This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015
Keep asking
Dr. Bill Cummings is right in asking every question he can regarding all faiths. The questions he is asking are questions that many people want to ask. Questions that most people are too afraid, unwilling or do not know who to ask. People are afraid that if they ask, they will be called anti-religion. Jesus asked questions, why can’t we? I will not go to church blindly. I need to know everything I can about the Bible. Then I can understand what the Bible means. I am glad Cummings is asking. He has answered many questions I have asked. Keep on asking. I’ll listen to every word you say.
-- Brian T. Reid Sr.
Gray
Just another tax break
U.S. Sens. David Perdue, R-Ga., and Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., introduced the so-called Fair Tax Act of 2015 to promote freedom, fairness and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service and enacting a national sales tax.
Perdue’s and Isakson’s so-called “fair tax” proposal, as they describe it, would “repeal all federal personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, capital gains taxes, gift and estate taxes and replace those with a revenue-neutral, 23 percent consumption tax on all retail sales of new goods and services.”
The so-called “fair tax” would do away with the Internal Revenue Service that Republicans hate with a passion. But what would they replace it with? A couple of things to note here. Payroll taxes: Payroll taxes fund Social Security. Doing away with the payroll tax would amount to a back door maneuver to abolish Social Security. And repealing the estate tax would give the top 2 percent another $270 billion tax break. (Note: Only estates worth more than $10.9 million for couples and $5.4 million for individuals fall under the tax.)
The top current federal income tax rate is something like 33 percent. Under the so-called “fair tax” proposal, the rate would be 23 percent. That would be another 10 percent tax break for the rich.
But for Social Security recipients, retirees and low-wage income earners making little more than the minimum wage, a 23 percent sales tax on needed consumer goods and services would be an increase. That 23 percent would be on top of local sales taxes and perhaps property taxes, plus other user fees.
Perdue and Isakson’s so-called “fair tax” is nothing more than another tax break for the rich.
-- Ronald L. Cain
Elko
Any clue?
The Centerville mayor and City Council have no idea why patrol Lt. Pritchett left the police department? Really? How strange, after all they did to him. Wow. I guess it’s possible that they don’t know why, after all he had no hand in land deals. He had no hand in appointing a teacher to be in charge of the police department, and he had no part of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for a city square where they can drink coffee and be entranced by either the cemetery lot on one side or a city councilman’s house on the other side.
-- Mike Collins
Centerville
Centerville comedy
Saturday’s paper is great for keeping Centerville residents up on the council and mayor comedy team. The mayor and council said they have no idea why Lt. Pritchett left the police force. You know what, we believe them. As a matter of fact, we believe John Harley and the whole City Council have no idea about anything except spending money. The continual comedy show from there is more fun than even television. Either that or it is the continual path of prevarication practiced in that building.
-- Jim Blanco
Centerville
Lowest point
First the Supreme Court mandates same-sex marriages, and now our president is appointing a flaming sexual deviant to lead our men and women against Muslims who demeans their women. All the while the Marine general has declared women will not be in certain combat positions.
Why not just take all federal prisoners and send them to fight our wars under the homosexual. America is at its lowest point in history.
-- Joe Hubbard
Macon
Contradictory reasons
Is the U.S. Supreme Court impartial and honest? Consider this contradiction. In 1903, the high court decided that it lacked the constitutional authority to guarantee the voting rights of Jackson Giles in Alabama because such guarantee “must be given by them (Alabama authorities) or by the state legislature or the political department of the government of the United States.” It’s not our prerogative, they claimed.
But in 2008, the justices decided instead that Congress lacked the authority to guarantee voting rights because “this is not the kind of question you can leave to Congress.” That was essentially their justification for invalidating Section 4 of The Voting Rights Act.
This time, they took back the prerogative, but the result was about the same as before. The high court gave states’ rights precedence over civil rights in both cases 100 years apart but for contradictory reasons. In any event, they have been consistent about refusing to guarantee voting rights. It makes you wonder. What is a Supreme Court for?
-- Tom Louderback
Louisville, Ky.
To be young again
The Sunday Editorial Cartoon take-off about Donald Trump (Triumph motorcycle and Republicans) was superb. It reminded me of the English motorcycle I drove in the late ‘40s in Atlanta with my future wife hanging on. Her father never commented that I was aware, but I do have a story about her mother coming down church steps one Sunday evening amidst her peers, “how can my elder daughter bound down the steps, run to Arthur, sling her leg over that motorcycle and ride off hanging onto Arthur in front of God and the entire church” while other mothers, hands over mouths, think, “thank goodness not mine.” And husbands think, “oh! to be young again.”
-- Arthur D. Brook
Macon
This story was originally published September 21, 2015 at 9:25 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015 ."