Bits n’ pieces from east, west and beyond

East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact.

A recent sampling:

A House Republican proposal to abolish the IRS and the federal tax code would require a national sales tax of at least 60% “to make up for lost revenue,” according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Americans for Tax Fairness says, if enacted, the proposed GOP tax would disproportionately impact middle class and low-income people. ITEP said that currently the top 1% pay an average of 0.9% share of their income in state sales tax, whereas lowest-income households pay 7.1%.

Even used electric vehicles, as long as a certain proportion of their parts are made in the U.S., are eligible for a tax credit under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Some say EVs are as bad or worse for the environment than standard vehicles. But Motor Trend reported that even if the power grid were run 100% by coal, 31% less energy would be needed to charge EVs as compared to fueling gas cars.

With power from natural gas, powering an EV requires half that of coal. Hydropower-sourced energy saves up to three-quarters of energy currently used by gas vehicles.

What about EV emissions?

A study by the International Council on Clean Energy found that, over the life of an EV, including manufacturing and batteries, there are 60 to 68% fewer carbon emissions from EVs.

They are also low maintenance, further reducing owner costs. Dust micro-particles from dessert storms, while having a cooling effect, have masked how much the planet has warmed, according to research published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment.

Republican extremists in the U.S. House recently introduced H.R. 21, which calls for releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which have recently reduced gas prices, to be offset by more leases of public lands to oil and gas companies.

Reuters reported that the U.S. is already a net energy exporter, and the proposed swap would foster increases in the cost of gas, as well as more climate pollution.

A class action lawsuit in Canada, started in 2012 by 325 First Nations, will be settled for $2.8 billion. The suit sought reparations for abuses indigenous people faced at Canadian government boarding schools.

The schools operated from 1874 to the last closure in 1996. Students forced to attend the “assimilation” schools suffered from physical, sexual and emotional abuse while enduring facilities that were poorly heated and built and unsanitary, BBC reported.

At least 3,200 children died at the schools, as evidenced by graves that have been unearthed near the schools.

Three more Oath Keepers, and an associate, were recently found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other charges in the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted insurrection in D.C.

Two other Oath Keepers were previously convicted of seditious conspiracy, and five Proud Boys currently face sedition changes.

Abortion pills account for more than half of U.S. abortions, according to The WEEK.

As of Jan. 23, 37 mass shootings in the U.S. were recorded in the new year, according to Gunviolencearchive.org.

The U.S. government hit the debt ceiling last week when MAGA House Republicans refused to raise it.

“Extraordinary measures” are now in place to avoid debt default. Historian Heather Cox Richardson said there are two ways to deal with unwanted deficits: cutting expenditures and raising revenue. The latter, typically the first option, has not been discussed. Instead, House MAGA Republicans called for cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Richardson wrote that a need for raising the debt ceiling is linked to the pre-pandemic 2017 Trump tax cuts, which put the corporate tax rate at 21%, down from 35%.

The Congressional Budget Office’s estimate was that the Trump tax cuts would increase deficits close to $2 trillion over 11 years. The Trump tax cuts did not increase growth, which promoters claimed it would. Rather, the deficit under Trump was the nation’s third largest.

Recently on CNN, Sen. Joe Manchin said the “quickest and easiest thing we can do is raise the [pay-in] cap” to shore up Social Security. Currently, once a person has paid in on $160,000 in earnings, they no longer pay in.

He also said he opposed creation of a commission to cut Social Security.

Blast from the past: When Donald Trump was president, Republicans voted to increase the debt limit three times; that did not seem out of the ordinary, since it has been raised over a dozen times spanning the last 25 years.

Raising the debt ceiling is not about raising the national debt, which most media has not explained well. It is about paying for bills already incurred by Congress, and not throwing the national and global economy into havoc by failure to pay.

In 2011 Republicans also led an attempt to not raise the debt ceiling, which resulted in a credit downgrade of the U.S. Treasury debt, and according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, raised government borrowing that cost $18.9 billion over 10 years.

Ways to get around a debt ceiling crisis include a federal government shutdown, or, supporting the call for a global minimum tax on the wealthy, which would increase revenue and decrease the need to borrow money for program funding.

The Trump administration added $7 trillion to the national debt, in part due to tax cuts for the wealthy, which reduced income to federal coffers.