By now most people are tired of seeing the political ads on TV every five minutes. If the ads were 100 percent to educate voters I would be a happy person. But we have to remember that the ads are trying to sell us on one candidate or the other. I have seen an ad a couple of times in the last week with several men setting in a café that seem depressed about the economy. It is very convincing and makes you want to agree with the ad. It is a great sales pitch, but not very true. I would like to point out some facts that some campaigns don’t want to make clear. According to recent reports we have about 8 million people who are unemployed in the United States today. We also have about 9 million job openings in the United States at the same time. This leaves us with about a million more jobs than people looking for a job. Yes some jobs don’t pay much and not every job is in walking distance of your home, but we do have more jobs than people to fill them. The unemployment rate in Southside Virginia is near 3 percent. This is the lowest unemployment rate that I can remember in this area. In most other areas of Virginia as always it is even lower.

I have heard ads about how bad the Trump tax cuts have been for people in this area. I did some looking into this from independent information sites. This information did not come from the Democrats or Republicans. This is from The Heritage Foundation. In the 5th Congressional District, which includes, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Brunswick, Charlotte and Prince Edward counties the average person will receive a $1,070 tax cut for 2018. That is an average of 12.2 percent income tax decrease. This is an increase in take-home pay over 10 years of $18,394. For a family of 4 this jumps up to an increase in Take-Home Pay to $30,031 over 10 years. Because we all have different incomes these numbers will change for each person. Some will get more and some will get less. This is the average for working people in the 5th District. I don’t know about you but I could use the money. When you vote remember who supports the Trump Tax Cut and who does not. If more money in your pocket is important to you. If you don’t care about having some extra cash, how about giving me a few bucks.

Mike Hankins is the Brown’s Store District Supervisor of Lunenburg County. He can be reached at mike. hankins0060@gmail.com.