The Trump tax cuts will expire. Just for you though. Not for the rich & corporations | Opinion

Your tax cuts expired. The rich’s keep going

The Trump tax cuts will expire in 2025 (or should I say they will only expire for you), the corporations and the rich will keep their tax cuts. But look at this another way: as a state with a sales tax, the less you spend the less they collect. Now, if you had a tax cut that started from the bottom up, you would either save or spend that money. Savings allow the banks to loan more money, spending allows the state to collect more taxes without having to raise taxes.

If all the sales tax money was designated for the schools, you could have some of the finest schools in the country, and that would mean better employment opportunities in the state. Corporations don’t want to move to states with a low grade of education.

But this has to be on a national level. If they rescinded the tax cuts of Bush and Trump and then gave the cuts to the bottom up, the state would benefit, and you just might have lower property taxes.

Considering that all those Republicans that ran on the problem of inflation, yet voted against all bills to fight it.

Jerry Johnson, Payette

Don’t expand abortion rights in Idaho

Some Idahoans are seeking to expand abortion including:

1. Performing abortions not only to save the life of the mother but for her “health”.

When extreme medical emergencies arise threatening the mother’s life, American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs believes “treatment to save the mother’s life” includes premature delivery of the baby, not abortion. Medical treatment for both patients with reasonable attempt to save both lives. Adding “health” of the mother adds confusion and leaves enormous discretion to judgment.

2. Permit abortion where the mother suffers mental illness.

If needed, adoption is an option that is too frequently dismissed.

3. Remove the requirement to report rape or incest to law enforcement.

Rape victims should receive help and support. Not reporting rape only benefits the rapist, the criminal. The baby isn’t the criminal. The U.S. is among the worst countries in the world for human trafficking.

4. Permit abortions for lethal fetal defects.

Testing can be imperfect. In 2022, FDA warned about risks of false results with genetic non-invasive prenatal screening (NIPS) or tests (NIPT). Aborting fetuses with defects is eugenics. Perinatal hospice is the proper response.

All situations need to be treated with love, compassion, and dignity and respect for both lives.

Tamara Koenig, Boise

Solidarity in the face of antisemitism

In the face of Christian nationalist assaults on our civil rights, including by a captured Supreme Court, it is important to express solidarity with Jewish-Americans facing antisemitic attacks throughout our nation.

Growing up on the East Coast and living in the upper Midwest as a young adult, I had the privilege to count as friends many hundreds of Jewish-American people, who to a person demonstrated outstanding integrity, moral character, and political and ethical evenhandedness.

Some college students and faculty have rightly asserted the equal humanity of thousands of Palestinian children and other civilians being killed in Gaza following a massive terrorist attack in Israel, and this is now being cynically used by domestic propagandists to provoke and further divide our society. As an alumnus of the University of Virginia, I know with certainty that the Unite the Right rally that took place there in 2017 with chants of “Jews will not replace us” in no way reflected the sentiments of the campus community. Rather, the university and the city of Charlottesville stood as a hub of anti-racism, making them the target of an event that resulted in the death of anti-racist activist Heather Heyer.

Chris Norden, Moscow

IDFG should preserve nature, not destroy it

At a recent meeting of the Wolf Depredation Control Board, $140,000 was allocated for five livestock producers that graze their animals on public to purchase trapping and aerial “predator control” (shooting from the air) from contractors who specialize in such nasty activities.

Haven’t we had enough of the destruction sheep and cattle cause on our public lands? They bring invasive plants, muddy local waters, stink up the place, displace native wildlife, and the contractors hired by the private-profit producers are now going to get paid to kill your native wildlife. The Foundation for Wildlife Management has convinced producers and hunters that all native predators must go if the producers are going to continue to make money grazing your public lands. IDFG has granted that organization hundreds of thousands of dollars in bounties for that organization which are then distributed to trappers and hunters for the kill. Isn’t paying people to kill native wildlife wrong in every way?

Idahoans love our public lands and wildlife but the IDFG commissioners must change course and lead the agency to what it should be: One dedicated to conserving our wonderful natural heritage, not to destroying it.

Christine Gertschen, Sun Valley

Skeptical of Statesman print reduction

In a recent editorial by editor Chadd Cripe, he talked about how to embrace the changes to the Statesman, both in print and online. Like Chadd, I am a long time fan of reading printed papers. I do read the online version occasionally, but I find that the “extra” material is mostly syndicated stories that I could read from many other sources online. This is one of the challenges as we deal with a paper that is no longer a local paper, but run by an out of state syndicate. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to see a half page ad for a “Sacramento Eats” magazine in an Idaho paper. At least we have another Idaho paper that delivers a printed edition on Sunday and includes stories about Saturday’s Boise State football game. It is going to be hard to convince me that the changes to the Statesman are for the better.

Glenn McGeoch, Meridian