Nevada Education Group Slams GOP Tax Plan

By: Suzanne Potter, Public News Service – NV

LAS VEGAS – Education groups blasted the GOP tax plan unveiled on Thursday – saying that eliminating most state and local tax deductions will blow a hole in education budgets, and put about 700 jobs at risk in Nevada alone.

An analysis by the National Education Association shows the move could cost 250,000 jobs nationwide.

Ruben Murillo, Jr., president of the Nevada State Education Association, says the tax bill also takes away a $250 tax deduction that teachers use to cover school supplies they buy for their classrooms.

“And that comes knowing that teachers will spend more than $1,000 per teacher, on average, on school supplies,” he says. “They’re trying to help out by supplementing the budget with their own funds. Public education isn’t funded as well as it should be, and this does nothing to help change that track.”

The NEA calls the tax plan a “$5 trillion giveaway to the wealthy and to corporations.”

However, President Donald Trump’s national economic advisor, Gary Cohn, contends that lower taxes on big companies will create more profits that will then trickle down to spur economic growth, create jobs and lead to higher wages.

Murillo says the plan also hurts middle-class teachers by lowering the amount of student-loan interest they can deduct on their taxes.

“If we want to attract teachers, we need to make sure that they’re able to do so without incurring such debt that they are forever indebted to the federal government,” he explains. “We want to make it easier to recruit and retain teachers, and this tax plan does not do that.”

Murillo also notes that there is currently a teacher shortage in Nevada, particularly in the Las Vegas area – a problem that is mirrored in every state in the nation.