Dear Senator Graham,
You sent me an email asking me if I supported the GOP tax
bill. The email had a link to a page
with “yes” and “no”, and I said “no”. I
figured I’d sit here and, very honestly, type some of my reasons for my answer
before you pass that useless piece of … legislation.
I sincerely don’t even know where to begin. It’s scary to see what has become of the (not
very) United States of America. There is
nothing good happening at the moment, except of course for the meteoric rise of
the stock market: a good for those few of us with a little (or as the case
might be, a lot of) money invested in it, but certainly not for the majority of
the working class who you claim will benefit from this tax bill of yours. This bill simplifies absolutely nothing, though
simplicity was one of the claims you made for its necessity. One will still need a degree in accounting to
fill in a tax return.
I enumerate here a few of the reasons I answered “no” to
your two-word answer survey. I apologize
in advance for the train of thought quality of this letter, it would take too
long to write otherwise:
1)
The GOP bill is so complicated that I know you
guys are either deluded or bold-faced lying when you say the average household
will see a decrease in their taxes, certainly households with graduate students
will not. The only people who will
really benefit are people like that horror show running the country at the
moment. Only the very rich will benefit;
which makes sense since they pay, when they pay, the bulk of the taxes. But please don’t lie, you are not passing
this legislation to help “the people”, you are doing it for your very rich
donors in order to remain in power. Again, I don’t know if you are deluded or just
lying, or maybe a bit of both.
2)
…And speaking of taxing graduate student
benefits, the fact that you are proposing to do this only points to the fact
that you guys really don’t care about whether the public actually acquires
skills to meet all those job openings that you claim will come with the passing
of this bill. And if those jobs do come
and there are no Americans with the skills necessary to fill them, will you then
simplify immigration policy? Hah!
3)
…And speaking of job creation, how do you
explain the total lack of interest to invest in this country shown by top CEOs when
Gary Cohn asked for a show of hands of who would invest more if the GOP tax
plan passed? You claim that job creation
and company investment are the main reasons for passing this; but the reality
does not seem to conform to your predictions.
How do you explain this?
Delusion?
4)
Getting rid of the Individual Mandate Penalty is
ridiculous, especially because at one point such a medical insurance solution
was actually a proposal by intelligent and rational Republicans that once inhabited
the halls of Congress.
5)
Last but not least, l bring up the fact that we
will be spiraling into higher and higher levels of debt that will need to be
paid for by future generations; once upon a time, a GOP concern. I have no kids so I should care less, but I
do in principle. I have no faith in even
the most pessimistic of your numbers, much less the rosy ones you and the
president are trying to ram down our throats
I could go on, but I have better things to do; and you will
strong arm this piece of legislation through, along party lines, no matter what
I say. You will do it just like the
Democrats did with the Affordable Care Act; and although I totally disagree
with how they did it, at least that piece of legislation had the well-being of
people in need as its raison d’être. Whether
you admit it to yourselves or not, you are passing this bill mostly to help
your donors and stay in power; but I repeat myself… I hope that one day America is able to get its
act back together. As it is, the South
might as well secede again, make a deal with Libya and import itself some slaves,
go back to the old glory days eh? ... Yes,
I am very angry; Trump brings the best out in us all…
Sincerely,
