As the school year begins, some parents have been forced to make hard choices in response to schools’ COVID prevention protocols (or the lack thereof).
Nicole pulled her children out of their Georgia public school and into a virtual-only charter school when she learned their local school was making masking optional.
It was not an easy decision, but Nicole felt the rule change forced her hand.
Nicole tried to keep an open mind at her kids' school's open house. Then she saw the principal, teachers, and many parents and kids unmasked in the hallways.
"When I walked out, I knew there was nothing that would make me feel safe sending my girls to school on Monday."
@AnnieWaldman & @biancafortis reported on similar situations in other states where children with complex medical issues that prevent them from being vaccinated are dealing with schools where masking isn't mandated.
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As 12-year-old Seth’s condition worsened, he and his family spent hours in the waiting room, his body quivering from the pain shooting across his lower belly. His mom asked why it was taking so long to be seen.
A nurse rolled her eyes and muttered, “COVID.”
👇
The Florida hospital was so crowded there weren't enough chairs for the family to all sit as they waited.
And waited.
As the delta variant sweeps unvaccinated regions, hospitals are filling up and critically ill non-COVID patients have become collateral damage.
2/ Under the Trump changes, taxes on profits from certain types of businesses were cut dramatically, while the tax rate on salaries those businesses paid was reduced only slightly.
3/ WAGES are now taxed at a top rate of 37%, plus an additional 3.8% for Medicare.
Meanwhile, PROFITS are taxed at a top rate of 29.6% (with no Medicare tax).
2/ In the section of the bill about pass-through businesses (companies where the profits pass through to the owners as income), Congress inserted the language “applied without regard to the words ‘engineering, architecture.'”
3/ The Trump tax cuts allowed pass-through owners to deduct up to 20% of profits from their income taxes.
This new language was pushed by a lobbyist for the Becthel family’s giant engineering firm.
A pair of billionaire donors to @SenRonJohnson's reelection campaign stand to reap more than $500 million in tax savings thanks to a provision Johnson fought to expand in the Trump 2017 tax cuts.
2/ With the deadline looming for Congress to finalize Trump's signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Johnson threatened to vote against the bill.
“If they can pass it without me, let them,” he said.
3/ Johnson's demand? That the bill must increase tax deductions for owners of "pass-through" businesses, i.e., companies where profits pass to the owners as income.
3/ All told, state and federal assistance to the jobless during the pandemic could add up to around $1 trillion—and experts fear fraud will eat up HUNDREDS of billions of that.