In any decent "12-Step" recovery program, Step #1 is admitting you have a problem. This is why "I am an alcoholic" is a phrase one hears often at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Similar phrases are heard in recovery programs for gambling addicts, drug addicts and so forth. The logic is inescapable - if you can't recognize and admit what your problem is, you're unlikely to be able to make much progress toward fixing it. Simply recognizing and admitting your problem doesn't fix it, of course, or these would be "1 Step" programs. The other steps toward recovery are important as well.

The Corvallis Gazette Times - probably alone among Oregon's liberal/progressive newspapers - appears to have finally taken Step 1. The paper - with help from research provided by the Oregon Department of Employment - has recognized that the number of private sector manufacturing jobs in Benton County have been declining. It also acknowledges this is a bad thing and that it is a problem. Step 1.

What's missing, of course, are the remaining 11 Steps. If you've been around Oregon a while, you know what's happened to manufacturing jobs in Benton County. The County used to enjoy a significant number of high-wage jobs in the timber industry, but those jobs have mostly gone away. Why? Government limits on the harvesting of timber from public and private lands. The Endangered Species Act. The Clean Water Act. The National Forest Management Act and so forth. Government limits on salvage logging. When these jobs go away, it creates a domino effect - people without jobs cannot support the local economy. They don't shop at local stores as much, go out to eat as often, have a cell phone. Government action which destroys family-wage jobs ripples throughout the local economy, destroying additional jobs.

The editorial also laments that the County job base is now 1/3 government employment, although even these jobs are shaky despite huge spending, taxation and fee increases in recent years.

A local economy cannot long survive when employment by the government is the main driver. To create a government job, all the money to support it must be taken from a person or business operating in the private economy. A job in the private economy must be destroyed - or many jobs must pay less and offer fewer benefits - to support the government worker.

The Gazette Times has recognized the decline in Oregon's economy. This decline was brought on by policies pursued by the federal and state governments. The paper has not yet moved to the realization that its own editorial policies consistently supported the government actions that are destroying its own community are part of the problem. If the paper's editorial staff can be honest with itself and its readers, that Step will come down the road. But it's a hopeful sign when a liberal/progressive begins to admit to him or herself Oregon has a government problem. Working through the remaining Steps in Corvallis will not be easy, but we should all support the Gazette Times editorial staff as they move towards recovery.