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Don’t forget to vote

To the Journal editor:

Due to our voter apathy in 2016, we have seen our democracy assailed on many fronts. However, one political move by the Trump presidency and the then dominant Republican Congress early in this term has created a much wider breach between the rich and poor.

The tax reduction passed by that Republican Congress and signed by the president cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Huge tax cut! However, these are misleading numbers as the bill was passed without the closing of numerous corporate tax loopholes.

Big corporations were not paying 35% before but, with these deductions, were actually paying, on average, 28%! With the “loopholes” still in place one can do the simple math and arrive at a 14% corporate tax rate now being paid by big corporations. Fourteen and a half percent is in the range that the average worker pays in taxes.

So how does government cover these handouts to the most wealthy of our society? You pass a budget that adds a trillion dollars of debt to the taxpayers. The total national debt now stands at $23 trillion. How will our man in the White House and his Republicans in Congress recoup some of this loss? By weakening the independent agencies, putting in place marionettes who are maneuvered by the White House and then cutting services to the most vulnerable of our society.

To wrap your head around just what fiscal power a billion dollars affords, here is a starting point: If you had a billion dollars and put it in a huge vault, then spent or gave away $10,000 every day, it would take you 3 1/2 lifetimes 274 years, or nearly three centurie,s to expend the money! Get out your calculators and fact check this.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon has amassed $118.2 billion to date and has been adding about a billion every two weeks aided in great part by the above actions by the Republican president and Congress. He gave $38 billion to his ex-wife in a settlement last July

For our children’s great-grandchildren’s futures we must get out and vote in our primary and November elections!

BOB MARIETTI

Ishpeming

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