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Opinions from past add perspective

Tue., May 31, 2016

Looking Back reviews opinions published in The Spokesman-Review during this week in history.

Hydropowered, June 4, 1946: The S-R editorial board was impressed with the potential power-generating capability of the Columbia River, which was “dramatized” by record high water “tumbling over the falls and through the penstocks of the Grand Coulee dam.”

“As the greatest power stream on the continent, the Columbia has felt only the first touches of man’s ability to utilize its water and to transform its resources into electric power,” the editorial explained. “The agricultural and industrial development of the Pacific northwest has only barely begun.”

Welfare, June 1, 1966: The expanding welfare rolls prompted a cautionary note from the editorial board, which wrote:

“There is only one primary objective to any form of welfare – that is to give aid (temporary or permanent) to anyone who is in need and, for a legitimate reason, is unable to help himself or his dependents.”

It went on to say: “The growing acceptance to the theory that receiving such funds is a right, not a privilege, is a fallacy.”

And concluded: “Any person on public assistance who is physically and mentally able to perform a job which will remove him from welfare rolls has just as moral an obligation to take it as the public does in helping him in time of need.”

Big Government, June 1, 1976: An editorial pointed out that if citizens want smaller government, they must stop requesting more services.

It explained: “Big Government can be charted through agency statistics. Of the 175 agencies which existed in 1923, 148 were still functioning in 1973, half a century later. But wait. While 27 had disappeared, 246 new ones were created. Despite changing needs and economics, agencies persisted, often in outmoded forms to handle long-gone problems.”

It continued: “The real culprit in creating the mushrooming agencies of big government was and is the public. Increasingly, the public has turned to government to provide services originally carried out by the private sector. As people demanded it, government filled the gap. And, as government did so, the private sector was further squeezed out and, in addition, abdicated the field.”

The editorial concluded: “We have created the thing that is plaguing us.”

Medicare, June 3, 1986: The Reagan administration’s smaller-than-expected request for an increase in Medicare’s hospital payments drew the attention of the editorial board, which noted this would mean higher out-of-pocket expenses for enrollees.

An editorial noted: “Whether reduced payments to health-care providers results in reduced access to care for Medicare recipients remains an important, but unanswered question. The administration’s theory is that people who pay more in premiums, deductibles and co-payments make wiser, more economical use of health care services. But when the individual’s costs become too high, the best course of action may appear to be to go without the care. That’s certainly not Medicare’s aim.”