Low-income kids will also receive a dollar-for-dollar match, not to exceed $500 a year, for voluntary contributions to the accounts. These voluntary contributions, which may come from any source, are after-tax and limited to $1,000 a year and may be used by family members, local organizations, corporations and others to reward academic achievement, community service or other good behavior.

Kids Accounts would be created within the Treasury Department in a system modeled after the highly successful federal Thrift Savings Plan, but account-holders would have the option to roll their accounts into a private-sector financial institution of their choice.

The cost for this bill has been estimated at $37.5 billion during the first 10 years. By way of comparison, the annual cost to the government of allowing pension contributions to be excluded from income is $150 billion.

Kids Accounts are premised on the idea that one cannot start early enough to save for college, a home and retirement. Why, after all, wait until someone finishes high school or college to begin saving? Why miss those first 20 or so years of accumulation? Why not teach kids financial knowledge the way we teach them language and music, starting as early as possible?

Recent research shows that parental wealth is positively associated with cognitive development, physical health and socio-emotional behavior of children. Interestingly, these studies are finding that household assets may be a stronger predictor of children's academic achievement than income.

Finally, Kids Accounts will enable generations of kids to build a financially responsible, brighter and more secure future. And young adults equipped with financial knowledge and "mobility assets" will need government less throughout their lives, thus reducing government outlays over the long term. In fact, previous efforts by the U.S. to broaden asset ownership were well worth the investment: The GI Bill returned $7 to the nation for every $1 invested, and a full quarter of adults living today have a legacy of asset ownership directly traceable to the Homestead Act.

Kids Accounts are the Homestead Act for the 21st Century and a bold idea that will benefit Oregonians for generations to come.

Import Tax on Canadian Lumber Helps United States

Cecille Isidro — Sat, 26 Aug 2000 00:00:00 -0400

The United States usually seems to be sparring with Japan over trade, but the trade battle that most affects lumber mills in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and elsewhere is with Canada.

The United States has long taken a strong stand against Canadian lumber subsidies that boost Canadian mills at the expense of U.S. mills and U.S. jobs.

Recently, however, this policy has been criticized by some claiming to defend the interest of U.S. consumers. In fact, both the claims and the credentials of these critics are deceptive.

The central dispute arises from the practice of Canadian provincial governments of selling timber to Canadian lumber companies at as little as onequarter of its market value in order to encourage lumber production.

In the mid1980s, the Reagan administration negotiated an agreement with the Canadian federal government that gave Canada's provinces the choice of selling timber at a price closer to its market value or paying a tax on lumber exports to the United States that offsets the value of the subsidy. Despite several twists and turns, the same basic arrangement continues today.

A recent study from the Cato Institute, which portrays itself as a defender of the free market, asserts that this export tax has the effect of raising the consumer price of the average new home built in the United States by around $1,000.

This estimate is dubious, since the export tax is applied to less than 2 percent of lumber in the U.S. market, and lumber makes up only about 3 percent of housing costs. But that is not the most serious problem with the claim.

The World Trade Organization condemns subsidies, like those granted to Canadian mills, because they distort markets and contribute to inefficient consumption of resources, among other ill effects. By taking a strong stand against Canadian subsidies, the U.S. government has raised U.S. softwood lumber production by nearly 20 percent compared to the preagreement level.

More important, at least from the perspective of restoring the free marketplace, it has ensured that forest products are appropriately priced to reflect their true costs, not sold at an artificially low price. This, in turn, slows environmentally dangerous over harvesting of Canadian forests.

In other words, current U.S. policy restores the operation of the free market to the benefit of both Canadians and Americans.

The battle over Canadian lumber subsidies also demonstrates why the public should be wary of those who present themselves as advocates of the American consumer in international trade matters.

Revealing the wolf in sheep's clothing, two of Canada's leading newspapers recently reported that the U.S. lobbying campaign to "protect American consumers" by eliminating the U.S.Canada agreement on lumber subsidies is actually largely financed by the Canadian lumber companies responsible for the over logging.

The current U.S. policy of combating Canadian lumber subsidies has helped both the American lumber industry and the environment by curbing over logging in Canada. Rather then being attacked as a "tax on consumers" it should be applauded as an international trade policy that has truly worked on both sides of the border.