As the Republican Presidential candidates focus on each other's numerous faults, America focuses on tax injustice

[Edited 1/25/12]
As most of the Republican candidates turn their inherently mean, greedy, and compassionless natures against each other during the debates, in what has become a free-for-all circus of incompetence, demonization of poor people, and back-biting, they have managed to bring the issue of tax fairness into America's living rooms. Mitt Romney has become the poster boy for how fabulously wealthy people can end up paying a lower tax rate than ordinary working people. Mitt Romney, who even though he tells us he does his own laundry, does have an estimated wealth of $190 to $250 million, and paid only about 13.9% in taxes, i.e. $3 million, on $21.7 million of unearned income in 2010. (Unearned--they got that adjective right, because the easier the work, the more you make) At least he pays more than nothing, as is the case with many corporations. His tax rate for the 2011 tax year is estimated to come in around 15.4%. The reason offered for why his rate is so low is due to the fact that most of his income is from investments (long-term capital gains), which are taxed at a 15% rate. The average person pays above 15%, some much more, when payroll taxes for medicare and Social Security are included. Newt Gingrich says he paid almost $1 million, or about 30%, on his 2010 income of roughly $3.1 million. Perhaps it is worth noting that in 1961, an individual making $200,000 or over, and a couple making $400,000 or over had a tax rate of 91%, which, even when adjusted for inflation ($200,000 in 1961=$1,504,608.70 in 2011), would still include both Romney and Gingrich.

The long-term capital gains tax rate is currently as low as it has been for at least the last 50 years. Until the George W. Bush administration, when it was lowered to 15%, it has ranged from a high around 40% to a low of 20%, and for most of the years before W, it was at, or most often above, 25%.

It is difficult however, for Newtie to criticize Romney or even to capitalize on what many people see as inherent unfairness in the tax code, because Gingrich has a 15% flat tax plan, which he now calls the Mitt Romney flat tax, and which would eliminate taxes on capital gains entirely, while cutting his own taxes in half. Then Newt will be able to keep $2.6million instead of a paltry $2.1 million on a $3.1 million income derived from influence peddling and speech making, and Mitt would pay almost nothing as a corporate raider/restructurer. Under Newtie's plan, the corporate rate would fall from its current 35% to only 12.5%, lower that the individual's flat 15%, and both corporations and the rich would reap large tax savings, while tax revenues tumble into the abyss. Fabulous ideas? Are we going to saddle the resurgence of the American Dream on the backs of the vast majority who are already seeing their share of the dream continuously shrink towards desperation? I read tonight that Obama said in his SOTU that he wants a tax plan where people making a $million or more pay at least a 30% rate, which is definitely a move in the right direction.

Romney responds to any criticism of capitalist inequality or thoughts of increasing the low tax load of the rich as "the politics of envy" and "class warfare," as if there couldn't possibly be an objective, fact based, critical analysis and thoughtful evaluation of tax fairness and our growing inequalities in wealth and opportunity between the rich, the middle class, and the poor. No, he and his class would have us believe that it's not the politics of fairness and justice, it's only "envy." He, and many Republican leaders, would have us believe that "class warfare" isn't by the rich on the poor, and isn't about the growing inequality and the increasing wealth and power of the rich at the expense of the poor and middle class, but that somehow, in the face of the facts, the poor are waging war against the rich! If he thinks that listening to poor and middle class people criticizing and protesting against outrageous inequality, in a peaceful, democratic fashion is warfare, then what would he call a situation where the poor actually decided to stand up and fight?

Partly in the hope of avoiding that eventuality, some folks are turning their skills to documentary film making so as to clearly explain the situation to Americans, in the hope that once armed with the facts, they will be able to bring change through the ballot box, even in the face of the Citizen's United ruling which grants corporations and unions unlimited campaign spending.

Below are two video variations on the same theme: We're Not Broke (We're just not taxing the rich and corporations enough, like we used to when all Americans mattered!) These are followed up by an informative Democracy Now! article on the Sundance Film Festival documentary "We're Not Broke," and a blog article by Robert Reich on the effects of globalization and "a Government Overwhelmed by Corporate money."
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We're Not Broke (Documentary at Sundance Film Festival)

From Synopsis in Sundance Film Festival Film Guide:

"With the United States in the grip of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression and an unprecedented budget deficit, the conclusion that our country is broke seems unquestionable. At least that's what politicians and pundits want ordinary citizens to believe as they call for massive spending cuts.

Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce's searing exposé reveals that, strangely absent from this rhetoric, is the infuriating fact that multibillion-dollar corporations are based in the U.S., make money from American consumers, and often even receive lucrative contracts from the government, yet pay nothing in U.S. income taxes. By exploiting tax-law loopholes and spending millions on lobbyists to pressure politicians to protect their interests, corporations pocket billions while the less-connected middle class disappears, and the poor get poorer. . . . ."

Watch a short clip on Prescreen:
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Democracy Now!
As Romney Releases Tax Returns, Fmr Senate Investigator Says: We’ve Got To Start Taxing Corporations

During the GOP primary, Mitt Romney has come under fierce attack for parking millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven. We speak with Tax Justice Network USA chair Jack Blum, a former top congressional investigator of financial crimes, who says tax evasion could seriously cripple the already struggling economy. Blum appears in "We’re Not Broke," a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film examines widespread corporate tax evasion in the United States and the increasing role of offshore tax havens. "Has [Romney] cheated? No," Blum says. "What he’s done is take full advantage of a system that has been structured the way it is because of political influence and a tremendous amount of lobbying money on Capitol Hill... We must not only rewrite the Internal Revenue Code, but we must get a fair contribution from the very wealthy and from corporations, and that is the only way to balance the budget."

[Link added] [Read rush transcript]
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We're Not Broke, Just Twisted: Extreme Wealth Inequality in America


Go To inequality.org
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The State of Our Disunion: A Globalizing Private Sector, A Government Overwhelmed by Corporate Money

Robert Reich

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2012

. . . .
An Apple executive says “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.” He might have added “and showing a big enough profits to continually increase our share price.”
. . . .
What they want in America is lower corporate taxes, less regulation, and fewer unionized workers. But none of these will bring good jobs to America. These steps may lower the costs of production here, but global companies can always find even lower costs abroad.
. . . .
Put simply, American workers are hobbled by deteriorating schools, unaffordable college tuitions, decaying infrastructure, and declining basic R&D. All of this is putting us on a glide path toward even lousier jobs and lower wages.

Get it? The strategic responsibility for making Americans more globally competitive can’t be centered in the private sector because the private sector is rapidly going global, and it’s designed to make profits rather than good jobs. The core responsibility has to be in government because government is supposed to be looking out for the public, and investing in public schools, colleges, infrastructure, and basic R&D.

But here’s the political problem. American firms have huge clout in Washington. They maintain legions of lobbyists and are pouring boatloads of money into political campaigns. After the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, there’s no limit.

Who represents the American workforce? Organized labor represents fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers and has all it can do to protect a dwindling number of unionized jobs.

Republicans like it this way, and for three decades have been trying to convince average working Americans government is their enemy. Yet corporate America isn’t their friend. Without bold government action on behalf of our workforce, good American jobs will continue to disappear.

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Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, Supercapitalism, and his most recent book, Aftershock. His "Marketplace" commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes. He is also Common Cause's board chairman.

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See also:

Income inequality: Theme of 2012
By Marshall McComb
LTE, Baker City Herald
Baker City, Oregon

. . . .
But the inequality issue is not going away. Despite Republicans’ avoidance of this issue or their decrying it as “class warfare,” most of us realize that we have become a society more unequal than at any time since the 1920s. Automation, globalization, union-busting, and legalized financial abuse have drained middle-class purchasing power and stymied upward mobility. Health care and public education are in critical decline. Most of us have been left behind, while Romney and his cohorts pursue a never-ending quest for more money ... and the political power to cut their taxes even further. . . . .

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Iris Dement Wasteland Of The Free

Robert Reich - 7 Lies About the Economy and Taxes

Each day, I read many, many articles that are important enough to post. Others are similarly flooded with information. Things are falling apart in so many places, so rapidly, that it becomes difficult to choose which ones to share from all those important articles. Today, I have decided to post just one, in the hope that it might be watched and read.
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The Seven Biggest Economic Lies


By Robert Reich


October 12, 2011

 
Robert Reich - 7 Lies

 

THE SEVEN BIGGEST ECONOMIC LIES

The President’s Jobs Bill doesn’t have a chance in Congress — and the Occupiers on Wall Street and elsewhere can’t become a national movement for a more equitable society – unless more Americans know the truth about the economy.

Here’s a short (2 minute 30 second) effort to rebut the seven biggest whoppers now being told by those who want to take America backwards. The major points:

1. Tax cuts for the rich trickle down to everyone else. Baloney. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush both sliced taxes on the rich and what happened? Most Americans’ wages (measured by the real median wage) began flattening under Reagan and have dropped since George W. Bush. Trickle-down economics is a cruel joke.

2. Higher taxes on the rich would hurt the economy and slow job growth. False. From the end of World War II until 1981, the richest Americans faced a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent or above. Under Dwight Eisenhower it was 91 percent. Even after all deductions and credits, the top taxes on the very rich were far higher than they’ve been since. Yet the economy grew faster during those years than it has since. (Don’t believe small businesses would be hurt by a higher marginal tax; fewer than 2 percent of small business owners are in the highest tax bracket.)

3. Shrinking government generates more jobs. Wrong again. It means fewer government workers – everyone from teachers, fire fighters, police officers, and social workers at the state and local levels to safety inspectors and military personnel at the federal. And fewer government contractors, who would employ fewer private-sector workers. According to Moody’s economist Mark Zandi (a campaign advisor to John McCain), the $61 billion in spending cuts proposed by the House GOP will cost the economy 700,000 jobs this year and next.

4. Cutting the budget deficit now is more important than boosting the economy. Untrue. With so many Americans out of work, budget cuts now will shrink the economy. They’ll increase unemployment and reduce tax revenues. That will worsen the ratio of the debt to the total economy. The first priority must be getting jobs and growth back by boosting the economy. Only then, when jobs and growth are returning vigorously, should we turn to cutting the deficit.

5. Medicare and Medicaid are the major drivers of budget deficits. Wrong. Medicare and Medicaid spending is rising quickly, to be sure. But that’s because the nation’s health-care costs are rising so fast. One of the best ways of slowing these costs is to use Medicare and Medicaid’s bargaining power over drug companies and hospitals to reduce costs, and to move from a fee-for-service system to a fee-for-healthy outcomes system. And since Medicare has far lower administrative costs than private health insurers, we should make Medicare available to everyone.

6. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Don’t believe it. Social Security is solvent for the next 26 years. It could be solvent for the next century if we raised the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax. That ceiling is now $106,800.

7. It’s unfair that lower-income Americans don’t pay income tax. Wrong. There’s nothing unfair about it. Lower-income Americans pay out a larger share of their paychecks in payroll taxes, sales taxes, user fees, and tolls than everyone else.


Demagogues through history have known that big lies, repeated often enough, start being believed — unless they’re rebutted. These seven economic whoppers are just plain wrong. Make sure you know the truth – and spread it on.

_

Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, Supercapitalism, and his most recent book, Aftershock. His "Marketplace" commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes. He is also Common Cause's board chairman.
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For more Videos from Robert Reich, see Robert Reich's archive.

It's the Low Tax Payments By Corporations and the Rich, Stupid! Worker Taxes Are Higher, But Our Benefits Are Less, Than Wealthy European Countries

There is a good deal of insightful comparative information in the following article in addition to the excerpts provided below.

Nine Countries That Do It Better: Why Does Europe Take Better Care of Its People Than America?
The world's wealthy democracies have somewhat different priorities, leading to some very different outcomes for their citizens.

Or see also: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28366.htm

. . . .

Taking Care of the Ill: France

If you have access to the best health care in the United States, then you have some of the best care in the world. But that comes with an extremely steep price, and not everyone has that kind of access.

In 2008, the U.S. spent 16 percent of its economic output on health-care and covered 85 percent of its citizens. It was the only OECD country other than Mexico and Turkey to cover less than 90 percent of its people. We have the 37th longest average life expectancy, and a recent study found that American “life expectancy has been stagnant for much of the country and is actually decreasing over much of the Southern portion of the United States.”

France, which has a health-care system ranked number one in the world by the WHO, spent 11.2 percent of its economy to cover everyone.

There are a number of drivers of health-care costs, but one statistic stands out: in the European (and European-style) economies, upwards of 70 percent of the total health-care bill is picked up by the government, meaning that people are insured in large pools with lots of bargaining clout to hold down providers' costs. In the U.S., less than half of our health care is in the public sector, resulting in a patchwork system of private insurers with much higher administrative costs. When you plug what France pays per person for health care into our own government's fiscal projections, you get balanced budgets by around 2014, which then turn into surpluses after 2040.
. . . .

Taxing Corporations Versus Individuals: Luxembourg

The U.S. government collects less in taxes than the other rich countries, on average, but that doesn't tell us who pays what.
It's worth noting that the U.S. is tied for the OECD country that collects the lowest share of the economy in corporate taxes, at 1.8 percent of GDP (in 2008), or about half the group's average.

That means that more of the burden falls on individuals and households. Americans fork over more in personal income taxes than the OECD average as a result – we pay 9.9 percent while the OECD as a whole pays 9 percent.

Denmark leads the world in corporate taxes, and the Slovak Republic has the lowest personal income taxes, but the most “balanced” system (an admittedly arbitrary standard) is arguably Luxembourg's, where corporations were taxed at 5.1 percent and individuals and families at 7.7 percent in 2008.

Aren't They Taxed to Death in General?

What about the “economy-killing” taxes under which those crazy European socialists suffer? Well, in 2007 we paid 7.5 percent of our economic output less in taxes than the average of OECD countries, but citizens of the other wealthy countries got a lot more for their tax dollars than we did – free or very low-cost health care, college educations, better unemployment benefits, job training and the list goes on.

In the United States, we paid the equivalent of 8.2 percent of our economy more in social spending out of our own pockets than the people in other rich countries did that year. So the savings we enjoyed on our tax bills were more than offset by what we paid for those things our counterparts bought with their taxes. When private and public spending on our social welfare are added together, Americans pay just a little bit more than the other citizens of the world's leading economic powers.

But What About the Debt?

Perhaps these countries just ran up piles of debt in the course of taking better care of their people?
That's not the case; among the world's wealthy democracies only six[out of 15] – Japan, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Belgium and Italy – had a higher ratio of debt to GDP than the United States last year.

Denmark's debt level was less than half of our own.

Much has also been made of the Europeans' supposedly slower growth and lower average incomes. It is true that over the last decade, gross domestic product grew by about 1 percentage point more annually in the United States than in the core countries of the EU-15. But when we talk about “growth,” we mean a growing population as well as increasing productivity: more people making stuff means more total stuff.

The differences in population growth between the United States and the EU are stark. Since 1980, the population of the United States has increased by more than a third, compared with 7 percent in the EU (as a whole). Adding people, however, doesn’t necessarily make countries more affluent. A better standard is the growth of GDP per person. As Paul Krugman pointed out, “Since 1980, per capita real G.D.P.—which is what matters for living standards—has risen at about the same rate in America and in the E.U. 15: 1.95 percent a year here; 1.83 percent there.” That’s essentially a rounding error. . . . .

War on the Poor Escalates--City Ordinance Would Add Restrictions to Burn Barrels (There is a New Burn Fee Too!)

[Edited May 10, 2011]
Note--According to the Council Meeting Agenda, Council will consider a possible second reading of the new burning ordinance on Tuesday, May 10, in City Hall at 7 pm. A possible second reading might not be true--they may do both a second and a third reading and pass the ordinance.

New Note: May 10, 2011.

I Watched the video of the meeting tonight--they are taking another look. They say they are concerned that a few issues may have come up, and that they they are concerned that they might be restricting open burning like barbeques, recreational burning, and religious ceremonies, so they are going to redo it. Note that they have no concern for the poor and low income people.The issue, and the new ordinance, will be addressed at the next Council meeting.
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Listening to the Council, led by Councilor Calder (on this issue), discuss burn barrels and a new burning ordinance at the April 26 meeting, one might have gotten the impression that burning, especially in burn barrels, is creating an air quality emergency, while requiring a huge drain of Fire Department resources for investigating complaints.

In my view, the ordinance is a solution in search of a problem and a heavy-handed regulation that treats us all like children. It is a form of collective punishment that like my old second grade teacher, would make the whole class stay after school for the transgressions of a few. Of four immediately adjacent neighbors (across, behind, or next door), all burn, either open, with burn barrels, or both, except one. The one that doesn't, a life-long County resident, has no problem with the long-standing practice. At least one (perhaps two), didn't know about the change for burn barrels until I spoke with him 3 days before the May 10th meeting. Similar situations exist throughout our fair city of less than ten thousand people. I don't currently use a burn barrel, although I would like to in the future, and I do burn yard debris.

The ordinance, in restricting the time of burning to between the hours of 7AM and 4 PM (so that working people will be less able to use them, as pointed out to Council by Jim Silsby at the April 26th meeting), by restricting the use of burn barrels to the incineration of paper only, and by restricting the space needed to "15 feet from any combustibles (buildings, vehicles, fences, etc.) and property lines," will make the primary uses of burn barrels illegal for many residents, who may not be able to comply with the seemingly unreasonable content restrictions and the space needed for open pile burning.

Concerning air quality, Councilor Calder stated it was a "quality of life Issue." She stated a citizen with "breathing issues" came in, apparently to her upscale shop on Main Street, and complained about burning, while telling her that a fee of $180.00 a year would be appropriate because that is what it would cost a residence for garbage pick-up.

Is Air Quality really a Concern?

That was my question, so I asked the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) what our air quality has been over the last 5 years (2006 to 2010). Their records indicate the following:

In 2006 there were 329 Good days, 25 Moderate days, 0 UFSG (US EPA Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups), and 0 Unhealthy days.

In 2007 there were 324 Good days, 39 Moderate days, 0 UFSG (US EPA Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups), and 0 Unhealthy days.

In 2008 there were 331 Good days, 34 Moderate days, 1 UFSG (US EPA Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups), and 0 Unhealthy days.

In 2009 there were 336 Good days, 25 Moderate days, 0 UFSG (US EPA Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups), and 0 Unhealthy days.

In 2010 there were 345 Good days, 11 Moderate days, 0 UFSG (US EPA Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups), and 0 Unhealthy days.

So in fact, last year, 2010, was our best air quality year for the five your period. It has been getting better since the 1980s actually.

There is no doubt that there may be some transient and very short-lived concerns about smoke when someone burns yard debris, especially if no one has taken the time to inform them about how to do it properly (no wet leaf piles, air intake vents at bottom of burn barrel, etc.). If it is done properly, the concerns should be minimal, much less than what is experienced from, or while driving through a Forest Service controlled burn, or as experienced when driving by the city homes the Fire Department occasionally lights up for training exercises, where the smoke is intense and the smell lingers for days (as they did a week ago or so). Less problematic for many than when someone burns the willows and weeds in an irrigation ditch, in or outside of the city. Less problematic for many in fact than the noise produced by the constant rumble, horns and delays caused by the ever present trains or the early morning high-pitched buzz of planes flying low over the city.

Councilor Calder: "it's about time!"


While some of Ms. Calder's clientele, those so very special connoisseurs with the money to purchase the fine wines and cheeses, "organic" produce, fancy gadgetry, and other high-priced items (I and many of my neighbors can't afford to shop there), may object to the long established practice of burning in our small economically divided town, burning is often practiced among lower income people who depend upon it because they can't afford garbage service. Many who can afford garbage service burn too. In my mind, there is more to it than the judgements of the well heeled in balancing the alleged good versus the alleged bad. She and the rest of the Council ignore the importance of the fact that 650 burn permits were issued last year, which likely understates the number of residences who burn yard debris, limbs and paper every year. She did report the anecdotal number of 100 complaints to her, and another 100 phantom complaints to the city administration, to add to the 100 after the fact, and 40 active burning complaints cited by Fire Chief Price, which she admitted might be all the same (100 or so) people), but even her anecdotal numbers still show the users of the long established practice of burning far out numbering those who complain. [This whole episode, along with the Property Maintenance Ordinance, reminds me of the folks in a place I once lived, who moved into new tract houses near a dairy, and immediately began complaining about the smell, as if it was something new, abnormal and obnoxious--ultimately driving out the dairy.]

