Ready for Higher Taxes?

First of all, a personal disclosure: I am proud to consider myself a liberal. No apologies. I also love the passion and the strong pro-democracy message of Bernie Sanders. That said, I am surprised and often a bit amused as I drive around Hanover and Norwich and other parts of the Upper Valley to observe the many Bernie posters on lawns and stickers on cars, many of them rather expensive models.

I wonder whether these folks have considered two things. One, what will be the impact on their 401(k)s, stock portfolios and retirement plans if Bernie’s efforts to rein in Wall Street and “break up” big banks were to be enacted? We all have our ideals, but the consequences, maybe unintended, are likely to be very real. (This is strangely similar to the impact of lower oil prices.)

Secondly, do these folks fully comprehend the impact of Sen. Sanders’ plans for “free” college and “free” health care for all (and other generous programs) on their taxes. As an economist, I remind people of a basic mantra: “All choices involve costs.” There is no free lunch. Unlike the Republican candidates, to Sanders’ credit (go to this website), he has proposed a plan to pay for these many worthwhile benefits. The cost, though not publicized, is there for all to see, and the result is that for most citizens, taxes will rise 30 percent to 40 percent. Are these supporters ready to support these tax hikes? With nearly $20 trillion in national debt, we can hardly afford to put these new programs on the National Visa Card! And it is naive to think that raising taxes on the top .01 percent will come close to paying the bills.

While today citizens in the U.S. pay lower taxes as a percent of income of any developed nation, with Sanders’ plans enacted, we would join the ranks of Germany and other European nations when it comes to taxes. Everyone ready?

This is not a judgment. Just wondering.

Jim Wilson

Strafford

Consider the Source

Regarding Jim Newcomb’s May 11 Forum letter in entitled “LGBT Community Propaganda,” he asks us to research the American College of Pediatricians, an organization whose stated purpose is what is “Best for Children.”

Here’s what I found: The Southern Poverty Law Center has referred to the ACPeds as a “Hate Group,” describing it as a “fringe group” with “a history of propagating damaging falsehoods about LGBT people, including linking homosexuality to pedophilia.”

Writing in response to an ACPed brief, the American Civil Liberties Union similarly referred to the ACPeds as a fringe group that has acted to promote “unscientific and harmful ‘reparative therapies’ for LGBTQ students.” Enough said.

David Cooper

Hartland

Bathroom Politics

This insistence on making one use the public rest room that matches the gender on one’s birth certificate makes no sense to me. It has been shown that transgender folk are no more likely to be sexual predators or pedophiles than any other group.

So, consider your 14-year-old daughter. Is she more likely to feel threatened in a women’s public rest room by a somewhat tall, smooth-skinned individual with shoulder-length hair, eye makeup and lipstick, wearing a skirt and sensible shoes, perhaps with a Hermes scarf around the neck, but whose birth certificate reads “Male” or by someone who is muscular, with close- cropped hair, baggy jeans, leather jacket and work boots, perhaps with facial hair or a neck tattoo, a little on the short side, but whose birth certificate indicates “Female”?

Richard Sachs

Grantham

The Trail of Email Evidence

I value looking and listening all around, Fox, MSNBC, New York Times, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, even YouTube. It’s very revealing to me to see the different opinions and to consider how the opinions are formed.

Teachers and other instructors sometimes ask the question: Which comes first? The thought or the feeling? Once the thought or feeling is formed (whichever is first) it becomes a filter conforming everything that comes. So for some it’s a right-wing conspiracy and all the work of the FBI is exactly part of it. For others, it’s a horrible person who gets away with corruption. Harder to do is to suspend the initial thought or feeling, suspend the filter of information, in order to pay attention to what is new for what it is.

When I look at the facts — all government business of a high ranking official was being done on a personal server in a closet in a private home — I’m immediately scandalized and shocked and afraid. Scandalized, because the secretary of state with a few close confidants, chose from the start of her term to move secret and nonsecret documents and correspondence from a government system on to a private server in a residential home closet. Shocked, because it was kept a secret — even after subpoenas were served for investigation of Benghazi and Freedom of Information Acts requests — until an amateur unemployed Romanian hacker revealed Sidney Blumenthal’s AOL account emails with the secretary of state and that the secretary of state was emailing using clintonemail.com. Afraid, because President Obama, the chief executive who oversees the FBI and Department of Justice, and had received emails from the secretary of state on clintonemail.com, says he has no briefing on the investigation but decided to give an interview to Chris Wallace and chose to describe his opinions about whether the former secretary of state did anything wrong. He made these comments to influence the public during the investigation.

Charles Powell

Pomfret