Editorials from around Pennsylvania

Editorials from around Pennsylvania

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TRUMP’S TAX PLAN IS A SELF-SERVING REHASH OF TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS, Sept. 29

President Ronald Reagan, who honed his speaking skills as a Hollywood actor, knew how to make a good speech. But perhaps his most memorable line, spoken during a 1980 debate with the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter, was: “There he goes again.”

Those four words came to mind Wednesday as President Trump trotted out the framework of his promised tax reform plan, which is supposed to boost the middle class. There he goes again, Mr. Trump, trying to put lipstick on a pig of a proposal that in its present form won’t deliver what he promises.

Boiled down to its essence, this is just another iteration of the trickle-down theory, or “Reagnomics,” that the Gipper insisted would boost the economy 30 years ago. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. Trump proposes giving huge tax cuts to corporations, which he says will use the money saved to create jobs. But the theory always fails because corporations put profits before job creation every time.

“My plan is for working people and my plan is for jobs. I don’t benefit. Very, very strongly I think there’s little benefit for people of wealth,” Trump insisted Wednesday. And he said it with a straight face. A businessman as astute as Trump professes himself to be could not have missed the nuggets in his tax plan that will make the rich richer.

An analysis for Fortune magazine by Seth Hanlon of the liberal Center for American Progress details exactly how Trump’s plan would benefit the wealthy. The plan would create a new preferential tax rate for so-called pass-through businesses, including limited liability companies (LLCs), partnerships, and S-corporations, which are privately held corporations that choose to be taxed as partnerships.

These companies already benefit by paying taxes on a share of their profits at the personal tax rate, rather than the corporate rate. Trump’s plan would lower the highest personal tax rate they pay from 39.6 percent to 25 percent. Hanlon points out that Trump owns more than 500 companies that would benefit from the rate reduction. Other members of his family with companies that qualify, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, would also benefit.

The Trump tax plan would also eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax, which would benefit him personally. His leaked 2005 tax returns showed he paid a tax rate of about 24 percent on $150 million of income. If the AMT had not been applied, he would have paid less than 4 percent.

As disingenuous as Trump is being about his tax plan favoring the wealthy, it is more disturbing that the document doesn’t include how he is going to replace the $2.2 trillion in revenue lost through his tax cuts. In addition to ending the AMT and reducing the number of tax rates from seven to three, he wants to cut the corporate tax rate, double the standard deduction for individuals and couples, and repeal the estate tax.

Republicans in Congress are desperate for a win after failing to kill Obamacare as they promised. But a more realistic tax plan than Trump’s proposal must be negotiated if the goal is to both help the middle class and pay this country’s bills.

__Philadelphia Inquirer

Online: https://bit.ly/2xZrtuo

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U.S. GUN VIOLENCE: LET’S NOT PRETEND NOTHING CAN BE DONE, Oct. 3

In the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history, a catastrophic assault that left at least 59 people including Shippensburg wrestling coach Bill Wolf Jr. dead, it is a time for mourning.

But it is also a time for cold, sober reflection regarding the nation’s gun culture and policies.

Sunday night’s horrific attack on a crowd of country music fans in Las Vegas, which also left more than 500 injured, was, by one estimate, the 270th mass shooting in the United States this year.

While few rise to the level of the carnage allegedly perpetrated by a 64-year-old Nevada resident from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, the daily death toll nonetheless boggles the mind. More than 90 Americans die every day at the muzzle of a gun.

So, despite predictable assertions like that of Trump administration spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders that now is not the time to discuss the issue, for the hundreds of Las Vegas victims and their loved ones, it is already past time.

But first, let’s get some answers. The Las Vegas massacre represented a significant change in tactics: Both the arsenal the gunman assembled (some 23 mostly high-powered weapons, including stands to steady the firing) and the location from which he fired (32 floors above and across the street from the crowd of 20,000 that had gathered for a country music festival) contributed to the horrendous number of victims.

How did the gunman gather so many weapons? And how did he come into possession of an automatic weapon? Did he modify a semi-automatic firearm, which remains legal? Did he steal one of the hundreds of thousands of pre-1986 automatic weapons that remain legal? A black market sale?