Baker City Fire Chief Jim Price

I did ask Fire Chief Price to document the equipment, time and money involved in the 40 "active" (they went down to take a look) complaints he said they received for illegal burning. Concerning the documentation, I simply said "I would like to be able to see any documentation you might have." The reason I asked is because the Council didn't, and it seemed to me that if the city is going to start restricting burning, and charging for burn permits, that they ought to look into the reality of his claims. Staff has distorted the truth before, as you probably know. In his response to my request, he said he would have the documentation on Monday, but he did not say he was charging me for it. On Monday, after he got the documentation, he told me he would charge me $59,50 for the information, which I cannot afford to pay. Seems like someone ought to bring that information up in a spreadsheet or list of individual reports in about ten minutes.

In contrast to Chief Price's response, Police Chief Lohner responded to a request for information on property maintenance cases without asking for money. He had the info on property maintenance available in spread sheet form, except for some details that he referred me to the Sheriff's department for. I'm perfectly willing to pay for the 25 cents a copy, but Chief Lohner provided quite a bit of information on one sheet without cost.

[Aside: My main concern about the response to asking for the information is that there was no discussion of any charges in the Fire Chief's initial response about getting the information. For example, when I ask the city for a CD/DVD they tell me what it will cost up front. If I ask Circuit Court for a copy of a record, they tell me I have to pay $0.25 a copy with no labor charge. I didn't feel like I was making a more formal public records request as cost has not been a major concern in any other requests for information, and Chief Price did not indicate that it would be a time consuming problem for him and costly for me. If I thought he was going to charge a large amount of money, I would have made a formal request with all the appropriate language about waivers for the public interest, limits on cost before proceeding, etc.

One has to wonder whether the fire department is keeping any of their call info on spreadsheets/databases.  You'd think that might be the minimum standard in our advanced, historic "fair city."]

Will the ordinance serve the goals sought by its proponents to restrict burning of plastics and other obnoxious or toxic materials?

While the ordinance may bring the city mostly undeserved additional revenue, it will make it harder for truly low income people to get rid of yard debris, without providing people-friendly options. Many do have wood stoves and fire places that can, do and will serve as incinerators for some of these materials. If catalytic and more efficient wood stoves are then used for the purpose, it will reduce the efficiency of the stoves and result in even more smoke and particulate pollution in Baker City. Think--Which chimney is that burning plastic odor coming from, anyway?

"People-Friendly" Solutions to getting rid of the waste (Are there better alternatives than criminalizing the unfortunate?):

I discussed some of these options with City Manager Kee back in late April.

Ask the monopoly private garbage pick-up business, Baker Sanitary (I have recently received a rumor that Baker Sanitary is selling the business to another, probably larger, garbage business [think Waste Management type corporate conglomerate?], or whoever they may be, to provide containers more appropriate for the amount of garbage produced at the residence. Many cities provide a smaller container for those residences with one or few individuals, at an appropriately reduced cost. I once brought this up to the owner of Baker Sanitary at a Council meeting, but it didn't fly with him.

Manager Kee suggested that another solution on the above theme would be to provide bi-monthly pick-up, instead of weekly, to reduce cost to the resident. I would think in the case of singles or in some cases couples with no children at home, that once a month pick-up would be enough. As a single low income person, I produce about a cubic foot of garbage (or less) per week that I can't otherwise legally get rid of through recycling or burning (and I don't always burn what I could), but your mileage will vary due to consumption patterns and other variables. I often see larger families with over-flowing garbage receptacles every week. It seems clear that the costs to dispose of their garbage should be more than those producing little garbage, unless of course, you think that those producing little garbage should subsidize those the produce a lot.

Encourage people, like neighbors, to share a percentage of the cost in maintaining a single garbage container.

Encourage, as a public service, the local monopoly garbage business to take in yard waste for free for a few weeks in the spring and fall, instead of just restricting free yard debris dumping to only those those with accounts.

Encourage use of leaves and grass clippings for mulch and compost.

Instead of banning the most popular use of burn barrels--burning of yard debris and limbs--educate residents on proper burning techniques and construction of air intake openings on burn barrels so that combustion of materials can take place more completely and efficiently without causing smoke.

Urge compliance with current laws by pointing out the wonderful opportunity to recycle plastics and other toxic materials at Baker Sanitary's great recycling facility on Campbell Street. If police of neighbors smell burning plastic in the neighborhoods, remind the offenders of the law and the harm it does, as well as the availability of the recycling facility. If the practice continues, cite them.

Does Councilor Calder have different standards for the business related proposed liquor license fee and the proposed burn permit fee?

Councilor Calder on liquor license fee at April 26 Council Meeting:


Jeanie Dexter, Finance Director, explained that there used to be a $10.00 city liquor license renewal fee before it was removed four years ago at the request of Council.

Councilor Calder responded that "four years ago, when we removed that renewal fee, it was because there was no real work to the city for that renewal fee" because the Chief's work is done during the OLCC [Oregon Liquor Control Commission]license renewal process.

Finance Director Dexter, in response to that point, noted that "there is quite a bit of work . . . involved in patrol obviously with some of those businesses that have those liquor licenses, obviously not all of them. . . ." [Alcohol related under the influence incidents, fighting, disturbances and accidents, both at a bar and afterwards, sometimes at home as in domestic violence and violation of restraining orders, or on the way home like DUII. There may be no record tying the seller of alcohol to the subsequent incidents. While some bars may selectively cut-off certain individuals for their own reasons, many serve alcohol to others beyond the point of slight inebriety.]

Councilor Calder responded that "I think everything that has come to Council as needing attention, has been related, I mean what we've heard about, has been related to the gaming license facilities, … there is no role in a business license renewal with OLCC . . .You have to show that you have your multi-million dollar worth of liability insurance [ Wildly overstated. OLCC website says that for brew pubs and On-Premises Commercial Licenses "applicants must obtain and maintain liquor liability insurance in the minimum amount of $300,000," not multi-million dollar amounts of liability insurance. Chris.] Calder goes on-. . . it requires nothing from the city so to charge is strictly revenue generating. There is nothing in the act of renewing a license that generates a cost to the city." [Emphasis added. I do recall previous council meetings regarding problems at establishments like Stockman's and others.]

City Manager Kee responded that "there is work that we put into these renewals. . .because they have to check to make sure whether any laws have been broken."

Chief Lohner indicated that while there may not be much work associated with approving OLCC licenses for businesses unless there is something abnormal "but throughout the year, obviously, if there are issues that goes on, I discuss that with OLCC, so there is an ongoing through the year. . . ."

It seems clear that businesses that sell liquor are associated with post license renewal police work.

How does Councilor Calder see the burn permit fee issue?

Councilor Calder's Different Standard on Burn Permit Fees


As pointed out by Baker City resident Jim Silsby at the April 24 meeting, issuing a permit takes about 5 minutes, about the same for dog licenses. Chief Lohner indicated that renewal of liquor licenses may take as little as ten minutes if there are no past issues to consider, but more time if there are.

Note that Councilor Calder also misrepresents number of cities that allow burning and is no longer trying to tie a fee, in this case the brand new $25.00 burn permit fee, to just the cost of issuing the permit, or, in fact, to any cost actually related to those costs. She is not even concerned apparently with the cost of issuance in this case, as she was with the liquor license fee. That is likely due to the fact that she has wanted to get rid of burn barrels for over a decade and seems to prefer limiting costs for business owners, a class of which she is a prominent member, but has little real concern for those who need a burn permit.

Is the User Fee Approach to Fees (Taxes) Always Appropriate?

Councilor Bonebrake: Fees Should be Related to Cost of Service


Councilor Bonebrake suggests we should operate on a more business-like model that reflects the cost of doing business with fees tied to the cost of service.

When Councilor Bonebrake, a founder of the Baker County Library, and also (earlier in the meeting when talking about burn permit fees) City Manager Kee, suggest that fees should be based on work generated and cost of service, does that mean that we should also reduce property taxes for education for those that have no children? Should we also quit charging sidewalk fees to those residents who have no sidewalks, don't want them, won't get them, and etc.? Will they deduct a portion of property taxes going to the airport for those who don't and won't be able to use the airport? Shall we renegotiate the incredibly generous lease on the old Carnegie Library used by the "Arts" aficionados? How about financing the library solely on user fees instead of a levy? Where does it end?

Factoids

Baker City Budget 2011-2012:
Personal Services (i.e., employee costs) represents over 71% of the total appropriations in the General Fund.

Baker City Budget 2010-2011:
Personal Services (i.e., employee costs) also represents over 71% of the total appropriations in the General Fund.

Baker City Budget 2009-2010:
Personal Services (i.e., employee costs) represents over 63% of the total appropriations in the General Fund.

Wow, >71%. No wonder we have no money for basic infrastructure and the city wants to find more revenue through fees

New 2011-2012 fee Schedule is here.


More video clips from the meeting:

Councilor Coles on New Baker City Fees and Budget Process


Councilor Roger Coles talks about potential problems associated with raising current, and creating new, city fees prior to allowing the Budget Committee, composed of the Council, and an equal number of informed citizens, to assess all budget issues first.

He explains that raising various fees for residents in the recessionary economic environment, especially for seniors who haven't seen any cost of living raise [Social Security has not had a cost-of-living increase for two straight years], when we face more important costly increases for basic services, like sewer and water, is counter-productive "nickel & diming the public" before the budget process has started.

A friend offered the thought that all the hoopla over the new burning ordinance, and the Property Maintenance Ordinance serves as a huge diversion from the pressing, real and basic infrastructure problems that we face. [Gosh, aren't you just giddy about the fact that we were busy persecuting the poor and rejecting system development charges while Baker City's infrastructure crumbled?]

(Council ultimately set the fees without allowing the citizen input from the Budget Committee deliberations.)

Perhaps more later.
The entire April Council Meeting can be downloaded at:
feed://bakercity.granicus.com/ViewPublisherRSS.php?view_id=2

Calculating Growth, Doubling Times, and etc.

Calculating Growth: What does Baker City's "Slow Growth Option" really mean?

An article in the Herald (Baker City officials look at slow-growth option; http://www.bakercityherald.com/Local-News/Baker-City-officials-look-at-slow-growth-option) stated that:

"Over the past three months, 14 focus groups comprising 133 community volunteers spent hundreds of hours studying and debating the pros and cons of three planning options for Baker City’s future, including a no-growth do nothing strategy, a slow-growth strategy designed to see Baker City expand over 25 years to a population somewhere between 15,000 to 30,000, and a fast-growth model that helped the Bend-Redmond area soar from a population of around 30,000 to more than 80,000 during the last 25 years."

