As I continue my campaign for the 3rd CD seat currently occupied by Jason Chaffetz, I had the opportunity to deliver a speech at our tax march yesterday in SLC.
New website for our campaign: drkathieforcongress.com
When I was growing up, my parents always said there were two unavoidable truths in life: death and taxes. It would seem that Donald Trump has evaded this inevitability. Does he actually pay taxes or just bury dark money?
Earlier this week the Guardian printed an article in which a source stated that the official investigation into Trump’s Russian ties is making progress. “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said.
The investigation into the Trump administration’s possible links with Russia proceeds at its stately pace and Americans wait impatiently for proof or disproof of this collusion. It’s like mounting a long trail with lots of switchbacks before attaining the summit. A look at Trump’s tax returns would cut miles and months off the process. Isn’t it time to subpoena those returns and shine some light on the dark money?
Every American with significant revenue pays income tax. It’s the collective bargaining agreement we have with our government to pay for services we all need. But the 1% that Trump represents have pockets in which to hide their income. They take advantage of breaks the rest of us don’t have. Any tax reform has to acknowledge that tax tables are not pyramid schemes. There is no reason to maintain loopholes that favor the rich and hurt the middle class. Income disparity just keeps widening and the present administration seems to care little for anyone other than its own elite.
Bombs in Syria and elsewhere may divert our attention, and some may be convinced that these macho displays of power at last cast a presidential glow on Donald Trump. But as Louise Moench has recently stated, what is being deployed here are “weapons of mass distraction.” While the FBI and others close in on the truth, we cannot but hope and pray that our president will develop some impulse control.
The present administration cares little for the values of most Utahns. We are known for being kind, for being nice. Ice is not nice. Pollution is a serious health threat, and the unraveling of rational restrictions on emissions turns the EPA into the Enabling Pollution Agency. If the people in power had had their way, millions of children and adults across America would now be without any health insurance. And we should have known from revelations during the campaign that this President would make a grab for the control of women’s bodies and reduce their options.
There are those who persist in the false belief that our State Government was not consulted before the designation of the Bears Ears Monument, and these same individuals would gladly disregard the wishes of the Tribal Coalition, the native peoples who put their own disagreements aside and came together to protect their sacred lands. These lands have now become the Bears Ears Monument, but it must be protected from opportunists whose prime interest is a misguided insistence on turning over our public lands to state control for energy extraction and wealth accumulation.
These are indeed taxing times, ladies and gentlemen, but I have some strong, science-based medicine for the third Congressional District. As I vie for a seat in Congress, I am using the trained eye of a clinician to assess the chronically diseased state of our government. I am applying listening skills as I formulate a diagnosis and treatment plan. The current representative has not listened as we, his constituents, have pleaded, and continue to plead, that he investigate Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest, ties with Russia, and his tax returns. He has taken no initiative to restore integrity to government. In fact, he has attacked the Department of Ethics and refused to do his job as chairman of the government oversight committee. He has not reached across the aisle for bipartisan solutions. Instead, he has accused his constituents of being paid protestors.
Please come home, Utah Representatives, since you aren’t standing up for Utah values. It is an honor, not a right, to represent this wonderful State and you respect neither the offices you serve nor the people you represent. It is time Utah has a caring physician in Congress to listen and to serve, and to deliver hope, for there are those of us who believe that hope is more contagious than despair.