On Thursday, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled their plan for tax reform. Among other changes to the tax code, the bill scraps three out of the four tax credits or deductions currently offered for higher education expenses: the Lifetime Learning and Hope Scholarship tax credits and the student loan interest deduction. The United States is already one of the most expensive countries in the world in which to pursue a college degree, and doing so often requires going deep into debt. Repeated studies have linked higher-educated workforces to higher levels of economic growth.
The main justification behind hiking taxes on college students is the amount of revenue it would save: $47.5 billion over a decade, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. But the repeal of the estate tax — another element of the tax plan that would benefit millionaires with estates over $5.5 million in value — would cost at least $269 billion over a decade, according to the same committee.
We need tax reform — there is no disputing that. But reform is possible without taxing hard-working college students and using the revenue to fund tax cuts for the ultra-rich. Tax credits for college should be strengthened, not eliminated. Until the tax reform plan before Congress reflects this, I would urge our congressional delegation to vote no.
Eric Scheuch
New London
To all voters in Sullivan County House District 1: Do you want to be able to vote in the upcoming special election Nov. 7 for this House seat? Are you concerned about the ability of all eligible voters to be able to vote in future elections? This is a critical election concerning the issue of voting rights.
The Democratic candidate, Brian Sullivan, believes that SB3, an act relative to domicile for voting purposes, puts too many roadblocks in the way of people’s ability to register and administers onerous fines and penalties. He believes this act makes it difficult to get full participation in the democratic process from certain segments of our society, especially young voters.
If you are concerned about strengthening the integrity of our voting system, please vote for Sullivan on Nov. 7
Richard Atkinson
Meriden
On Tuesday, voters in Plainfield, Cornish, Springfield and Grantham will have a special election to fill out the term of a representative who resigned. I am a candidate for that seat.
For almost four decades, I have been responding to Plainfield and Cornish homes and roads as an EMT with Cornish Rescue. I have seen the opioid epidemic up close and I’ve seen the medical and financial challenges our senior citizens face as they age
As a 13-year member of the Hanover Co-op Board, I gained a real appreciation for small farms and locally-owned businesses and how they help keep money in our communities.
After home-schooling all nine of our children, I’ve learned that, while most families use public schools to educate their children, there is a place for alternatives like home schools, charter schools and private schools, and that parents know the best educational fit for their children.
I signed the cap on election spending because I felt that if I couldn’t stay within a budget for a campaign, I couldn’t expect state agencies to stay within a budget, either. My endorsements are the friends and neighbors who have put my signs on their lawns and in front of their businesses.
No one has all the answers to the challenges facing New Hampshire, but I have long experience in serving and leading at the town, county and regional level, and would like to take that experience to Concord. Although a representative filling out a term doesn’t get to sponsor any bills, I can use my real-life experience to speak to the various issues coming before the Legislature next session, including home education, emergency medicine and the opioid crisis.
Note: A letter in Friday’s Forum misrepresented my position on Medicaid funding. Once we expanded Medicaid, we became obligated to fund our part. Now that our funding mechanism (part hospitals, part private insurance) has been struck down, the task of the next Legislature will be to look for alternate ways to fund our share.
If you live in this district, I would appreciate your support on Tuesday.
Margaret Drye
Plainfield
We agree with Nikole Hannah-Jones’ essay “Have We Lost Sight of the Promise of Public Schools?” from The New York Times Magazine. “Democracy works only if those who have the money or the power to opt out of the public things choose instead to opt in for the common good.” Democrat Brian Sullivan, candidate in the special election for House District 1, believes in public education and has devoted his adult life to this cause as a science teacher and advocate for teachers, students and parents. He has demonstrated the importance of compromise in negotiations. If Sullivan is elected, his focus will be on finding more equitable and stable funding for public education.
Although Margaret Drye is a dedicated community volunteer, we disagree with many of her policy proposals based on her conservative Republican ideology.
We are also dismayed that public higher education spending per pupil in New Hampshire is the lowest in the nation, leading to high tuition costs and student debt. Sullivan wants to financially strengthen our higher education system and also to provide job training for those who have lost their jobs because of technology and globalization, and for veterans and the disabled. If we can attract more educated young people to our aging state and retrain those out of work, it will solve our problem of a lack of qualified workers and lead to economic growth and to a more widely shared tax burden.
Because we agree with Sullivan on other important issues and because we admire his character, we enthusiastically support him for state representative.
Sue and Dave Taylor
Plainfield
A Community-Oriented Candidate
I would like to lend my support in the upcoming state representative election to Margaret Drye. I have known her for 31 years as a friend and as a member of the Cornish Rescue Squad. She has been very active in the community both as a rescue squad member and otherwise. I have only known her to be dedicated, hardworking and above all, honest.
Should Drye become your next state representative, I know without a doubt that she will work tirelessly for the good of all the people she was chosen to serve.
Jeff Katchen
Cornish
Two parables regarding tax reform/tax cuts and the economy.
That quintessential capitalist, Henry Ford, could see the economic wisdom of an enhanced wage for his workers, as he produced the Model T on his assembly line. Though overall he may have been far from a saint, the benefit of his entrepreneurial skill was widespread throughout America’s economy. More could afford the product, and the already wealthy cannot be said to have lost anything.
That was more rational than those financiers and politicians with their stale magical thinking about supply-side economics, more aptly known as “trickle down”: cut taxes for the already wealthy to “stimulate” the economy, i.e., effectively generate a greater profit for the few. What trickle down effectively is not is prosperity for the many. This is more about Ponzi schemes and shell games than it is about efficient production of goods and services: investment in yachts for the few, rather than Model Ts for the many.
Once upon a time a Soviet bureaucrat came to visit Ivan at his izba in the village of Dikanka. The bureaucrat asked Ivan what the bureaucrat might do to improve his circumstances. Said Ivan: “Kill my neighbor’s cow!”
That seems to me to represent those Trump voters who are hoping to “make America great again” by : 1.) persecuting would-be immigrant refugees and their children; 2.) poisoning, burning and flooding the planet, while claiming to revive a moribund coal industry; 3.) sabotaging health insurance exchanges for the self-employed (who apparently largely vote Republican) and who apparently support the direction of massive tax cuts to those who don’t need them, while they neglect the sound financial management of everyone’s government.
Whither sanity?
Boris G. von York
Springfield, Vt.