How are the GOP tax cuts working?

Citizens and residents in the United States pay federal taxes every year to help the government invest and provide services for the community. Filling taxes is compulsory in America. Is the tax rate affordable? Should we raise or low the tax rate? Trump’s administration has taken action on it. In December 2017, President Trump signed to put the GOP tax cuts into law. Of course, this bill is controversial among people.

The article “The federal budget deficit is soaring, and you can blame it all on Republican tax cuts” has been published on USA Today on October 16, 2018. This article is written by Stan Collender. He is a federal budgeting teacher at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and the founder of thebudgerguy.blog. Collender gives his opinions about the tax cuts after the report of the U.S Treasury on Monday, October 15, 2018. He opposed the new tax cuts because it made the deficit increase. He divided his article into two parts. First, he analyzes the deficit increasing and then criticizes Mnuchin and Mulvaney. Collender takes the attention of readers who care about their taxes and government’s spending. To persuade the readers, he pointed out the federal budget deficit was remarkably increasing by comparing it to the statistics of previous years. Through this comparison, the readers can clearly notice that the tax cuts help to lower the tax rate, but it is also expanding our debt. The reason why he opposes this bill because we are in a good economic time, how we can be in debt with a large amount compare to the last year. The readers can see that Collender is not only opposed the bill but also oppose the Republican by defending the Democrats when he criticizes Mnuchin and Mulvaney. Overall, Collender has made a good argument because it has informed the readers how the deficit changes through a lot of real numbers. 

However, there are some points that he guesses to make the argument instead of the logical evidence. For example, at the beginning of the argument, he said that "the U.S Treasury officially reported something." I was confused about this point, that “something” is unclear. Moreover, he mentioned later that he “heard the scuttlebutt from budget insiders” about Republican leaders. This evidence does not entirely persuade the readers because it is a rumor. Except for those two, I think this is a good argument because Collender expresses his strong opinions about the tax cut bills with many pieces of evidence. The tax cut bill is controversial, but now we have to follow it. This bill has just been in effect for one year. We should give it some more time, and later we can have more shreds of evidence about how the tax cut bill affects our federal budget deficit.

Can we believe in Kavanaugh?

President Trump’s nomination for the Supreme Court becomes a controversy catching American’s attention these days. Does Kavanaugh have enough qualifications for replacing Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court? Who is more believable, Kavanaugh or Ford-one of his accusers? To answer for those questions, the article “For the good of us all, Brett Kavanaugh should step aside” has been published on CNN on October 1, 2018. This article is written by Ana Navarro. She is a Republican strategist and CNN political commentary. Navarro expressed her point of views about the nominee. She made an argument on why she thinks Kavanaugh is not a good choice for a high-level position in the Supreme Court. Navarro directs readers who are interested in this issue to support her ideas. To do that, Navarro gave the readers a lot of reasons and pieces of evidence that she knew about Kavanaugh and Professor Ford to persuade the readers to oppose Kavanaugh’s seat on the Supreme Court. Navarro pointed out that she did not oppose Kavanaugh at first, but now she has changed her minds because of accusations surrounding the nominee. She argued that Kavanaugh could not be a good nominee for the Supreme Court because this position has to have higher standards. Navarro relied on the information that she collected from Kavanaugh and Ford’s backgrounds, from their school friends, and from what was happening in the hearing to argue that she believed in Professor Ford and Kavanaugh should not be an appointment for the Supreme Court. Overall, Navarro gave the readers her logical reasons for each of her arguments. However, there are some points I think Navarro is slightly subjective. For example, she said that Kavanaugh lied little things in the hearing. So, what are those and how can she know that he was lying? However, in my point of views, the argument successfully convinces me because of her reasonable explanations. She clearly argued that she did not oppose Kavanaugh in his career, and even compassionate to his family, but she did not support his position in the Supreme Court because of a lot of things going on surrounding his personal life which is unqualified for a Justice in the Supreme Court. This argument reminds the readers that the position in the Supreme Court is the highest court in the federal judiciary, and is not like any lower level court. Navarro mentioned that whoever is appointed to this position, he or she has to serve lifetime tenure and cannot be fired. Therefore, the nominee has to meet high qualifications to serve in that position. The argument can make Kavanaugh have more oppositions, but with Navarro's logical reasonings, this argument is fair to say that Kavanaugh should withdraw from this process “for the good of us all.”