Tax bill will boost economy
As a resident of Scarborough and a business person in our community, I want to thank Sen. Susan Collins for her work finding compromise on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and encourage the senator to vote yes on the final legislation. Tax reform is critical to securing growth both in Scarborough and around the country.
Tax reform is an important element for American competitiveness. With a lower corporate rate and a simplified tax code, big and small companies alike can focus more on growing their bottom lines. A tax code that is stable and predictable is crucial to making strategic business and investment decisions.
The U.S. has not updated its tax code in more than 30 years, and a lot has changed in that time. In order to compete with competitors from around the world, we need to be on a level playing field, and that means not paying taxes at a rate of 39 percent when the rest of the world is paying a tax rate of 22 percent on average.
Tax reform will boost the U.S. economy, create jobs and incentivize companies to invest in the future.
Ed Kennerly
Scarborough
Collins turns her back
I agree with Republican leaders that our tax system could benefit from reform. I don’t agree, however, with their plan to ram through a tax overhaul that is predicted to have many harmful consequences for most Americans.
Many independent, nonpartisan economists have calculated that this bill will negatively impact the middle class, the elderly and veterans. If passed, it will be a boon to corporations and the wealthy. Most forecasts have the deficit mushrooming if the proposed changes in the tax bill are allowed to become law.
I cannot understand why Sen. Susan Collins would turn her back on her constituents and put so many of us at risk. Is loyalty to party and wealthy donors more important than doing the right thing for her state and her country?
Alida Snow
Brunswick
Collins’ tax gamble
Sen. Susan Collins has taken a big gamble that would punish small businesses and drive up the cost of health care.
The tax bill she has supported repeals the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the repeal of the individual mandate will increase insurance premiums by 10 percent. Before the Affordable Care Act passed, I was paying through the nose for health insurance. Its marketplace allowed my wife and I, who own a bed and breakfast, to purchase affordable health insurance for the first time in decades. The idea that my premiums could skyrocket so big corporations can get a huge tax break is infuriating.
Other small-business owners feel similarly. Scientific polling of 800 small-business owners by Businesses for Responsible Tax Reform, a coalition of small-business owners that I belong to, found 51 percent of respondents oppose repealing the mandate requiring individuals to buy health insurance, while just 45 percent support it. Fifty-eight percent of small-business owners also believe the tax proposals favor wealthy Americans and corporations over the middle class and small businesses.
And the impact on health care premiums is not the only threat to small-business owners. The polling found that 82 percent of small businesses benefit from state and local tax deductions that will be capped under the compromise tax bill.
I hope small-business owners throughout Maine join me in urging Collins to reconsider her support of the tax bill and insist on fiscally responsible reform that creates a level-playing field for small businesses rather than cutting into our bottom line.
Richard LeVasseur
Co-owner
5 Lakes Lodge
Millinocket
Tax bill a scam
Do us a favor and stop calling the Republican tax scam a “tax bill.” Most of the people in this elderly state were alive when President George W. Bush passed his tax cuts for the rich. We all know what happened next.
For anyone who believes that the tax scam will magically save the American economy, take 5 seconds to google the words “tax haven.”
Right now, $32 trillion is hidden abroad. It would be nice if Sen. Susan Collins could explain why that money hasn’t trickled down yet.
That’s money to keep the next weeklong power outage from happening. That’s money to help your friends, relatives and coworkers get help if they’re addicted to drugs. That’s money to keep the internet free and out of the hands of George Soros and the Koch brothers.
When people in Maine have big ideas, other Mainers tend to say, “that’s all well and good, but how are you going to pay for it?”
This is how.
If Collins allows the tax scam to pass, the inevitable destruction to the economy will be on her shoulders. People will die from lack of health insurance. And every drop of blood will be on her hands.
Ian Schwartz
Seal Harbor
Tax bill conceived in deceit
Earlier this month, our senators brought forth a tax bill dedicated to the proposition that all corporations are created more equal than individuals.
Now they are engaged in a great struggle testing whether this tax bill, or any tax bill conceived in deceit, can long endure.They are met on the battlefield of that struggle, and have come to dedicate this chamber as a final resting place of the people, as it is the people who have been abandoned so that the corporations might thrive.
Is it fitting and proper that this be done? Can they dedicate — can they consecrate — can they hallow this chamber as they forsake the men and women who have sent them here to serve?
As they remain dedicated to their donors and corporations, as they give them their last full measure of devotion, as they resolve that their win shall not have been in vain, this Senate, under GOP leadership, shall have a new birth of avarice, and government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall perish from the earth.
Jim Payne
Rockport