| The following are reader responses and my responses to them. Typically I will add these in the case of errors or questions from a particular issue
This response, posted 12/25/2017, is the part of the article featured in yesterdays's issue of The Lantern that is being discussed:
Since I'm so low on local news, let's talk about national news. As most of you know, the Trumpian tax reform plan is officially law. While most of the cuts are targetted at major corporations, there will be a tax cut for the middle class. In Haven, with the seemingly insanely low property prices, this should be extremely good and you'll probably notice improvements in your paychecks around February.
Dear Mister Omani,
While it is refreshing to read national news on this local newspaper, it isn't as good to read Trump's tax reform being considered
good for the middle class, who seemingly already enjoys from "insanely low property prices" (sic.). But, since you seem to
consider so, and that you should give that opinion on this issue's editorial, I'd like to challenge you to justify your statements,
instead of just saying them in the hopes that people will believe in what is said without question.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Smith
Dear Mrs. Smith,
I want to begin by saying that I regret not expanding my quick snippet of national news so misunderstandings like this could be avoided. I traditionally don't do national news stories and thought I could put out a little crumb and the people who gave a fuck could find more reputable news outlets for more information. That was lazy and reckless of me and I apologize. Also just to avoid confusion, my comment about the property values in Haven are unrelated to the tax plan, they just do seem to be lower than say, a major city like New York or Seattle, or etc. The tax plan doesn't (and as far as I know won't) affect the prices for property values.
I stand by my original reporting, in which I said this is primarily for major corporations. I do want to add a few things too. There are other pieces of this plan that also benefit the massively wealthy and they are a major portion of this tax bill. It's also definitely skewed toward corporations because their tax cut is effectively permanent until overturned, but the breaks given to middle income people will expire in around a decade, unless Congress votes to extend them and/or make them permanent. Republicans are also hopeful that the corporate tax cut will cause businesses to increase wages for lower income works and give out bonuses. Democrats are more skeptical and believe there will be massive buy backs of stocks and dividends poured out to stock holders, who are traditionally upper middle class, if not higher income earners.
There is a removal of the individual mandate of Obamacare, which means if you don't want or need insurance, that's good for you, you won't have to pay a penalty for not having insurance. For people with insurance, even if your business pays for it, this could be problematic. Young adults and healthy people in general are expected to not bother with health insurance, which makes the 'pools' of insured concentrated more with the sick and old, who are riskier, so premiums for insurances are expected to go up. This could thus partially or fully negate the tax cuts middle income people will receive.
Furthermore, the tax bill is estimated to raise our deficit by 1.5 trillion dollars. Republicans believe growth in the economy will cause increased revenue that will negate this and/or cause the deficit to drop. Democrats are more skeptical that this will be the case. A side effect of the deficit being raised is that there's less money to spend, so there are already rumblings that there may be cuts made, particularly to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which would really fuck over old people and the poor.
I'm probably missing a few other details of the tax plan, so let me include links to Fox's reporting of the tax bill and CNN's reporting of the tax bill, as well as some calculators that might estimate how it affects you personally. My faithful readers can decide things for themselves.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/02/senate-passes-major-tax-reform-package.html
http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/12/19/tax-calculator-what-tax-reform-means-for.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/22/politics/trump-tax-plan-talking-points/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/13/politics/calculate-americans-taxes-senate-reform-bill/index.html
Now the good part! Responding to the challenge of justifying my statements. Let's see. Well I did say it targeted corporations, reducing corporate taxes from 35% to 21%, which again, is not set to expire. As far as the tax cut for the middle class - there will be one. About 80% of people will receive a tax cut, and since in Haven the property costs are low, your taxes for your houses are also low, which means the reduced exemption for property taxes shouldn't affect Havenites much, if at all. As far as the February portion, that is when other news outlets are reporting that a change will be seen in paychecks. I also want to note that since this paper is targeted for Haven, I'm not going to go into great detail over how it affects people nation-wide.
As far as considering this 'good for the middle class', I don't think I said that ever, and if I wasn't clear before, let me be clear now. This is pretty shitty for the middle class, dudes. The rich basically ordered an XXL meat lovers pizza with extra cheese and they're letting the middle class have some of the crusts. So yeah, we'll get a little something, but the lion's share isn't for us.
Thanks for writing in Mrs. Smith! I hope this answered and addressed your concerns.
-Olly
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