Weekly Writers Round-Up: Life-Saving Human Progress, the Problem with Free College, and the Looming Tax Deadline

Each week, we’ll be featuring the work of the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. For more information on how the program can help launch your career in writing, see here.

Human Progress Saved My Baby, and Will Save Many More by Chelsea Follett (Summer 2017) in The Washington Examiner
“Her heart rate is decelerating with each contraction,” explained the doctor to my husband and me, a grave expression on her face, “and we just saw a major deceleration.” We were rushed into the surgery room for an emergency cesarean section, and just minutes later, we met our first child.

She was alive, beautiful, and screaming her lungs out…

Free College Won’t Make Michigan Kids Career Ready by Kristiana Bolzman (Spring 2019) in Detroit News
This month, Michigan lawmakers convene with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to chart Michigan’s higher education future. As they review the governor’s first-ever budget, lawmakers are considering Whitmer’s plan to offer low- and middle-income students a free-ride to community college.

Yet far from helping students succeed, Whitmer’s “free college” ploy would instead incentivize underprepared young people to take on a painful higher education experience many will abandon. A better approach would focus on providing kids with alternative paths to career success…

American Soldiers Aren’t Dying for Our Freedom in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re Dying for Nothing by Jerrod Laber (Fall 2017) in The Independent
President Trump has promised repeatedly to end “endless wars,” during both his campaign and his tenure so far in office. Despite this rhetoric, endless — and, frankly, pointless —wars are, sadly, still the American norm.

Two more Americans were just killed in Afghanistan — a war that the Trump administration realises needs to end, but seems in no hurry to actually do so. In December 2018, Trump announced that all US troops would be withdrawn from Syria, only to later rescind that declaration in favour of a small force of 400 to 1,000 troops to stay behind indefinitely, complementing the more than 5,000 troops in Iraq, who are there to satiate the administration’s obsession with Iran…

IRS Could Help Taxpayers by Delaying Filing Deadline by Andrew Wilford (Spring 2017) in Inside Sources
The IRS has had a lot to contend with this filing season. The monthlong government shutdown hampered the agency’s ability to provide a level of service that would be adequate in a normal year, let alone in a year where taxpayers are learning how to benefit from lower tax burdens under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Amid all these issues, Congress, the administration, and the IRS can and should look to extend the filing deadline by a month to May 15…