Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Arkansas newspapers:
Southwest Times Record. Jan. 14, 2018.
The viability of local newspapers, including the one that you are reading now, is being challenged by an unnecessary tariff on the import newsprint from Canada - the paper used to print this newspaper and others across the country.
Simply put, the country’s newspapers cannot absorb the additional financial burden that this tax - based on a dubious complaint from a single paper mill - is sure to create.
The new import tax that began this month and will add almost 10 percent to the cost of newsprint for GateHouse Arkansas, which publishes the Times Record in addition to five other daily newspapers in the state (including the Pine Bluff Commercial, the Log Cabin Democrat in Conway, Daily Siftings Herald in Arkadelphia, the Stuttgart Daily Leader and the Hope Star). GateHouse Arkansas also publishes 17 weeklies, including the Press-Argus Courier, Paris Express, Booneville Democrat, Charleston Express and Greenwood Democrat in our area.
The additional cost for newsprint will add up to millions of dollars for the company’s operations. The two biggest costs in a newspaper operation are people and paper. Newspapers spends millions of dollars a year on paper, and an increase of almost 10 percent amounts to hundreds of thousands more in production costs.
If fully implemented, the resulting hardship could lead to the loss of thousands of jobs in the newspaper industry.
We are at an important juncture right now, and our role of getting real news to you on a daily basis matters more than ever.
“We are stunned that a single U.S. mill in Longview, Washington, has been able to manipulate the trade laws to their gain, while potentially wreaking financial havoc on newspapers and other commercial publishers across the country,” the News Media Alliance says in a statement.
“This decision and its associated duties likely will lead to job losses in U.S. publishing, commercial printing and paper industries,” says the Alliance, which represents more than 2,000 U.S. news organizations.
A credible news source that has a vested interest in community-based news and information is the bedrock to our principles as a free nation.
Arkansas is home to many local newspapers and related websites - many of which provide the only meaningful news coverage in small communities. We live here and work here and care about this place we call home.
We are local businesses. We are you.
Readers rely on newspapers to provide credible information about what matters most to them - news about local people, local government, local happenings, local businesses and important public notices that can affect a community.
Newspapers and newspaper associations are uniting against newsprint tariffs. This is not only a print industry concern, but it also could ultimately affect other business segments in the U.S. that rely on paper products.
Please help us protect the future of newspapers by contacting the Department of Commerce, Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark. 479-573-0189 or 202-224-4843; boozman.senate.gov; Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. 870-864-8582 or 202-224-2353; cotton.senate.gov; or Rep. Steve Womack, R-3rd District, 479-424-1146 or 202 -225-4301; womack.house.gov and letting them know that you oppose the proposed newsprint trade tariff.
A free press is more important than ever, and newspapers have always been at the forefront of serving our communities. We remain steadfast in our commitment to doing so, and we could use your help to ensure that we can continue delivering papers to you.
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Texarkana Gazette. Jan. 14, 2018.
Walmart recently announced it is celebrating the Republican tax reform bill by sharing the wealth with employees.
The retail giant will boost minimum pay to at least $11 an hour starting next month and give some workers a cash bonus. The company is also increasing benefits for new parents.
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans sold their bill with the promise that lower corporate taxes would mean more money in workers’ pockets. So far, some companies are making that happen.
In addition to Walmart, several other companies have said they would be giving out one-time bonuses due to the tax bill, including American Airlines, Bank of America, Comcast, Nationwide and Southwest Airlines. Others, including Visa, Aflac and Nationwide, are increasing matching contributions to employee 401(k) plans.
That’s the good news, but it’s not all sunny. The same day, Walmart also announced it would close 63 Sam’s Club stores over the next month or so, potentially putting more than 10,000 people out of work.
About 50 of the stores will be shuttered for good. The rest will be converted to distribution centers for online sales.
Some stores closed immediately, including three in Houston and one in San Antonio, and employees have complained on social media they were not given advance notice before showing up for work.
We’ll have to wait and see which other stores are affected.
Many of those that have closed are in areas where the competition from other discount chains like Costco is intense. Our local Sam’s Club will be spared.
It may seem like Walmart giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other, and perhaps that’s how many will see this. But tax cuts only go so far. Any company, including Walmart, must face other business realities, and sometimes that means change that doesn’t benefit everyone.
Job loss is never good, but Walmart’s minimum pay increase will make life better for thousands of their other workers, and that’s a good thing.
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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Jan. 16, 2018
What a pity Americans can’t take their choice between a president who has delivered on his campaign promises to strengthen the economy by cutting taxes and a cartoonish lout who tweets the whole day long, embarrassing himself and his country. But the two Trumps can’t be separated; both are part of the same schizophrenic package. You can’t have one without the other.
The increasingly recognized Trump Bump in the economy is proving less a passing aberration than the new normalcy as the stock market sets new records and the benefits come not trickling but flooding down to American workers. To cite just one example, Walmart is raising its hourly pay from about $9 for most new hires to $11, which is higher than the minimum wage required by federal law.
In turn, other employers - like restaurants, warehouses and small retailers - will need to boost the amount they pay unskilled labor. It’s all working out according to a law much older than passing campaign promises - the law of supply and demand.
The same happy trend can be spotted all across American financial news. Manufacturing, which long had been the sick man of this country’s economy, is staging a dramatic comeback. Fiat Chrysler is paying $2,000 bonuses to each of its 60,000 salaried and hourly employees and is planning to invest a billion dollars in a new American plant.
When the good Donald signed his tax-cut bill into law in December, he gave American investors a heckuva Christmas gift. Under the old corporate tax rate of 35 percent, a dollar of earnings translated into 65 cents. But at the new tax rate of 21 percent, the same dollar is worth 79 cents. To quote Donald Luskin of Trend Macrolytics, that’s a growth in earnings of 21.5 percent, all accomplished by a single stroke of the good Donald’s presidential pen.
Talk about fun with numbers, this is the way to have it. For the new federal tables should be out any day now, and they’ll give We the People and taxpayers a big break. Thank you, good Donald.
But the bad Donald always seems to be lurking in the background. He’s the one who throws the word treason around with abandon - and no regard for its strict, well-defined meaning in the Constitution of the United States. The bad Donald did discover a smoking gun when an FBI agent, Peter Strzok, was removed as the chief investigator looking into accusations that the Russian government had colluded with the Trump team to influence the last presidential election.
The man got his just deserts, but he didn’t deserve to be tarred as a traitor without a trial and conviction. But those are the kind of responsible distinctions in law and in reason that the bad Donald is not inclined to make, especially in a politically poisonous time. And the bad Donald has not made it any better. Justice, justice, thou shalt pursue, the Good Book commands, not petty vengeance.
The good Donald, the bad Donald - they whirl around like a weather vane as 2018 goes spinning around. The best and worst one can say about it so far is contained in the old Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.
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