If officials are going to prevent or minimize future such attacks, they need to know what they’re dealing with.

And what, if anything, motivated the killer? His background, at least initially, has yielded little in the way of red flags. That, in its own way, is frightening.

This undated photo shows Sonny Melton, one of the people killed in Las Vegas after a gunman opened fire on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017, at a country music festival. (Facebook via AP) AP

But let’s not pretend there’s nothing to discuss, or that now is not the time. In fact, it is time not just for talk but for congressional action.

For instance, the work of determining the chain of events and motive in Las Vegas will undoubtedly be hampered by the lack of solid, up-to-date research on the causes of gun violence. That’s because Congress, at the urging of the National Rifle Association, stripped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s funding for research on gun violence, then passed a law preventing the agency from spending any funds to advocate or promote gun control.

We should be at war with potential mass murderers, not sound research. Congress must reverse these provisions.

Additional long-overdue steps should also be taken. Three obvious measures:

Universal background checks enjoy support from four-fifths of all Americans, Democratic and Republican. They will reduce - not erase, but reduce - the number of guns falling into the wrong hands. Pennsylvania is considering such a law. The federal government should do likewise, then act.

Legislation to ban purchases of guns or ammunition by people on the terror watch list failed last year. Bring it back and succeed in passing it this year.

Forfeiture of all guns by anyone under an order of protection is a measure that, sadly, might have saved lives in recent years in and around York County. Make it happen.

Yes, none of these measures would have prevented the carnage in Las Vegas. That’s not the point. Las Vegas was an explosion of the type of carnage we have become numb to because it occurs on a daily basis. We cannot continue to shrug our shoulders and chalk off mass killings, as did disgraced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, as “the price of freedom.”

Seat belts do not eliminate car-crash fatalities; they reduce them. There is no single or simple solution to eliminating gun violence in America. But we must take steps to reduce it.

So let’s get answers to what happened in Las Vegas. Let’s take advantage of low-hanging legislation that would at least begin to curb the epidemic of gun violence in this country. And let’s return to funding research that can help police, medical professionals and lawmakers understand and better combat the contributing factors that lead to going-on 100 fatalities a day.

Let’s see to it that the next mass shooting - and there will be a next one - adds to our understanding of the issue and not just to our tragic national body count.

__York Dispatch

Online: https://bit.ly/2knsaZ4

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U.S. MUST PROTECT ELECTION INTEGRITY, Oct, 2

It was only a few short decades ago that the Russian threat to the United States was plain, blunt and physical - nuclear warheads that carried the potential for mutual annihilation.

There had always been another dimension of the red menace, however, and that was the battle over ideology, hearts and minds. Fears of communist infiltration of our free and open democracy led to one of the darkest chapters in our history. The paranoia and oppression that held sway in the McCarthy era undermined our values even as we sought to defend them.

Now that furtive, malevolent battle for hearts and minds has a wide-open, perilous new front - cyberspace.

Russia, once seemingly vanquished by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European revolutions of 1989, is once again attacking our core values. Its hackers attempt to breach our election technology and cram social media feeds with inflammatory, divisive, false ads, news and postings meant to cleave us in half.

Warnings of Russian meddling in our elections surfaced in 2016. Multiple probes by Congress and special counsel Robert Mueller are underway, exploring among other things, whether any in President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded in this effort.

In recent weeks, alarming news emerged. Pennsylvania was one of 21 states notified that Russian hackers tried unsuccessfully to penetrate its election system. Information released by the Department of Homeland Security to state officials was scant. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said he guessed that the attackers hoped to tamper with voter registration records, which could have caused chaos at the polls and possibly disenfranchised voters.

Facebook and Twitter, meanwhile, have been detailing to congressional investigators the extent to which their platforms were used by Russian operatives to try to sow discord - via fake news and ads, even fake activist profiles - and sway the outcome of the election toward Trump.

Trump continues to dismiss this evidence as a “hoax.” But a CNN poll found that 54 percent of Americans believe Russian-backed content on social media affected the election’s outcome. A recent poll by Fox News found that 69 percent of voters want Mueller’s probe to continue.

