To share your views in a letter to the editor of the Herald Times Reporter, email htrnews@htrnews.com or breid@gannett.com.
Manitowoc Herald Times ReporterHere are this week’s letters to the editor of the Herald Times Reporter. See our letters policy below for details about how to share your views.
0.5% sales tax is best choice to solve county budget woes
Regarding the projected Manitowoc County budget deficit, I question whether this is a Human Services Department error or a larger county budget problem. Either way, I support a 0.5% sales tax increase for the following reasons.First, a sales tax won’t hit us all at once, as a property tax increase would.Second, it would provide an ongoing source of income the county could use to tackle other projects that have been put off.Third, when emergency borrowing occurs, it adds to the burden for the future. Interest must be paid on loans.And last, we are in one of four counties that does NOT have the 0.5% sales tax. We help pay for things in the other 68 counties if we purchase items when we travel to Green Bay, Appleton or around the state.In his recent letter to the editor, Brayden Myer raises the old saw of “cut wasteful spending” as a solution. If Brayden can find more wasteful spending than a few lightbulbs, I’m sure everybody would like to know about it.Also, it appears Brayden doesn’t know long-time County Executive Bob Ziegelbauer very well. Bob has always been a proponent of reducing taxes and cutting spending — to the point of not being able to accomplish repairs or pay for other unexpected, unbudgeted needs.Let’s pay our bills as we go, accept a very small tax adjustment, and stop crying about hypothetical waste.Cheryl KjelstrupMishicot
Response on Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act
In response to Donald Wessely’s May 19 letter to the editor (“Who will pay for the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act?”):Bush tax cuts provided the largest benefits to the highest-income taxpayers, with cuts in individual and estate taxes.Trump cut corporate and Individual taxes, which again went to the highest-income taxpayers. Joint Committee on Taxation estimated $1.3 trillion of lost revenue over 10 years.Corporate tax contribution to revenues went from 2% of GDP in 2000 to about 1.1% in 2019. $200 billion annual lost revenue.Individual income taxes have averaged 8% of GDP.Bureau of Economic Analysis on equipment, structures and intellectual property investment shows capital investment in equipment and intellectual property increased 6%, and the investment in structures declined by 1%. The investment from Trump’s tax cut are very modest, and do not show the big capital investment projected by Trump’s 14% points corporate tax cut.BMO Capital Markets equity strategist Brian Belski investigated whether corporate tax increases in the past have resulted in reductions in stock market gains.“During the five prior corporate tax increases, the S&P 500 posted an average calendar year gain of 12.9%. This gain was well above the 4.6% average return registered during the nine annual periods when the tax rate was reduced and also higher than 9% price return for all calendar years going back to 1945.” Also observed that those periods came with above-average real GDP growth of 5.7%.Gains to shareholders are also highly concentrated at the top; the bottom 50& of households by net worth held just 1% of overall equities as of 2019.Kim EverettManitowocRead more letters: Click here to view more letters to the editor of the Herald Times Reporter
Our letters policy
Letters to the editor are published in the order in which they are received and letter-writers are limited to having one letter published per month. Letters can be emailed to htrnews@htrnews.com and Editor Brandon Reid at breid@gannett.com. Letters must meet specific guidelines, including being no more than 250 words and be from local authors or on topics of local interest. All submissions must include the name of the person who wrote the letter, their city of residence and a contact phone number. Letters are edited as needed for style, grammar, length, fairness, accuracy and libel.