I love my job at Bel Air. I get paid very well, I'm guaranteed a raise, guaranteed hours, guaranteed benefits, and I get discounts. I'm really fortunate to have this job, as many other students my age are having an even harder time making minimum wage.
We all know that feeling of excitement when we get our paycheck and eagerly rip open the envelope to see what awaits us inside as a "reward" for the hours we put into our work. That feeling immediately gets sunk as soon as we see the taxes that are taken out of our paycheck each pay period.
I get my paycheck every Friday, and I pay about $50 a paycheck in taxes for the 24 hours I worked that week. So with all the taxes taken out of my paycheck, I basically work 5-1/2 hours a week just for the government. You can also think of it this way: The government took $50 from my paycheck and gave it to someone else on UI, SSI, TANF, WIC or whatever welfare program.
It's gonna be hard working four more years in an Obama economy where I am paying 20 percent of my income in taxes. At least the Romney-Ryan ticket plans to cut my tax rate back to 16 percent. In other words, Romney is proposing a 20 percent across the board cut in everyone's marginal tax rate, similar to the 25 percent cut made by President Reagan in the '80s. Barack Obama, however, only wants to raise taxes for the top earners. So where does that leave students and other youth like myself who are just scraping by at the bottom? Obama has no intention whatsoever of cutting our tax rates. He doesn't care about a tax break for me or other hard working Americans. He doesn't care about students. He doesn't care about us youth who are trying to get our feet off the ground and make an honest dollar. Thanks to the president, it's gonna be a while before I can afford to move out of my parents' house and start my life on my own (that is, if he's re-elected).
However, if Romney is elected and Congress passes his tax cut proposals, that's $10 more a paycheck that I'm keeping, investing, or saving. So multiply 52 weeks in a year by $10 and that's $520 more a year I'm keeping under a Romney administration. That might not seem like much money, but for a student like myself, $520 a year is a big deal. That's two-weeks-worth of pay for me.
If you like those taxes that you see coming out of YOUR hard-earned paycheck, I suggest you re-elect Barack Obama.
If you want REAL change and REAL reform, and you want to keep more of YOUR hard-earned paycheck, then I urge you to support Mitt Romney for President.
Don't miss out on the money you COULD be making! Vote Republican this November!
--------------
lives in Citrus Heights and is a recent graduate of in Carmichael. Palomo will attend the University of California, Davis in the fall.
Cupertino Patch welcomes all views and encourages readers to submit their own opinion articles to anne.ernst@patch.com.