In a letter to the editor, Councilor Milo Pope, a primary Brocato devotee, stated "Well, “growth” is a bad word and we’re not going to permit Baker City to look like Bend. Their fears are unfounded." (http://www.bakercityherald.com/Letters/Letters-to-the-Editor-for-Oct-19-2009)

All this struck me as interesting because if we were to grow to the upper limit 30,000 scenario envisioned in the "slow-growth strategy," we would actually be growing at a rate that exceeded the "fast-growth model" in the Bend-Redmond area over the last 25 years. This is not too difficult to calculate from the figures provided above. If Baker City were to grow from the current approximate of 10,000 people to the 30,000 endpoint, we would triple our population in the 25 year period (30,000/10,000 = 3 times our current population). Contrast this with the expansion of population in the Bend-Redmond area over a 25 year period that was characterized as "fast-growth." They went from 30,000 to 80,000 which is 2.7 times what their population was at the beginning of the 25 year period (80,000/30,000 = 2.7 times). Therefore, if we grow at the upper limit of what was envisioned in the Planning Department's (Don Chance, et. al.) "slow-growth" scenario, we would be growing faster than the Bend-Redmond area's "fast-growth" scenario over the 25 years cited. Will the Baker City Herald or Don Chance please explain what's up with this? People asked for slow-growth, not fast-growth. What actually constitutes slow-growth?" Surely it is not something in the range of 3.5 to 3.6% per year.

As the article below explains, there is a simple way to calculate the doubling time in population: "Because we are discussing a “doubling” time, i.e. the time for a quantity in question to double (or halve), the exponential function has a user-friendly aspect that is very helpful. It turns out that any finite rate of change expressed as a percent (e.g. 5% per year) can be converted, to a good approximation, to a doubling time simply by dividing it into 70. For example, if the rate is 2%, you might expect to have twice the number, i.e. 100% more stuff, in 100/2=50 years, but because of the compounding effect the correct answer is 70/2 = 35 years. The proof of this statement makes a good exercise for a math class at the appropriate grade level. Rates of loss (for instance, depletion of resources) have a halving time that is calculated the same way. For anything diminishing at 2% per year there will only be half as much in 35 years."

So, a growth rate of 3.5% per year means that Baker City would double in population in 20 years (and be 40,000 in 40 years). (Do the Math: 70/3.5 = 20 yrs. and etc.) While Baker County is not growing rapidly, what growth there has been is certainly noticeable, and is having an effect on the quality of life most of us moved here for. Areas approved for development and the 80 or so Measure 39 claims moving through the approval process, coupled with national population growth and other trends, will ensure that County growth continues. Some of the traffic issues we already face in Baker City are coming from visits by the growing number of County residents rather than from City residents. One must envision a rural farm/ranch landscape covered with houses, reminiscent of what happened to the Land of Milk & Honey, Southern California, over the period from 1950 to the 1990's, to understand the possibilities, although many insist it can't happen here. I will make an attempt on some future date to show photos for those of you that may be too young or untraveled to know what I am talking about. All I can say at this point is that I lived through the destruction of Southern California by population growth and human greed. That could be your future if you do not control growth to a sustainable level here. Sustainability should be equated with population stabilization, in Baker County and Baker City. Baker City residents have had something approximating stabilization for years, and the surroundings you enjoy are the result.

You can buy in to the growth scenario, the boom thing, with a relatively short period of economic/monetary/spending nervana (especially for developers, realtors and construction folks), and ultimately kill it all--or you can stay in a population stabilization course, and enjoy what you have for generations to come.

Another thing to consider is the built in upper limit of property taxes in the state if Oregon. Under the current limit of 3%, the County tax collector can double your property tax burden in 23 years if they increase the tax by the allowable amount. My property taxes went up by a little over 2.9% this year.

I have provided below two essays: One on Doubling Time and its calculation, the other on Sustainability. Its not rocket science. It sometimes seems futile to provide such information, but I also realize that there are many inquiring and sometimes brilliant minds, no matter how impoverished, out there, who will take such information and use it to the benefit of their neighbors and humankind. For those of you of the latter description, please run with it and save your world and yourselves. Envision a world with a sustainable human population, getting by on the available resources, at a rate that ensures their availability for generations in the many centuries to come.
_________________________________

Doubling time:  
it works for ANY rate of change
A. R. Palmer, Institute of Cambrian Studies, Boulder, CO

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/basin/local/sustain3.htm

To read all of the articles from the Boulder Area Sustainability Initiative Network about sustainability and stewardship of the global commons, see:

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/basin/local/sustainin0.html

A parable: “When was the pond half full?”

I lived by a large pond with a thriving community of fish, so fishing was good.  One day not too long ago some algae began to grow in the pond.  Their population was doubling every minute.  Yesterday morning I went fishing and everything was fine.  Yesterday noon when I looked out at the pond, it was suddenly filled with green algal scum and the fish were dying from lack of oxygen.  Why didn’t I see the disaster coming and do something?  When was the pond half full [11:59]?  One-quarter full [11:58]?  One eighth full [11:57]?  Suppose, instead of my pond, we were considering an island, or a continent, or Spaceship Earth?

At the heart of the concept of doubling (or halving) is the exponential function familiar to many from mathematics, science and engineering.  Geologists are perhaps most familiar with this in its backward-running version, i.e. the description of the rates of decay of radioactive isotopes.  Most of us, however, learned about exponential growth as compound interest in the context of a personal savings account.  If we put our money in a bank and let the interest accumulate, our annual income grows as the capital increases. Even though the interest rate remains constant - our capital grows at an exponential rate.  Recognition of doubling (or halving) time for ANY rate of change was not always emphasized.


Because we are discussing a “doubling” time, i.e. the time for a quantity in question to double (or halve), the exponential function has a user-friendly aspect that is very helpful.  It turns out that any finite rate of change expressed as a percent (e.g. 5% per year) can be converted, to a good approximation, to a doubling time simply by dividing it into 70.  For example, if the rate is 2%, you might expect to have twice the number, i.e. 100% more stuff, in 100/2=50 years, but because of the compounding effect the correct answer is 70/2 = 35 years.  The proof of this statement makes a good exercise for a math class at the appropriate grade level.  Rates of loss (for instance, depletion of resources) have a halving time that is calculated the same way.  For anything diminishing at 2% per year there will only be half as much in 35 years.
 
This simple way to calculate doubling time (or halving time) should be an essential part of everyone’s education.  When the mayor is proud because the city has a healthy growth rate of 3% per year, that means the city will double in about 23 years if that rate continues, and double again in another 23 years, and double yet again in another 23 years, thus octupling from its original size in 69 years.  One might ask if a city with 8 times the present population is viable.  Garbage also has a rate of growth, as does traffic, pollution, schools and housing.
 
A city is not a closed container, thus its limits to growth will be determined by cultural factors, but Earth IS a closed container for all practical purposes (more on this in Part IV ).  Growth in a closed container will ultimately fill it up.  Thus, we should look carefully at anything in our culture with a growth rate, calculate its doubling (quadrupling and octupling) time and make a judgment about whether we think this is healthy for our future.  We should do similar calculations and make similar judgments about those aspects of our culture where, as a result of our consumption habits, a resource is diminishing at a measurable rate.  Thus, calculations of doubling (or halving) time are critical components of the issue of sustainability – by which we mean the indefinite continuation of the entire human enterprise within some steady-state limits imposed by space and resource availability (see Part X in this series).
 
Global population growth rates may be diminishing, but they are still positive.  Thus population is still growing and it has a doubling time.  Currently the rate is about 1% per year (thus doubling in 70 years).  Consumption of resources (Part IV) increases with population size, even if individual rates of consumption do not increase.
 
If we could slow the present population growth rate to 0.1% per year, it would still be double its present size of about six billion in 700 years, quadruple in 1,400 years, and octuple in 2,100 years – equivalent only to the time represented by the Christian era.  Forty-eight billion people may make things a bit crowded.  Such a population, with its attendant FOOTPRINTS (the areas of productive land necessary to support each one of us, see the upcoming June essay), may not be sustainable.  It is not even clear that we can handle one more doubling with a reasonable quality of life for all.
 
Such doubling-time scenarios should make us wonder if there is such a thing as the politically popular “smart growth” – perhaps it’s a euphemism for “predictable and voluntary disaster”.  Every time you see a headline or magazine article mentioning rates of change (either increase or decrease), do the quick mental math to calculate the doubling (or halving) time.  It is a very revealing exercise.
______________________________

SUSTAINABILITY & RESOURCES
E-an Zen, University of Maryland, College Park, MD

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/basin/local/sustain4.html
 
Whenever we ponder the future of the human enterprise, questions about material resources come up.  Will they run out?  Will they replenish themselves?  Will the demand for them diminish, or will alternatives be found?  Without a good estimate of those resources, we will never be able to predict or improve human welfare.  "Malthusians" have a doomsday outlook; "Cornucopians", a more optimistic view (McCabe, 1998).  Yet whichever school of thought seems more persuasive, the fact remains that we live in a materially closed system.  The Earth's resources are finite, so we must choose how best to use them.
 
A society needs reliable information on the resources available to it and on the consequences of their use.  How it will act on that information will depend on its value system.  For example, a society may place a high priority on fair distribution of wealth.  We in the developed nations have an opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to use resources in a sustainable way.  Do we want to act responsibly toward future generations of our species and toward other life forms as well? 

Material resources are whatever the society at a given moment either uses or recognizes as potentially usable.  Because that list changes with society's needs and technology, what is useless one day may become vital the next.  As recently as a century ago, aluminum, petroleum, and uranium were not significant resources. 
 
Geologists tend to think of "resources" as the stuff we take from the ground: metal ores, coal, petroleum, groundwater, limestone, phosphate, quartz sand and rock.  The earth's resources, however, also include living things that are subject to human exploitation. 
 
Trying to inventory resources for the future, thus, is like aiming at a moving target.  Yet some statements will remain valid for three reasons: (1) except for energy input from the sun, which supports and maintains our “ecosystem services”, the earth is a closed system having a fixed quantity of materials.  (2) Both the extraction and processing of materials and preservation of the environment require energy, itself a resource.  (3) Using a material generally changes its state of aggregation, and its adaptability for future use.  Thus, the processing of materials, including recycling or re-aggregating waste material into usable form, causes a thermodynamically inexorable loss of useful energy and/or material.  With regard to Earth’s material resources, there is no free lunch! 
 