Facebook has a nine-point plan to deal with election interference. This is a start. Scrubbing fake news and propaganda from the web might prove impossible, but better transparency about the source of the information and education to help users recognize this dreck might be within reach.

It is disappointing the federal government waited so long and provided so little information to Pennsylvania election officials about the attack on our system.

State lawmakers should mobilize quickly to protect our elections systems, even if it means a return to paper ballots. The pivotal 2018 midterms are just around the corner.

__Erie Times News

Online: https://bit.ly/2ynkgVS

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IT’S TIME FOR PA TO EMBRACE REAL REDISTRICTING REFORM, Sept. 29

It’s a biannual rite.

In even-numbered years, Pennsylvania voters shake their fists at the heavens over the size and expense of the 253-member General Assembly. They rage at the partisan gridlock that allows debate over the state budget and other key issues to drag on for months without resolution.

They fume at the history of corruption that has seen dozens of state lawmakers and elected officials sent to state and federal prison over the last decade alone.

And then, in November of that even-numbered year, thanks to a paucity of choices, poor candidate recruitment and legislative districts that have been drawn with scientific precision to overwhelmingly favor incumbents, they send nearly 9 in 10 of those same lawmakers back to Harrisburg.

And the dance, without changing so much as a single step, begins anew.

As PennLive’s Wallace McKelvey and Charles Thompson reported this week, technology has made it easier than ever to draw maps that advantage one party over another by grouping the opposing party’s voters into fewer districts (packing) or dissolving their influence across many districts (cracking).

The practice is often called gerrymandering, a term coined by a 19th-century cartoonist.

A case concerning one example—Wisconsin’s Republican-favored map—will soon go before the U.S. Supreme Court. Another challenging Pennsylvania’s GOP-dominated map is currently making its way through state courts.

Thankfully, there’s a relatively simple way to right this imbalance:

By lawmakers, and then voters at a statewide referendum, approving a proposed constitutional amendment that would take the decennial redrawing out of the hands of self-interested politicians and turn it over to a non-partisan commission.

As a refresher, constitutional amendments must be approved in consecutive legislative sessions, which means the earliest the voters could get their hands on it is 2020. Conveniently, that’s when the next round of redistricting is set to begin.

Companion versions of that amendment are now before the state House and Senate.

The legislation was developed in conjunction with a group known as Fair Districts PA, a statewide advocacy coalition that counts the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, Common Cause Pennsylvania, the Committee of Seventy, the Pennsylvania Council of Churches and more than 20 other organizations among its members.

Unfortunately, the bills have been mired in committee for months, and show no sign of being reported to either chamber for their consideration anytime soon.

If lawmakers are indeed serious about reform and increasing voter participation and interest, they need to break that logjam right away and send the bills to the full House and Senate for a vote.

They are infinitely preferable to the current, very broken system.

Right now, congressional districts are drawn by state lawmakers, which means they typically reflect the will of the legislative majority (currently Republican). The maps are then subject to a governor’s veto.

As a result, even though Democrats command a majority of registered voters, 13 of the state’s 18 Congressional seats are held by Republicans. And while it’s true that most people split their tickets, that’s still an improbable outcome.

That arrangement gives the two major parties even more reason to deeply invested in control of the Governor’s Office.

At the legislative level, a five-member commission draws boundaries for the 203 House Districts and 50 state Senate seats.

The panel is typically comprised of the four floor leaders from the state House and Senate, or their designee, and a fifth, non-partisan chairman. That fifth seat is often appointed by the state Supreme Court because of very partisan disagreements over that job.

During the last round of mapmaking in 2010, legal challenges to legislative maps kept boundaries for House and Senate districts from taking full effect for one, full campaign cycle.

At the Congressional level, it resulted in the oddly shaped 7th Congressional District seat now held by Republican U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan. People have described the silhouette of that seat as “Goofy kicking Donald Duck.”

That’s no way to run a railroad. And here’s why that’s a problem for you - not just the two sides jockeying for power.

The tortured shape of Meehan’s seat is as clear a demonstration of politicians picking their voters, effectively rendering the primary and general election an elaborate and costly formality.

