LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

These letters originally ran in the Savannah Morning News editorial section, on Oct 24, 2017 and Oct 27, 2017.

Why I joined the Redneck Revolt

I voted for Donald Trump and still support him. But there needs to be a change in our country starting with our attitude toward people who are different from us. The super rich are the ones who are setting the poor against each other. They are the ones responsible for all our problems in this country. They control everything so they make all the different groups fight among themselves while they steal everything for themselves.

This is the reason I joined the Redneck Revolt. They support God and guns just like I do except they don’t like the rich. Go online and read about it.

TONI ASHCRAFT

Jupiter, Fla.

More support for the Redneck Revolt

I agree with the Oct. 26 letter to the editor from Toni Ashcraft (“Why I joined the Redneck Revolt”).

The reasons for the Redneck Revolt and the passion behind it has been strongly supported by the rich pitting different groups against each other in terms of “cultural” issues. The demonization of those with whom you disagree politically will never lead to cooperation between groups.

That said, Mr. Trump’s cabinet and those with whom he is closest are all super-rich individuals. Recently the Republicans in the Senate voted to ban any individual from suing large companies like banks and credit card companies. Instead we can submit our disagreement to an arbitration board. Forgive my suspicions that the board will be pro-business and anti-individual. The Republicans said it is to save us the trouble of going to court, while progressives feel that it takes away the “little guy’s” chance to obtain justice.

The budget proposal is another fiasco. Though it is true that our business tax is 35 percent, it is also true that in 2012, 42.7 percent of the businesses that earn $10 million dollars or more paid zero percent income tax. Studies have shown that when you cut corporate taxes, that the savings do not trickle down. Instead the top guys get more pay and distribute the rest to their shareholders. The Office of Management and Budget figured that 30 percent of middle class people will pay more tax under Trump’s budget proposal. Though those of us who are not in the top 5 percent will probably have our taxes reduced a small amount, the people who really benefit are the top 1 percent. To balance the budget, Medicare and Medicaid are due for huge cuts. Likewise almost all departments with the exception of the military will suffer cuts in the range of 20-30 percent.

So, for those of you who are members of the Redneck Revolt, how has the Trump presidency helped you in terms of getting along better? If the bipartisan group working to stabilize health care payments with the insurance industry are successful, at least the premiums will not soar out of sight for the next year or so. I have not seen any indication of large numbers of jobs being produced. If our Congress could learn to work together in a bipartisan manner and be truly encouraged to do so by the president, one big job producer would be to fix our infrastructure, highways, bridges and railways. Call on our congressmen to see whether that is an issue they could get behind.

MARION MARSH NESTERENKO

Savannah