To these factors must be added both an increasing global population (projected to reach about 9 billion people by 2050), and a higher per capita consumption rate reflecting  "improved" standards of living.  Obviously, resource considerations are crucial for the success of the human enterprise.

Traditionally, resources are grouped as "nonrenewable" and "renewable".  Nonrenewable resources (examples: ores, petroleum, coal) replenish at geological rates that are much too slow to benefit human society.  Once consumed, such finite resources are effectively removed from our inventory.  New discoveries or more efficient extraction methods merely postpone their inevitable exhaustion. 
 
"Renewable" resources (examples: timber, fishstock, groundwater) have rates of natural replenishment commensurate with the time- scales of human society (see DEMONSTRATION 1 below).  However, to consume such resources faster than they can replenish themselves is like withdrawing funds from a bank account faster than we make deposits; sooner or later that account will run out.  We have often been guilty of just such overwithdrawal.  Examples include overfishing, poor husbandry of arable and pasturable land, overpumping of aquifers, destruction of entire ecosystems such as Russia's Aral Sea.  Such "local" losses can have large systemic effects (see DEMONSTRATION 2 below).
 
More effective use of substitutes, recycling, and conservation can slow down depletion of a renewable resource (i.e., the amount of consumption that exceeds its renewal by all processes, natural or engineered), but they cannot halt the process.  To make a "renewable" resource truly renewable, the rate of consumption must not exceed the gross rate of renewal.  Reaching a "sustainable world" will demand many changes to our priorities regarding resource utilization.

Some vital resources, such as the "environment", are not material objects.  A healthy environment is a composite of many other items (e.g., water chemistry and temperature, nutrients and other chemicals in the soil, good habitats for wildlife).  A natural place of beauty and wonder is an intangible but valuable resource.  A less obvious intangible resource is the future generation's options, i.e., their capability to make real choices.  Options are not fixed commodities, but surely they will be important for future societies.  Like the options available to us today, many future options require the availability of material and energy.  Even if an earth material is not dispersed through use, their very processing automatically reduces future options of their use.


The results of human exploitation of resources cannot be predicted by looking at one commodity or one social force at a time.  Calculation of the effects of use and depletion of materials on the public commons (see Part I) must also include human values and cultural habits.  Justus von Liebig, a 19th century agricultural chemist, recognized the complexities that arise in a situation where humans and natural forces work interactively.  Historian Elliott West put von Liebig's view this way: "an organism's limits are set, not by the maximum profusion of necessary things, but by those things' minimum availability.. Look .. for how much is available when vital supplies are the tightest, lowest, stingiest". 
 
What is true for an organism is true for ecosystems.  Can we identify the "vital supplies", their mutual relations and their future trends?  Can we recognize the factors of "minimum availability" while there is yet time?  Or will they surprise us and perhaps blindside us?  Surely we need to be thinking about these issues.
 
To maintain a society's standard of living requires consumption of resources at some level.  In Part XX of this series, we will explore this subject within the "sustainability" context.
 
The author thanks Christine Turner of the US Geological Survey, Denver, for her contribution to the ideas and her critique of the text.
 
DEMONSTRATION 1
(1) Ask your students to list the resources that they encounter in one day of their activities, using the following categories:
A. "Nonrenewable" resources are those that may be replenished only at
     rates much exceeding the human time scale: for example, fossil fuel
     (what should be included here?), metals (where do they come from?).
B. "Renewable" resources are those that may be replenished on a human
     time scale, but only if the rate of withdrawal or destruction does not
     exceed the rate of replenishment: for example, timber, fishstock, soil,
     groundwater, environmental quality, mixed forests, ozone layer.
 
(2) Pick any material object: the gasoline you pump, a metal paper clip, the bricks of the building, the gravel in a driveway, a toothpaste tube, or a molded plastic chair.  For that object, ask the students to identify the resources embodied in it: where did the material come from, and in what original form?  Ask them to discuss what processes were needed to produce the object (e.g., mining, harvesting, refining, waste disposal, ecosystem disturbance, transportation, energy use).  What renewable or nonrenewable resources were used in the processing?  Are there substitutes that would require less energy and material?  How essential is this particular product to the students' comfort or well-being?  Could they make do with less?  What would be the tradeoff in making a more frugal choice?  Who might benefit from that choice, and in what way?
 
DEMONSTRATION 2
In a recent book, "Waiting for Aphrodite", Sue Hubbell, author-naturalist-apiarist, described recent stresses to communities of the green sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis, which lives off the rocky coast of Maine.  The population density of this sea urchin seems to go through cycles; in the 1980's they thrived.  Sea urchin eggs were a delicacy for the affluent Japanese.  When their local stock was becoming depleted at about this time, the Japanese merchants turned to Maine for a substitute.  Meanwhile, needing an alternative source of income because the coastal cod and haddock fishery had collapsed through overfishing, the fishermen of Maine started to dive for the green sea urchins.  Soon, however, the catch began to fall alarmingly.  Green sea urchin eggs are fertilized by sperm which last only a few minutes in seawater, so large congregations of urchins are essential for the species to survive.  Large congregations attract fishermen as well, but, luckily for the urchins, the Japanese yen weakened, the demand for pricey urchin eggs fell, and a Russian source became available.  Sea urchin "farming" is now being explored as a steady source of supply, so the natural communities of Maine sea urchins might yet recover. 
 
How might the disappearance of green sea urchins affect the ecology of the coastal waters?  We do not know.  Some years ago scientists thought that the long-spined black sea urchin, Diadema antillarum, of the Caribbean region was a useless species.  Then it was discovered that coral and sponge larvae can attach themselves to reefs only on surfaces kept clean by the sea urchins, which graze on the algae.  So the "useless" sea urchins turn out to be essential to the coral reef ecosystem, after all.
 
This particular story may be minor in the scale of things, but it provides a good example of the intricacies of an ecosystem.  If we act without adequate knowledge, we can easily throw an ecosystem out of balance, possibly irreversibly.
 
References:
Hubbell, Sue, 1999, Waiting for Aphrodite: journey into the time before bones. 
Boston, Houghton and Mifflin.  242 p.
McCabe, P.J., 1998, Energy resources - cornucopia or empty barrel?  American
Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 82, p. 2110-2134.
von Liebig, Justus, 1847, Chemistry in its applications to agriculture and physiology:
London, Taylor and Walton.  418 p.
West, Elliott, 1998, The contested plains: Indians, goldseekers, and the rush to Colorado. 
University Press of Kansas.  422 p.

TNR Humane? - Wolf Reintroduction - Youchoose on Youtube

In this issue:

-Trap-Neuter-Release Program
-Resisting Delisting ~ Idaho's Wolves & Livestock's Influence - video
-Youchoose at Youtube
_______________________________________________

Is TNR A Humane Solution to the Feral Cat Problem?
Four years ago, I was a volunteer at a county animal shelter. It was a pretty unpleasant experience in many ways, but I enjoyed working with the abandoned, or otherwise abused pets. It was pleasing to find out that pitbulls can have a loving and endearing spirit, and it was satisfying to see a local person leave with a purring kitten or tail-wagging dog. I was truly saddened to find out why the fellow with the flatbed truck came in every two weeks to get those big black barrels out back. If, after a few weeks, an animal didn’t get a home, it ended up in one of the black barrels. It is a hard reality, that even as an adult, I didn’t want to face.

In recent times there has been a fairly successful effort to demonize those who favor time-tested methods of feral cat control. They have been relegated to the political and social sidelines by the “compassionately correct,” who have placed control of feral cats under the bureaucratized, “nanny state” government and NGO umbrella of so-called “humane” treatment. In that vein, over the last year or more there have been several articles in the local papers about our feral cat problem and the trap-neuter-release program (TNR). The last article that I am aware of that even hinted there might be any problem with feeding strays, or with TNR in general, was an August 2006 Herald article by Alex Pahunas, but no article that I am aware of, made a real effort to let readers know about the many negative aspects of TNR or about the debate that has been simmering for several years. In the last few weeks, there were two articles and two editorials promoting successes of the program. Both editorials suggested that the City Council was wrong to deny continued funding for the program, and one seemed to think that TNR was a humane solution, while implying that nothing less than Sainthood would do for the lead proponents of the program.

Feral Cat on Successful Hunt (AU.gov)

My reaction to the problem is that it is better than nothing, not particularly humane, and that it is not the best solution or the wisest use of resources. While it likely will reduce feral cat populations in the long run, it ignores a primary source of the problem: pet cats that are not neutered or spayed. It also ignores other important issues that are discussed below, not the least of which are deleterious effects on songbird populations and the problems released feral cats pose to taxpayers and other residents who are not particularly infatuated with them.

Most definitions of the word “humane” have to do with showing compassion, kindness and mercy towards other humans or animals. Some people have a pretty short list of the animals, or even humans, they have compassion and concern for. They can see themselves and others as humane if they refuse to euthanize cats, even if domestic and feral cats kill millions of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles every year, and even if some of these same people support American policies that have killed millions of innocent civilians around the globe. It is that kind of moral and ethical flexibility that makes life a breeze for some, and a bad dream for others.

Local proponents have promoted TNR as both humane and legal. Many studies over the last decade have questioned whether it is either, and I would add that it is not the most efficient use of taxpayer or other dollars.

While proponents claim that spaying or neutering feral cats and releasing them back into the wild is more humane than traditional methods involving euthanasia, opponents (yes, there are many), point out that the life of a feral cat can be a bit torturous, especially in Baker County during winter. The lives of feral cats are much shorter than those of house cats (as much as three times shorter) for good reason. Besides the difficulty of finding adequate shelter, their living conditions subject them to suffering and miserable deaths from accidents with vehicles, attacks by other animals (including humans, dogs, and other cats), poisoning, disease and possible starvation. Is subjecting cats to a dangerous, painful and marginal existence really humane?

Feral Cats Lead A Torturous Existence
(NPS.gov photo)

Cats are not only more likely to be victims of feline disease in the wild, they also spread diseases to other animals and humans. The list is long, but includes such favorites as rabies, toxoplasmosis, cat scratch fever and worms. Is unnecessarily maintaining a large reservoir of these diseases in the feral cat population, from where they can be spread to humans, pet cats, or other animals, a wise and humane policy?

Cats, like most predators, evolved to become efficient killers. Even well fed cats can’t control their instinct to kill when confronted with their natural small animal prey—like that hummingbird whose return you had been patiently waiting for.

