THE CITY REBORN FROM THE ASHES OF AMERICA'S MOST DISASTROUS FOREST FIRE
From Our Readers...
Issue Date: November 4, 2021
Dear Editor,
We typically do not raise issues occurring in Washington with the public, but because the people in our community are important to us, we want to inform our neighbors of proposed legislation that could significantly impact millions of families and small businesses.
There is currently proposed legislation that, if enacted, would require all financial institutions to report to the IRS the gross financial inflows and outflows of every business and personal customer account above $10,000. The proposal would use banks as a third-party information source to find and report taxpayers' income.
As a bank, The Stephenson National Bank & Trust strongly believes in protecting our customers' private financial information. We only collect personal, financial data for the purpose of serving consumers and businesses ?? and we do our utmost to safeguard their money and their privacy. The proposal would require financial institutions to transfer a large amount of personal data to the IRS, significantly more data than has been shared with the IRS before. The IRS is already a common target for cyberattacks (approximately 1.4 billion attacks annually) due to the amount of personal data currently in its control. Therefore, adding a new set of sensitive consumer data puts the privacy and financial data of millions of Americans at greater risk.
We felt it was important to share this information with the public so each individual can determine whether to take action. If a person would like to express their opinion, they may contact their member of Congress: aba.social/ContactCongress.
Sincerely,
Daniel J. Peterson
715-735-2321
dan.peterson@snbt.com
Dear Editor:
The two infrastructure bills currently in discussion in congress seem to extend former Franklin Roosevelt's 1933 depression busting legislations which were called the "New Deal'.
Here is a summary of the remarkable 1933 New Deal legislations that ended the great depression.
Civilian Conservation Corp provided employment for young men building our current state and federal parks.
Civilian Works Administration provided temporary manual labor jobs building roads, levees, water mains, and repairing school buildings.
National Industrial Recovery Act provided regulation for fair wages and prices which stimulated economic growth
Social Security Administration provided retirement benefits for workers aged 65 or older.
These ground breaking and precedent setting bills gave a generation of Americans a chance to get to work and build back better and then retire with some financial security.
The current infrastructure bills seem to be a continuation or expansion of FDR's original "shot in the arm' legislation that effectively ended the 1929 great depression and jump started a stalled economy in 1933.
What's so bad about that? Maybe we can do that again in 2021 by stimulating a stalled economy, our workforce, and our "can do' American spirit with two more ground breaking and precedent setting bills.
The point is that a 1929 economic depression was defeated when the president and congress wrote some remarkably creative legislation and challenged corporations, and workers to get back to work and rebuild their beloved America. The congress of 1933 actually accepted the challenge, negotiated and compromised these bills into shape so that business and workers could implement an economic recovery. This was also evidence of a working democracy.
Can our 2021 congress also can get to work and finish the physical and social infrastructure bills so we can get back to work and recover our economy? Our grandparents took the challenge and then made the recovery work. So can we.
It is as our current president Biden and our former president Roosevelt said "build back better" or the "New Deal" (2.0).
Let's prove that we also have a working democracy.