It’s easy to weigh in on tax reform

Tuesday night I watched and listened to President Trump’s remarks, and the outline for his plan, on tax reform. The President was in Missouri, I was in my living room in Maine. An email arrived from the White House inviting me to watch the President speak live. All I had to do was click a link included in the email and in an instant I could listen to the President unfiltered live or later.

If you receive White House email updates — you can do the same.

I still marvel at this telecommunications technology. What a boost to citizens. Not many years ago it was common to hear people use time as their excuse for not taking part in, or paying attention to, political events.

But for years now, telecommunications has enabled anyone with a smartphone to stay informed. And if we can’t take in events as they happen, telecommunications enables us to take in events asap.

Remarkable.

Thinking the next day about the President’s major tax reform ideas, reminded me especially of my decades (1989-2010) working in Maine state politics. I’m interested in seeing how much, if at all, reactions to tax reform from different groups have changed since then.

This snippet from the President’s remarks are the crux of his tax reform ideas. He said:

[I]n recent years, millions of Americans have watched…prosperity slip away… If we want to renew our prosperity, and to restore opportunity, then we must reduce the tax burden on our companies and on our workers.

Peter Drucker, a management consultant, educator, and author would often ask business managers and employees about their work routines. “If we weren’t already doing it this way, is this the way we would start?,” Mr. Drucker asked.

Why not ask that question about our federal and state tax policies?

In my experience, when elected officials favoring larger government are in power (majority) they always have reasons why any proposed tax increase is essential to life as we know it.

On the flip side, the same elected majority always has reasons why any tax reduction is too small to matter to individual taxpayers, and unaffordable to the government budget.

The government tax relief programs we do see also beg Drucker’s question: “If we weren’t already doing it this way, is this the way we would start?”

Even as a new legislative staffer I thought the simplest way for government to provide tax relief is to not take as much money in the first place. Leave the money with taxpayers.

Instead, tax relief often means a new government rebate program, with new government workers running it — which costs money. Instead of simply leaving money in your pocket, tax relief means a short time each year when taxpayers can fill out applications, return them to government, then wait for approval and a tax rebate — which they then must declare as taxable income.

Historically, the percentage of taxes elected officials set aside in tax rebate programs for tax relief, is much less than 100 percent.

So now the President has laid out a tax plan to “reduce the tax burden on our companies and on our workers.” Will business owners — large, small, and micro — pay attention? If so, how will they respond?

With the same iPhone 5 I used to watch the President, I can write and send text or email messages to the White House, to Members of Maine’s Congressional Delegation, business organizations, family, friends.

Unless you’re an apathist, you can use your smartphone to write them too. Right from your living room.

Scott K. Fish has served as a communications staffer for Maine Senate and House Republican caucuses, and was communications director for Senate President Kevin Raye. He founded and edited AsMaineGoes.com and served as director of communications/public relations for Maine’s Department of Corrections until 2015. He is now using his communications skills to serve clients in the private sector.