Rufous Hummingbirds migrate to Baker City (© Christopher Christie)

Cats are thought to have played an important part in the extinction of 30 species of birds worldwide. Each pet cat is estimated to kill about 32 small animals per year and feral cats, which may number as many as 60 million in the U.S., are thought to kill far more than that. It is estimated that cats kill hundreds of millions of songbirds and over a billion other animals in the U. S. every year. Granted, some of those animals are introduced pests like the house sparrow and starling, which do a good deal of damage themselves, but many are not. Some are neotropical migrants like hummingbirds and warblers, who already have enough troubles surviving in our over-populated, bruised and battered world. Unlike the house sparrow, neotropicals are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and other victims may be covered by other wildlife protection laws as well. Is enabling the slaughter of birds and other animals by feral cats through the TNR program really humane?

Feral Cats kill millions of birds annually
(Australian Government photo)

There are other problems caused by uncared for cats as well. Some of you may have experienced the unmitigated joy of unknowingly stepping in an unplanned cat box, which previously had been your mulched parking area, before you walk into the house. Others of you may have been welcomed by the delightfully perfumed scent of a large male cat who sprayed down your shed after commandeering it for living quarters. Protecting other small pets and young farm animals from feral cats can also become a vexing problem.

Effectiveness

Arguments are made and studies are cited for both sides with regard to the effectiveness of the programs in reducing feral cat populations. In the absence of definitive studies, logic tells us that euthanasia, in combination with spay-neuter programs and education, is at least as effective as TNR, and it addresses a host of other problems associated with feral cats that TNR does not. Feral cat advocates and animal “rights” activists have deluged the internet with half-baked opinions and studies of the issue, but emotional appeals are more often to be found than facts.

Obviously, the math for a reduction in the cat population per spayed female remains the same whether the cat has been spayed or euthanized, so both methods are beneficial in that respect. Both programs will reduce the population of feral cats over time, but TNR has more uncontrollable variables than euthanasia. For example, TNR depends in part on people who are able and willing to feed feral cat colonies. When feeders, who are often elderly, become ill, die, or simply can no longer bear the costs, cats may starve or disperse. Cats, being smarter than some may assume, also become wary of traps, which makes it difficult to bring them in again for the additional vaccinations which are required for humane treatment and disease control. On the other hand, those with a feral cat problem are motivated to do something about it, and when they trap an animal for euthanasia, it won’t have another chance to outwit someone else who is defending their property from feline offences. An added bonus is that these people don’t bill the city or county for their work. One thing is certain; euthanized cats don’t breed, spray your shed, yowl outside your window at night, or kill your favorite hummingbird at the feeder.


Legal issues

As mentioned previously, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes killing neotropical birds and other migratory birds, like hummers, unlawful. There are questions as to whether it is legal to release captured feral cats back into feral status when one knows that these cats will subsequently be responsible for killing migratory birds. Corporations have been convicted for allowing the release of polluting substances that have resulted in the deaths of these birds, so it is not far-fetched to imagine convictions for releasing feral cats back into the community when it is clear that they will resume killing birds, including birds protected by law. The same applies to animals protected by other laws as well.


Additionally there exist applicable Oregon State laws in Title 16, Chapter 167, that protect animals from cruelty, abuse and abandonment. There are questions as to whether persons who maintain cat colonies are providing “minimum care,” which is defined as “care sufficient to preserve the health and well-being of an animal,” including food, water, housing, and veterinary care.

Also, those who release feral cats back into the community may be guilty of animal “abuse,” which is defined to be when a “person intentionally, knowingly or recklessly . . . Causes serious physical injury to an animal; or . . . Cruelly causes the death of an animal.” Intentionally releasing a feral cat, that is known to be an indiscriminate serial killer of dozens of birds and other small animals every year , could easily be interpreted as animal abuse.

Another State law, 167.340, the animal abandonment statute, also states that “A person commits the crime of animal abandonment if the person intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with criminal negligence leaves a domesticated animal at a location without providing for the animal's continued care.” It is not clear weather some or all feral cats may be defined as domesticated animals.

I do not necessarily agree with all these State laws, but the question I, and others, have is whether or not TNR is in compliance with them.

Costs of TNR Versus Euthanasia

One 2004 study by the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association found that euthanasia was more effective than TNR for managing feral cats. Feral cat activists have tried to shoot down that study by complaining it didn’t factor in cost and public opinion.

One of the efforts tried to show that euthanasia is incredibly expensive by using figures from large cities with established animal shelters, but the study didn’t provide apples to apples comparisons. For euthanasia, they included costs to pick up, house, and dispose of an animal, but they then forgot to include trap, release and other costs when comparing the euthanasia cost to the cost for TNR. In Baker City’s case, the papers report that Baker City vets charge $60 to $70 to spay and between $35 and $45 to neuter. In Baker City, euthanasia fees for cats run between $20.00 to $40.00, and some charge a $10 disposal charge. Animal Clinic at 10th and Campbell, charges a flat $20.00. You do the math. While veterinarians no doubt appreciate the TNR program for a number of altruistic reasons, it should also be noted that it serves their economic interest. There is no doubt though that they could support a lower cost euthanasia program, coupled with a low-cost, donor and City supported spay-neuter program, and so could city taxpayers.

If government would just trust the judgment of the people affected by marauding feral cats, instead of telling them how they must deal with the problem, the cost of a remedy would drop like a rock.

No study that I am aware of has factored in the environmental costs for the slaughter of birds and other small animals into the TNR program, nor have they included costs for feeding and all the necessary vaccinations. Surely no community nuisance costs have been included in TNR comparisons for the time residents spend alleviating the damage done by male cats spraying in once pleasant places (neutered cats still spray), or for deodorizing and vet bills when one’s dog gets in a tangle with a “humane” person’s recently released furry feral friend. These are obviously not costs that would be incurred by a euthanasia program after a feral cat is initially trapped.

Public opinion, may, or may not, be a problem. If the papers would do their job and make the public aware of the pros and cons of each possible solution, then community supported euthanasia, in combination with spay-neuter programs, might not be such a hard sell. This is especially so in a region where hunters abound, and where people are not particularly squeamish about controlling pestiferous animal populations through lethal means. Even with our local media’s one-sided approach, Bakerites may already have serious questions about TNR, and about using their tax dollars in a way that ignores so many problems associated with released feral cats.

Solutions

We all know that ignoring the problem of feral cats won’t make them go away. Recognizing that the TNR program is seriously flawed is obviously not enough. Other programs, that don’t carry the deleterious side effects of TNR, can and should be implemented. The City still needs to deal with feral cats and they can help in several ways.

• The City should contract with one or more local vets for publicly available, inexpensive, spay-neuter and euthanasia services.
• Let citizens take care of the problem without harassment by law enforcement, and irrational feral cat and animal rights advocates by allowing those affected to deal with or bring in strays that are causing problems where they live.
• The City should step forward and fund a low-cost spay-neuter program for low income residents. Animal advocates could do their part by donating to the City’s program and finding grants to support it.
• Begin a continuing education program informing people about irresponsible breeding, keeping cats inside, and the low-cost alternatives available to them.
• If necessary, the city should begin licensing cats, just as they do dogs, and include financial incentives for spay-neutering.


Cats Can Live Happily Indoors

Private donor financed TNR is fine, but the most low cost and humane solution would be to initially let affected citizens solve their own feral cat problem. Taking feral cats to the local vets for euthanasia, rather that spay-neuter and release, will accomplish a part of the population control objectives. That, coupled with owner education and a city financed spay/neuter program to help financially strapped pet owners, will begin to alleviate the problem. Asking cat owners in the city to keep their cats inside would also help prevent breeding, the killing of small animals, and damage to neighboring property. Those who allow their pets to reproduce without a reasonable and realistic plan for finding decent homes for the offspring should not be tolerated. The licensing of domestic cats, as is done with dogs, along with similar financial incentives, such as licensing discounts for owner-initiated spay/neutering, should be used if the first steps don’t bring the necessary results. Licensing cats would also make it easy to know whether a cat is the pet of a legally responsible owner. One thing is for sure--TNR is only an effective and “humane” solution for those whose concern for abandoned cats is far greater than their compassion for other animals or their concern for the community’s health, tranquility, and welfare.

Nobody wants to perpetuate the black barrels I spoke of earlier. Nor do citizens want to be put in the position of having to defend themselves and their animal friends from feral cats and the problems they bring. We don’t want to decide whether it is more humane to kill birds than cats, and through the knowledge gained by education, the help of low-cost, community supported spay/neuter/euthanasia programs, and licensing if necessary, we won’t have to. With a sensible policy, choosing between being humane to cats or humane to other critters, shouldn’t be a problem.


Related articles:

FERAL CAT COLONIES IN FLORIDA: THE FUR AND FEATHERS ARE FLYING
A REPORT TO THE U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERVICE
http://conservation.law.ufl.edu/pdf/feralcat.pdf

Cats and Birds: Keeping Cats Indoors
http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/rouge_river/cats.html

Kill the Cat That Kills the Bird?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02cats-v--birds-t.html?ref=todayspaper

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Resisting Delisting ~ Idaho's Wolves & Livestock's Influence
This video provides a pretty good window into the mentality of the "shoot, shovel, and shut up" crowd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r8PhnTL-c0

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What do the Candidates Really Think?
Tired of trying to figure out what the candidates think about issues you care about?

Try: http://www.youtube.com/youchoose

This was mentioned as a good source by a media watchdog on last Friday's Bill Moyers program on PBS.

Agricultural Subsidies--Who Is Paying The Price?

(Google is currently not accepting images so we'll have to settle for text only on this one.)

In reading the Baker City Herald over the last year, you may have noticed all the concern, adulation and general gratuitous genuflection given to our neo-feudal lords, the agricultural aristocracy, or “producers,” as they like to be called. (Some like to be referred to “irrigators,” a special form of “producer” lucky enough to have water rights.)

I guess the insinuation is that the rest of us, who engage in some form of labor or another, just don’t produce much. Teachers and parents may help produce an educated citizen, health care and social service workers may team up to produce healthy human beings, brick layers, roofers and carpenters may produce homes and cities, etc., but following the practice of the new commercial form of “branding,” the word “producer” has been unofficially expropriated by the Ag community in the rural West. Can a copyright of the word be far off?

Helping to inculcate a reverence for these “producers.” was a long series of front page articles in the Herald this summer with titles of “Ranchers say grazing plan falls well short,” “State issues drought emergency,” “Area’s ranchers wrangle with confusing changes,” “Ranchers say relief falls short,” and “Relief finally arrives for ranchers.”

