Letter to the editor

Tax reform bill is at the expense of most Americans

Dear Editor,

Anyone who has been paying attention knows that the GOP tax “reform” bill in its House and Senate versions is basically a massive give-away to the richest Americans at the expense of everyone else.

Impervious to the warnings voiced by hundreds of economists, educators, health care professionals and advocates for children and the poor, the Republican-controlled Congress appears hell-bent on ramming through a bill of potentially disastrous consequences that most of our representatives and senators will not even have read.

This is bad enough in itself, but even worse is the calculating animosity driving it. Stephen Moore of the conservative Heritage Foundation, President Trump’s economic advisor, has approvingly called the tax bill “death to Democrats.” Its provisions are intentionally designed to hurt more liberal areas of the country.

Moore says the tax cuts “go after state and local taxes, which weakens public employee unions. They go after university endowments, and universities have become play pens of the left. And getting rid of the mandate is to eventually dismantle Obamacare.”

I would like to know when we stopped being “one nation indivisible” and when it became okay for one party to collectively punish the constituency that didn’t vote for it. Under the 1949 Geneva Convention, collective punishment of an enemy is a war crime. How is the GOP’s collective punishment of democratic constituencies not a war crime against the American people?

In his Second Inaugural Address, an earlier Republican president spoke of “binding up the nation’s wounds,” “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” Our current president instead appears dedicated to tearing our wounded country apart.

GOP, the season of traditional “good will” and generosity toward others is upon us. Look into your hearts. Is this cruel new America the country you want and claim to love?

Thomas R. Smith
River Falls