By: Breanna Huynh

Effects of the tax cut, affecting the economy, businesses, and you.

 On December 22, 2017, President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Even though it is now 2019, many businesses and households in America are still affected.

    This act cuts individual’s tax rate, doubles the standard deduction, eliminates personal exemptions and cuts corporate tax rates. Essentially it will double your taxable income, a downside for large families who will have to pay higher taxes.

   Additionally, health insurance companies will lose money with the repeal of the Obamacare tax for those without health care insurance this year. The healthcare cost will rise, and fewer people will want to get preventative care, such as check ups, because of the increased price.

    The Tax Act benefits people with a higher income though, those that make at least $100,000 per year. The Tax Foundation states that, ¨Those who earn more than 95% of the population would receive 2.2 percent increase in after tax income.”

    On the other hand, Tax Policy Center responds, ¨Those in bottom 20 percent would only receive a 0.4 percent increase.”

    Cutting taxes for the middle class has its benefits, with the likelihood that it will create more jobs than cutting taxes of people with higher incomes. For example, people in the middle class would want to spend every dollar they receive, motivating demand, unlike those who already have enough money.

    Businesses are the ones that benefit most from the Tax Act. Unlike our tax cuts, which will expire in 2025, this will become permanent for businesses.      

    Some businesses, such as corporations, are taking advantage of this opportunity, such as corporations. In March 2018, they bought back much of their own stocks, spending a total of $305 billion.

    Not only will this affect people and businesses, but the economy. As well, this will increase government debt to a deficit of one trillion dollars over the span of ten years.

    U.S. income tax will progressively get worse as these tax cuts continue to occur, including the fact that the rates will be lowered for everyone, not excluding high income taxpayers. The one bright side is that this may create at least 339,000 jobs and add a percentage of 1.5 to wages.

    According to the U.S. treasury, they assume that the tax cut will bring in 1.8 trillion dollars of new revenue. It would also increase sovereign debt, limiting economic growth and increasing the debt for future generations.

    Guy Berkebile, the owner of Guy Chemical Company, responds, “I was paying nearly 50 percent of my income, my profits back to the government in the form of taxes and having more money in my pocket has enabled me to invest heavily.”

    Now, there are 29 new jobs there out of the 160 employees. Berkebile expresses his opinion on how the new tax cuts benefits himself and other families, saying it keeps them more financially stable.

    A middle class teacher and mother Tatum Tirado insists asks, “How do I provide for my family or feel confident I am climbing the ladder to live the middle class lifestyle when everything gets more expensive but my salary doesn’t go up.”

    These concerns are what some middle class families feel about the tax cut. These two stories will be a huge factor in considering whether the taxes will be made permanent. As for now, some families and businesses benefit from this, but could eventually harm the economy in future years.

By: Jennalee Stack

Due to recent concerns on the state of the environment, banning straws has been put into place to encourage people to understand the global plastic pollution problem.

To those who currently reside in California, your days of sipping from a straw are coming to an end. California Governor, Jerry Brown, signed a bill to reduce ocean waste and the use of plastic straws in the state. _{This law started going into effect in January of 2019. Although California is the first state to pass a bill} on the ban of straws, Seattle was the first city to diminish the usage of plastic straws and utensils in July of 2018.

This means that restaurants will not offer plastic straws to their customers, but customers may ask for one if they absolutely believe it is necessary. This applies to full-service dining institutions, but excludes fast-food restaurants.

California is the first state in America to curb the use of plastic straws in restaurants. Several cities in California, such as Malibu, have completely banned the use of plastic straws and plastic utensils in their restaurants.

Restaurants that violate these laws could be fined $25 a day or even $300 annually. There are many straw alternatives that accomodate to those who have a strong fixation on straws. Many restaurants offer paper straws as well as metal, reusable straws. These can be found almost everywhere in stores and online if you want to use these substitutes at home rather than plastic items.

Straws may be seemingly small and harmless, however they build up in the oceans where they become a major threat to important marine life. Millions of marine animals are killed annually due to plastic waste in the ocean. Recently, a dead whale washed up on the shores of Thailand. There were about 80 plastic bags found in its stomach.

On average, Americans use 500 million straws a day. This equates to filling about 125 school buses with straws every day.

Because of their tiny sizes, consumers often forget to recycle straws and even forget they are plastic. When straws are not recycled, they tend to fail to make it through the mechanical recycling sorter due to their small size. They then contaminate recycling loads or get disposed of as garbage.

Essentially, the straw ban is described as a gateway plastic to help environmentalists and scientists report the overall misusage on plastic and its negative effect on the environment.

It is a small step that will hopefully eliminate the complete usage of single-use plastic products.

By: Jessie Karn

History was made on January 14th, 2019 in Downtown L.A. on Grand Park, people walked for a change in an unfair system.

       The walkout had a lot of light shined on the situation and issues with their educational programs and system in Los Angeles. Many may think the walkout was just for a pay raise but the teachers were asking for a lot more.

      The teachers when they were establishing what they wanted to change, they focused more so on the students’ well-being. The teachers asked for practical changes to be made that most students would feel as those should be no-brainers.

      The teachers were seeking for smaller class sizes so the students would be able to have a better learning environment, one teacher had a picket sign that said “173 students… 1 teacher not okay”. This picket sign can be seen in many pictures from the strike considering how astounding that number is, this was one of the many issues the teachers and students of LAUSD were facing.

       Students at many of the schools in the LAUSD only had a nurse on campus one day of the week, resulting in medical issues being put on the teachers or faculty. The teachers taking on the job of being a school nurse usually do not have much prior experience with one’s state of wellness and had to interrupt their lessons to aid students.

      A pay raise was also on the list of things the teachers wanted to receive a 6.5 percent increase in their wages from their strike, due to the teachers not receiving a fair raise in the past couple years or so. The teachers of the LAUSD were taking on the jobs of being an educator, a nurse, and a counselor because of the lack of faculty working at the school.

      This strike was no average strike considering LAUSD is the second largest school district in the nation with around 480,000 students enrolled.  This strike was for the well-being of those 480,000 students and to establish a sense of fight for a better environment for students to receive their education in.

       The teachers also came out with their own newsletter regarding the whole strike and reasoning behind their strike. To counteract the school district had their point of view on the situation put onto the front of a newspaper.  Usually, this would never be seen from an average school strike but since LA has the second biggest district in the nation it seems expected.

      The strike ended on January 20th, 2019 and because of how long the strike lasted the school district lost more than $100 million from students not attending school. During that time the district had to hire thousands of substitutes to keep the students in school.

     From the strike they came to these compromises in court,  “6 percent pay raise (3 percent retroactive to last school year and 3 percent for this school year); nurses at every school by fall 2020; 30 community schools with local control by spring 2020; 17 new counselors; and full-time librarians at each middle and high school by fall 2020” (NBC News).

      The teachers achieved their goal of creating an improved learning environment, it was accomplished on January 20th of 2019 through a non-violent strike. This strike has made history for showing that teachers truly care for their students well being and will go to extreme lengths to improve the students learning environment.