Two such articles, lumped under the giant banner “Paying The Price,” appeared on the front page in early August. They heaped sympathy on the plight of our poor ranchers facing yet another year of drought. The paper devoted over a page and one half out of 12 pages to the effects of this year's drought on ranchers and the choice they faced of either cutting herds or buying expensive hay and cutting their income to the bone.

One useful piece of information to be found in the article was a quote from rancher Clair Pickard of Keating: “We’re no different than cattle dogs—basically we’re unemployable.” You’ve got to respect Mr. Pickard’s honesty. I don’t know if Mr. Pickard is a public lands rancher or not, but what public lands ranchers know how to do is to get the cows on the allotment in late spring or early summer and attempt to get them all back in the fall. Not exactly a high skill specialty.

The front page also informed us that “The driest summer in more than 80 years has stunted the hay crop. Now ranchers are stuck with the bill.” Or are they?

Upon closer inspection, it appears that taxpayers are helping ranchers, farmers, and other “producers” with their bills. In an article titled “Cash cow farm bill is a full plate in Congress,” last Sunday’s Oregonian explained that the farm bill being considered in Congress this week “As written . . . would cost $950 for each of the 303 million people in the United States.”

According to the Environmental Working Group (See http://farm.ewg.org/farm/top_recips.php?fips=41001&progcode=total ),
in the 11 year period from 1995 to 2005, 585 “producers” in Baker County received about $13.1 million in subsidies. Most of the money went to the top 40 recipients who received amounts ranging from $85,000 to $613,000 over the 11 year period. The top 20 recipients (3.4% of recipients) received $4.7 million, almost 36% of the total payout, and the top 40 recipients (6.8% % of recipients) received $6.95 million, over half (53%) of total subsidies. 321 recipients, 55% of recipients, received less than $5,000 each in subsidies during the period.

A plethora of complicated and confusing programs exists to bail out “producers” when they suffer losses from unsustainable herd sizes or crop failures. There is at least one program that even pays them not to “produce.” That’s the Conservation Reserve Program ($1.8 billion in 2006) which pays land owners not to farm or graze some of their land, i.e., “to retire highly erodible and other environmentally sensitive cropland and pasture.” I gather from the program summary that giving them your tax dollars keeps them from using land that shouldn’t be used in the first place and allegedly creates wildlife habitat (quite often for non-native huntable wildlife like pheasants). I suppose the main reason for this program, which is also cited by the summary, is that “The program also assists farmers by providing a dependable source of income.” Hmmm, I wonder if I can get the government to pay me not to raise my chickens or to pay me to plant those trees and shrubs I’ve been wanting so as to provide winter berries for birds? I could sure use a dependable source of income!

Also, as mentioned in Herald articles, millions are available from the Emergency Conservation Program which “provides emergency funding and technical assistance for farmers and ranchers to rehabilitate farmland damaged by natural disasters and for carrying out emergency water conservation measures in periods of severe drought.”

Other special considerations, such as Livestock Assistance Grants and low interest loans, follow from declarations of “drought emergencies” and natural disaster pronouncements. But “producers” benefit from more than just disaster and conservation subsidies—they also receive millions in commodity subsidies for crops like wheat and potatoes and from various crop insurance schemes, one of which, called Pasture, Rangeland, Forage insurance, is reported to provide a sizeable return to “producers” over time (Herald, 8/28/07). Much of the County road budget is used to maintain roads used primarily by “producers,” including some that are little more than long driveways to a “producer’s” home. Then there are many State programs, from OSU’s $5 million budget for Statewide Public Services, including the Extension Service, the Agricultural Experiment Station, and the Forest Research Laboratory, to State funding of juniper eradication, all of which benefit “producers.” And don’t forget the thousands spent by governmental agencies locally to “produce” all those dead coyotes by aerial gunning from helicopters—a really misguided and futile effort to control predation on privately held livestock.

Another hidden flow of dollars from local city dwellers and others to “producers” is the $280,000 or so that the folks in the Baker Valley Vector Control District pay for mosquito control. Control activity has become increasingly important since the arrival or release of the virulent Israeli strain of West Nile Virus several years ago. Local newspapers have repeatedly given the impression that cleaning out your bird bath and other sources of standing water in the back yard will help solve the problem, but this is quite unlikely. West Nile is carried by the mosquito, Culex tarsalis--AKA, the “irrigation mosquito.” It rarely reproduces in birdbaths, but breeds in huge numbers in the ditches and flood irrigated fields of “producers.” Quoting a paper from South Dakota State University, one of several that are in agreement about the reproductive requirements of the mosquito, (http://biomicro.sdstate.edu/Hildrethm/mosquito/LarvalHabitat/CulexTarsalisHabitat.htm ): “Culex tarsalis is a dispersive colonizing species in which its larval stages are most frequently found in freshly created aquatic habitats with high primary bacterial, protozoan and invertebrate productivity associated with vegetative decay (Beeha and Mulla, 1995; Fanara and Mulla, 1974). These larvae are often one of the first macroinvertebrates to colonize newly-created, sunlit surface water pools generally surrounded by grasses and annual vegetation. Once productivity has reached its plateau, oviposition decreases. Waters that are highly polluted with organic material are not tolerated, and abundant populations are not generally found in permanent water with fixed depths. Development during these stages is also known to depend strongly on water temperature, food availability and refugia from exposure to physical disturbance and predators. These conditions are most notably associated with irrigated pastures, and for this reason, Cx. tarsalis is often referred to as the irrigation mosquito.”

The studies show that it thrives in new pools of water in close contact with vegetative material and that to get reproduction from artificial sources like barrels or birdbaths, you would need to add topsoil or grass sod vegetation, which is not the normal practice of city dwellers and non-irrigators in the County. No, large numbers of West Nile spreading mosquitos are not caused by your birdbath, they are largely the direct result of the irrigation practices of “producers.” City folk have little to do with the creation of the problem, you just get to offer up your hard-earned money to pay for the currently used solutions. (The effects of the sprays used for control on non-target populations are a subject for a future article.)

Perhaps the Grandmother of subsidies to “producers” comes in the form of property tax relief by way of the Farm Deferral Program. In an effort that is intended to keep farm and timber lands in production, “producers” in the appropriate zones are given extremely low tax rates and pay at only a small fraction of the rate forced on city dwellers and others. This public largesse had little effect on many “producers” who rushed to subdivide and develop their property for other uses in the wake of Oregon's Measure 37. The State’s efforts to preserve farmland became then a simple subsidy for “producer” land speculation.

Finally, there is perhaps the Granddaddy of all subsidies for a single agricultural use—Federal subsidies to public lands ranchers for grazing on U.S. Forest Service (or as I prefer to call the agency: U.S. Feedlot Service) and Bureau of Land Management (Ed Abbey’s Bureau of Livestock and Mining) lands. According to a 2002 study by the Center for Biological Diversity, the public lands grazing program resulted in a direct loss from the U.S. Treasury of $124 million in 2000. This figure is likely becoming larger as the fee is down to $1.35 a month for the rancher to feed a cow and rather large calf—less than it would cost you to feed a pet hamster. As large as this figure is, it is the enormity of the indirect costs that are responsible for the outrageous size of the subsidy. If you include the cost for various support services, mitigation costs for the tremendous amount of grazing damage to riparian areas, imperiled species, etc., as well as lost recreational and other non-commercial opportunities, the study figures the full cost of the Federal public lands grazing program is probably between $500 million and $1 billion annually.

When one takes a careful look at the flow of tax dollars, what ultimately emerges is the picture of a privileged class of wealthy landed aristocrats, who pay proportionately less in property taxes, but who reap a cornucopia of public services and subsidies.

Subsidizing the Gambling Habit

Getting back to the local “drought emergency” and “disaster” issue: Drought is almost the rule, rather than the exception, in the West. Historically, it has occurred on a fairly regular basis. Everyone who lives here, including ranchers and farmers (aka, “producers”) knows it. It is darn near a desert here in the lower elevations of Baker County, so why are so many pretending like drought is a big surprise? It is also pretty darn cold in the winter. Would you pay farmers a subsidy if they were raising bananas and avocados, and the trees suffered a "disastrous" freeze every winter? Drought is a known risk in the west—Why should taxpayers subsidize those who know they will suffer losses because of it? If you know that losses will occur due to the nature of the environment you operate in, then the prudent thing to do is to plan for it, not to go begging when the predictable losses occur.

Just in case you think I am making this up, the following is a summary of some of the available drought data for North East Oregon:

Drought frequency in N.E. Oregon

• Over the 105 year period between 1900 to 2005, drought has been experienced in one out of every 5 years. (21/105)

• Over the same period, severe drought has been experienced in one out of every 8 years. (13/105)

• Over the same period, extreme drought has been experienced in about one out of every 15 years. (7/105)

• 6 out of the last 8 years have ranged from drought or near drought to extreme and exceptional drought, which is similar to the period of drought in the 1930’s.

Supporting data can be found at http://www.WeatherPerspectives.com (Oregon, Region 8).

Because drought is a naturally occurring event that is known to occur with some frequency in North East Oregon, any so-called disaster, or financially uncomfortable impacts due to its occurrence, can be viewed as having occurred due to human negligence. In other words, if you know that you are facing a drought situation every five years on average, you need to plan activities that could be impacted by drought, such as farming or ranching, with that fact in mind. The prudent thing to do would be to keep your herd size near that size which could be economically and sustainably fed during a drought situation and to depend financially only those acres which could be irrigated with the water that could reasonably be expected to be available during dry years. If one tries to maintain acreage or a herd size beyond the prudent maximum, they are rolling the dice and shouldn’t go crying to hard-pressed taxpayers for bail out subsidies on a bet gone bad. Unfortunately, that is what occurs on a regular basis, with pronouncements of so-called disaster relief, and it amounts to many thousands of subsidy dollars in Baker County and the rest of the drought-prone West. If you like to gamble, then do it with your own money. (Alternatively, give up on the idea that only special interests should be bailed out for their irresponsible behavior. Create a society where every one who makes and honest effort is supported.)