You have but one vote. But thanks to the current process, it’s effectively drowned out by a system designed to enhance the incumbents’ chances of re-election rather than result in real representation or, sadly, good public policy.

Fixing what ails Pennsylvania’s legislative and congressional districts won’t be easy. It will probably mean wiping out the current maps and starting from scratch. That means incumbents running against incumbents and voters choosing among some unfamiliar names.

But if the 2016 presidential election proved anything, it’s that the electorate’s faith in the current system and its belief that lawmakers are guided by the public good, not enlightened self-interest, has been shaken to its core.

Pennsylvania lawmakers can restore that faith by springing those bills from committee, approving the proposed amendments in this legislative session and the next, and by the letting the voters have their say at a referendum.

__PennLive.com

Online: https://bit.ly/2xYvJKg

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HAVANA INTRIGUE: CUBA MUST SOLVE THE ATTACKS ON U.S. PERSONNEL, Oct. 3

Whatever and whoever is behind the so-called sonic attacks targeting Americans in Havana, one party - the government of Cuba - is responsible for getting to the bottom of it. The growing scandal threatens Cuba’s image, and it has all the reason in the world to solve the mystery.

The attacks first were reported in August as having targeted members of America’s diplomatic community. But more recent reporting specifies that U.S. intelligence officers (operating under diplomatic cover) were the first and biggest group affected.

In all, at least 21 Americans have experienced hearing or cognitive problems because of the 50 or so attacks, which began in November, days after the U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump. They occurred at the victims’ homes and hotels where they were staying. Some of the victims are spouses of U.S. government employees; a Canadian diplomat was also among those injured. Some victims have reported hearing cricket-like noises before symptoms appeared while others recall nothing out of the ordinary before hearing loss or other damage manifested itself. In a few cases, the injuries appear to be permanent.

It is tempting to view the attacks as simply another plot twist in U.S.-Cuban relations, which warmed under President Barack Obama and quickly cooled again under President Donald Trump. However, it has the look of something more complicated than post-Cold War spy games pitting one old foe against another. Times have changed. It would be shortsighted of Cuba to attack U.S. personnel in retaliation for Mr. Trump’s hard-line stance.

The Cubans should be smart enough to understand that any mischief would erode relations further - and earn them the enmity of would-be tourists, business people and other Americans who long wanted improved bilateral ties. Beyond that, attacking another nation’s diplomats is bad form, something that wins a country few friends in the international arena. More than ever these days, Cuba likes to portray itself as a victim of U.S. policies, none more than the trade embargo dating to 1960.

Going on the offensive now seems unlikely for Cuba. President Raul Castro’s response also was telling. He denied responsibility for the attacks but seemed sincerely perplexed by them - and invited U.S. officials to send FBI agents to Havana to investigate. That was a big move for the old Cold Warrior.

But Mr. Castro was acting with enlightened self-interest. Cuban authorities have as much reason as Washington does to identify and punish whoever is responsible. “They want more open interaction with the United States,” stressed Kathleen. Hower, executive director of Global Links, a Pittsburgh-based organization that has supplied Cuba with surplus medical equipment for more than 20 years.

America already had ordered nonessential diplomatic personnel out of Cuba and warned other Americans to stay away, saying their safety cannot be guaranteed. That will scare off some tourists no doubt, but Ms. Hower said it’s unlikely to affect the growing number of cultural and humanitarian cross-border partnerships. She said she has “no qualms” about going to Cuba or suggesting others do so, noting no ordinary Americans have been hurt. She still considers Cuba “the safest country I’ve ever traveled to.”

An independent party’s involvement in the attacks - a rogue nation such as North Korea comes to mind - seems possible. FBI agents may do what they can to help, but Cuban authorities are better positioned than anyone else to investigate crimes on their sovereign territory. Cold War veterans like Mr. Castro ought to know who is capable of such deeds and why. Dealing quickly and efficiently with the problem will do much to improve bilateral relations in the way Cuba desires.

__Pittsburgh-Post Gazette

Online: https://bit.ly/2xgeTHS

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