By Joy Davis, Green Party of Texas
As one of the Green Party’s National Outreach Committee co-chairs as well as a co-chair of the National Women’s Caucus, I want to let you know about the senate and house versions of the GOP Tax Reform bills and what it could mean for you.
Tuition waivers, for example: currently, grad students who work as research or teaching assistants are exempt from paying taxes on the tuition waivers they receive in exchange for work. Under the House bill, the exemption for tuition waivers would be eliminated. This means graduate students would have to count the waivers as income, even though they did not receive the money directly. Now, under the Senate bill, the exemption for tuition waivers would remain in place.
The Senate version of the Tax bill also includes a provision to allow for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We continuously see the damage that occurs when these pipelines leak. It is an environmental disaster.
On a side note, Al Green (not the entertainer), U.S. Representative from Texas, pushed forward with Articles of Impeachment against Donald Trump. Now Republicans are the majority in the House and the Senate; however, there were Democrats who voted in favor of tabling the impeachment resolution.
The upcoming 2018 elections are so important. A total of 468 seats in the U.S. Congress (33 Senate seats and all 435 House seats) are up for election next November.
We want you to not only vote Green. We want you to join the Green Party and get involved at the local level as well as the national level. We also encourage you to run for office. We want to continue seeing Green candidates getting elected, so, let’s send a message to Congress. Every Representative that voted in favor of this tax reform bill, we will vote against them in November and vote Green in 2018.