Welfare Ranching, Welfare for the Rich, and the Neo-Feudal Rural Culture

The deference paid to agriculture, the so-called “producers,” can be explained by the fact that they own large tracts of land which have brought them a good deal of economic and political power (not unlike the merchants on Main Street). In addition, they and others have fed myths that portray ranchers and farmers as a more noble and deserving sort of human being, regardless of how they obtained their land and wealth. The consequences of their economic power are predictable in an alleged democracy that is corrupted by those who have money and the power it provides. Their power has allowed them to advocate for laws that maintain their position and transfer wealth to them from the middle classes and poor of our society. (I should clarify here that I am not referring to the small farmer or private land rancher with a few acres, although they too, in some cases, may benefit from the legislation enacted in favor of the wealthy land owners.) Income caps for subsidies are resisted by Congress because of the financial (campaign contributions) power of large farms and ranching operations. Do wheat growers, who now are getting over $10.00 a bushel really need subsidies? The existing situation, including most importantly, the magnification of the myths by our servile media, results in a perception by the public at large that agriculture, and its “producers,” are fully deserving of the subsidies they receive, while other segments of society receiving subsidies of one sort or another are suspect, if not outright cheats and no-accounts.

So who are the local recipients and what are the benefits that they receive? Until recently, these benefits remained hidden behind a wall of secrecy, but due to changes in record keeping and public access, the Environmental Working Group (see http://farm.ewg.org/farm/top_recips.php?fips=41001&progcode=total for much more info) has been able to establish a database documenting the recipients of these wealth transfers. (I had been intending to disclose these recipients in my blog for the last year, and a recent article in the Oregonian on the subject, as well as prodding by a local activist, has prompted this follow through.)

According to the EWG database, the top 60 recipients in Baker County for the years 1995 -2005 are as follows:

Rank &Recipient Total USDA Subsidies 1995-2005

1 Ward Ranches Baker City, OR 97814 $613,394

2 Blatchford Brothers Baker City, OR 97814 $559,898

3 Leland Hellberg Lowden, WA 99360 $347,615

4 Gary Bloomer Durkee, OR 97905 $321,136

5 Hubbard Ranch Enterprise, OR 97828 $317,879

6 Kerns Rainbow Ranch Inc Haines, OR 97833 $311,507
The owners of Kerns Rainbow Ranch are:

• Fawn A Kerns Haines, OR 97833 2.76 %
• Tom L Kerns Haines, OR 97833 12.77 %
• Tim L Kerns Haines, OR 97833 34.47 %
• Janice L Kerns Haines, OR 97833 34.47 %
• Tim A Kerns Haines, OR 97833 15.53 %

7 Cal Worthington Folsom, CA 95630 $299,239

8 Allen Ranch Inc Haines, OR 97833 $271,244

9 Oliver Wilde Baker City, OR 97814 $241,969

10 Lazy S Over 7 Inc Durkee, OR 97905 $227,742

11 Ducks Unlimited Inc Vancouver, WA 98683 $221,332

NOTE: Over 80 percent of the payments listed for Ducks Unlimited are 'cost share' reimbursements for technical assistance to restore wetlands at many locations on private lands not owned by D.U. The technical assistance is provided to private landowners under contractual arrangement through USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service.

12 K Diamond Inc Haines, OR 97833 $215,654
The owner of K Diamond Inc is:
L Brent Kerns Haines, OR 97833 100.00 %

13 R John Wirth Baker City, OR 97814 $210,010

14 Freeman Angus Rnch Inc Baker City, OR 97814
$188,557
15 Clint Wendt Haines, OR 97833
$165,284
16 Ted W Bloomer Durkee, OR 97905
$164,800

17 Double J Land & Cattle ✴ Pendleton, OR 97801 $164,103
The owners of Double J Land & Cattle are:

• Pat Juhl
Pendleton, OR 97801 50.00 %
• John T Johnson
Pendleton, OR 97801 50.00 %

18 Bloomer Ranches Inc ✴ Durkee, OR 97905
$160,102
The owners of Bloomer Ranches Inc. are:
Ted W Bloomer
Durkee, OR 97905 50.00 %
Diane G Bloomer
Durkee, OR 97905 50.00 %

19 Douglas R Stanford North Powder, OR 97867 $154,727

20 Harrell Land & Livestock Ltd ✴ Baker City, OR 97814 $145,968

21
Valley View Dairy & Ent Inc ✴
Haines, OR 97833
$144,678
22
Rohners Dairy Inc ✴
Baker City, OR 97814
$142,396
23
Noble Lumber Inc ✴
Beavercreek, OR 97004
$139,168
24
Allen Farms Inc ✴
Haines, OR 97833
$139,129
25
John Bootsma
Baker City, OR 97814
$131,726
26
Bill Loennig
Haines, OR 97833
$128,401
27
Daly Creek Ranch LLC ✴
Zephyr Cove, NV 89448
$124,719
28
Blatchford Farms Inc ✴
Baker City, OR 97814
$120,039
29
Powder River Ranch ✴
Baker City, OR 97814
$116,830
30
Jacobs Ranches Inc ✴
Baker City, OR 97814
$114,443
31
Dave Blatchford
Baker City, OR 97814
$110,603
32
Jack Harris
Huntington, OR 97907
$106,222
33
Lindsay Brothers ✴
Shedd, OR 97377
$104,324
34
Allen Brothers ✴
Haines, OR 97833
$97,708
35
Joel Wendt
Haines, OR 97833
$96,307
36
Harrell Hereford Ranch Inc ✴
Baker City, OR 97814
$94,192
37
Ted S Bloomer Estate ✴
Durkee, OR 97905
$92,149
38
Roger W Smith
Haines, OR 97833
$86,448
39
Lois L Mcniece
Baker City, OR 97814
$85,268
40
Suzanne M Kindree
North Powder, OR 97867
$84,992
41
Stephen J Brocato
Baker City, OR 97814
$83,699
42
Maxwell Ranch ✴
Haines, OR 97833
$83,563
43
Louis E Marks
North Powder, OR 97867
$79,876
44
Patrick Sullivan Dba Sullivan Lan ✴
Hereford, OR 97837
$78,408
45
John Randall
Richland, OR 97870
$77,159
46
Durbin Creek Ranch ✴
Huntington, OR 97907
$73,772
47
Ted S Bloomer
Durkee, OR 97905
$68,887
48
Donlon H Gabrielsen
San Rafael, CA 94901
$68,298
49
Merlyn L Mcgarry
Baker City, OR 97814
$66,862
50
Charles J Conro
Haines, OR 97833
$66,454
51
Richard Stephens
Haines, OR 97833
$66,166
52
Owen Family Revocable Trust
Durkee, OR 97905
$63,951
53
Phillips Ranch Inc
Baker City, OR 97814
$63,118
54
William M Mcginn
Haines, OR 97833
$62,774
55
Ingram Ranches Inc ✴
Haines, OR 97833
$61,941
56
Lee C Wright III
Fruitland, ID 83619
$59,434
57
Hay Inc ✴
North Powder, OR 97867
$57,503
58
Ssi Land And Cattle Co ✴
, 00000
$56,890
59
Richard Murray
Richland, OR 97870
$54,952
60
Dorris D Parker
Roseburg, OR 97470
$54,317

For more complete information on all recipients go to the web site listed above.

Some more findings:

• Total USDA Subsidies from farms/ranches in Baker County, Oregon totaled $13,057,000 from 1995-2005.
• Commodity subsidies in Baker County, Oregon totaled $7.3 million from 1995-2005.
• Conservation payments in Baker County, Oregon totaled $3.5 million from 1995-2005.
• Disaster payments in Baker County, Oregon totaled $2.3 million from 1995-2005.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Supervisor Tim L. Kerns, and his wife Janice L. Kerns, are listed in the EWG database as owning roughly 69% of Kerns Rainbow Ranch Inc., which the same database says received $311,507 in USDA subsidies during the 1995 to 2005 period. These subsidies included $293,166 in commodity subsidies and $18,341 in “disaster” subsidies. The ranch received no subsidies for conservation. So Tim L. and Janice should have received about 69% of that, or $214,753 over the 11 year period, an average of approximately $19,523 per year in subsidies. A listing of the County land holdings in their name on the Assessor’s office webpage shows that they own in the neighborhood of 2,395 acres, most of which is zoned Exclusive Farm Use and is in farm deferral for tax purposes. They may own other acreage under other business names that I am not aware of. The web site also shows that on a real market value of $3,791,120 ($3.7 million), they pay about $11,911 dollars a year in property taxes (not including any discounts for timely payment) for their listed acreage and assorted homes. So, fortunately for them, the subsidies more than pay for their property taxes each year and leave them a tidy sum to apply towards any State or Federal tax they couldn’t find deductions for.

Also according to County tax records, City manager Steve Brocato owns 148.5 acres in the County (Halfway, as I recall) in addition to his properties in Baker City. He pays annual taxes of 1,340.37 on those acres (about $9.00 per acre.). He has received $83,699 in USDA subsidies during the period from 2002 to 2005. It is not clear whether he also owns an additional 240 acres in the name of BROCATO EXCHANGE WXO61210,LLC with a mailing address of Salem, OR, or if he owns properties receiving subsidies elsewhere. The taxes on those additional 240 acres amount to $916.96. Even if he also controls those properties and the USDA subsidies can be attributed to them, it is clear that the subsidies he receives more than cover all the taxes he might have owed on currently listed farm properties in Baker County during the 4 year period.

The EWG database shows that the president of the Baker County Livestock Association, Curt Martin, of North Powder has received payments of $93,628.38 from 1995 through 2005. According to the Herald, even in the face of all the taxpayer generosity, when referring to current drought relief programs, Martin still mustered up the chutzpah to tell his Oregon representative: “With all due respect, this isn’t going to cut it….” Was he pleading simply for more money, or was this a threat about the level of future campaign contributions?

Relief for the Serfs

I wonder if the Herald and our government entities would be willing to show some concern for county residents who also face emergency or disaster situations. Their problems, as in the case of ranchers, may be due to their own irresponsible behavior, or to events beyond their control. Many people, for example, realize that the instability in the Middle East and speculative trading by Wall Street scammers, both of which were either caused or tolerated by the Bush administration, are responsible for much of the increase in oil prices. Fuel oil prices have more than doubled, and have impacted many low-income residents who rely on fuel oil for heat. Others may have been knocked down when the housing bubble burst. The situation can be a financial disaster for these folks, pushing some over the financial and emotional edge, but I haven’t seen any efforts to address their problems or many others that regular people face, even though the government is regularly bailing out the wealthy, like large “producers” and financial wheeler-dealers. With all due respect, I’ve got to tell you, this isn’t going to cut it.