STRETCHING DOLLARS What will the federal tax cut do for you? Readers voice their opinions

EVERYONE PAYS 6.2 percent of their earned income for Social Security and 1.45 percent for Medicare. Medicare is paid on all your income, but Social Security is only paid on the first $127,200 of your earned income. It should be paid on all your earned income.

Paul Ryan was on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday. He was asked about Congress cutting entitlements because of the new tax bill. He said that people shouldn’t be worried about their Medicare benefits being cut. Instead they would be cutting the amount that providers are reimbursed.

New Mexico has one of the lowest reimbursement rates for providers. Many doctors are leaving the state, and others won’t accept new Medicare patients. The old adage “figures don’t lie but liars figure” certainly applies to the new tax bill. CAMILLE MORRISON Los Alamos

Health insurers will love my tax windfall

YEE-HAW! We citizens get an average $1,100 tax cut next year! How could I possibly ever spend that much?

Ooops. According to the insurance industry, the repeal of the Individual Mandate of the ACA will cause health care premiums for everyone to increase by 10 percent. Hmmm. That means mine would go up $936 the first year. So my tax cut is down to $164, or just under $14 a month.

How could I possibly spend that much money? I have two ideas. Either invest in seven PowerBall tickets every month so I, too, can become a “One Percenter,” or save it for 2019 when insurance premiums increase again. Yee-haw — gotta love the tax cuts! JOHN RAMSEY Albuquerque

Faulty logic, not math, works against tax plan

NEXT YEAR the country will have a new tax policy. The rhetoric and politics surrounding this debate further show that the great majority of Americans are very ignorant about basic economics. This ignorance allows politicians to persuade voters about economic ideas and policies that are simply wrong.

During the current debate about tax policies, I heard several politicians state that decreasing the corporate tax rate would only help rich people and corporate shareholders. Wait a minute, I thought. My wife and I are both retired public school teachers, living on our teachers pension. And our pension fund, like all pension funds in America, are major shareholders in American corporations, often the biggest shareholders. In fact, pension funds support all teachers, police, many nurses, local and state government workers, union members, and everyone with a 401(k) retirement plan. All of us benefit from increased corporate profits, value and dividends; 55 percent of all Americans are invested in corporate equities. The politicians are lying.

This anti-business political propaganda is based on the economic fallacy of zero sum economics; the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth, and if one person has more wealth, then others must have less. So, you have an old truck because your neighbor got a new one. Or, if LeBron James didn’t receive $80 million per year, then you would receive some of that money. This is so stupid that it’s hard to see how anyone could believe this. But politicians, like Bernie Sanders, rant on this class envy just to get votes. No one will pay you or me to play basketball.

And then there are corporations, the usual political boogeyman. Corporations are formed to provide the huge economics of size needed to finance and deliver services or products that cannot be made by smaller business. They provide all vehicles, airplanes, digital services, phones and computers, delivery services, most food, appliances, pharmaceuticals, and so much more. Even in early New Mexico, local people got many necessary products from Sears catalogues, plus free toilet paper for their outhouses.

They are controlled by laws and must compete with other corporations for your business. Do you really want taxes and laws that punish American corporations and allow foreign companies to take over? You cannot buy an artisanal cell phone at the farmers market.

So when politicians tell you that taxes favoring business are bad, seriously think about it. The new tax plan may not be perfect. But 80 percent of all taxpayers will receive more money under this plan. It increases the standard deduction, increases the Earned Income Tax Credit for parents and lowers almost all income taxes.

It is unfortunate that all of our senators and congressmen, except Rep. Steve Pearce, voted against it. They need economics lessons. ED FORDE Valdez

Feeding the economy makes us all winners

IT IS ASTONISHING that so many of the so-called “elites” seem to know so little about how our economy works. Much of the press and our congressional delegation trumpets the opinion that the new federal tax reform act will only help the rich and big corporations. Nonsense! It should help everyone, including the government.

Most workers should directly benefit from lower taxes on their earnings. The business tax cuts will benefit consumers because they will ultimately result in competitive price cuts. A cursory estimate suggests that consumer prices could go down on the order of 2 to 3 percent. Does not sound like much, but it adds up over a year’s time. Businesses will benefit from added profits on increased sales that result from price cuts.

What do rich people do with their money? They either save it or spend it. Saving money provides funds for investment or for loans to consumers and businesses to spend. Spending money results in employment for people who make the goods or provide the services that the rich buy. Increased sales, profits and wages are taxable. The government benefits from that.

It would be helpful if politicians and the press would knock off the demagoguery in favor of factual reality. But that may be wishful thinking. JAMES CHURCH Albuquerque

Missing tax credit is worth $62 billion

REMEMBER THE Family Flexibility Credit in the House Tax Bill? It gave a nonrefundable tax credit of $300/person or $600/married couple. It was not based on one’s income — everyone who owed taxes was treated equally. In other words it was a middle-class tax cut! Old people, young couples just starting out, millennials, high-income and low-income were eligible.

It’s gone, vanished, disappeared into the trash bin. Google it, check your newspapers, the periodicals, the news shows. I found mention of it on Page 565 of the Conference Bill. No big deal? A quick estimate is that this was worth $62 billion in reduced taxes to us. ROBERT J. KORBACH Albuquerque