Wall Street bankers: We’ll gladly pay higher taxes to get rid of ‘the existential threat’ that is Trump

Wall Street’s not this amorphous, unified blob, but the majority of people I talk to on Wall Street think it’s worth taking the hit to get Trump out of office. They view him as an existential threat.’ — That’s one Wall Street banker explaining to Vanity Fair in an interview how, from his perspective, his peers are gladly preparing to navigate markets under a Joe Biden presidency. “They’re saying, ‘We’d like to see Biden crush Trump,’” he continued, adding that he doesn’t want Democrats to take control of the Senate. In his world, legislative gridlock is a good thing and voting for Republicans to keep the Senate is basically “making sure nothing radical happens.” The Vanity Fair source gave a nod to Biden despite the fact that the deep-pockets of Wall Street would likely get hit by an overhaul of Trump’s 2018 tax plan because it would means higher taxes for the wealthy and corporations, as well as on capital gains.

It wasn't my comment. I was Zhang Fei's.

2. The SALT State & Local Taxes Adjustment did effect people primarily who wrote off their high tax state, taxes. Why should people in Georgia, NC and Florida subsidize people living in high tax states like NY and my Maryland.

His comment (and it IS true) is that the SALT and other tax deduction caps and eliminations caused us to lose the House in 2018. In three states alone (CA, NY, NJ) we lost 14 seats to the Democrats in 2018. People around here still try and deny the truth, because they want to play your game (why should Georgia pay...?) I said at the time this was political madness, and it was. The stupid, shortsighted scheme dreamed up by Paul Ryan, Kevin Brady, Kevin McCarthy, and others lost us the House and gave us Pelosi as Speaker, Impeachment, and every other open wound that still festers.

The corporate rate was slashed from 35% to 21%. In order to "pay for" that, they eliminated long standing tax cuts that were utilized not only by "the rich", but by the middle class. Those tax deductions are gone forever. We will never get them back.

The "Middle Class Tax Cut" rhetoric by Ryan and his band of cretins paid off by lobbyists even had to be dropped, because the Tax Bill of 2018 effectively RAISED taxes for millions of middle class families.

The SALT deduction alone hearkens back to the Civil War period. Washington D.C. legislators thought it "immoral" to require people to pay taxes upon taxes.

It’s worth pausing to consider the origins of the SALT deduction. The provision has been a feature of federal income taxation since 1862, but its roots run even deeper in U.S. history. Since the early years of American nationhood, political leaders have been arguing about the need to protect state revenue sources from federal encroachment — as well as the dangers of double taxation to individual taxpayers. Initially, at least, champions of a strong federal power to tax were able to deflect both arguments. In a 1986 article for Publius, Sarah Liebschutz and Irene Lurie noted the importance of state taxation in arguments over ratifying the Constitution. In particular, supporters of a broad federal taxing power “argued at length against those who feared that ‘all the resources of taxation might by degrees become the subjects of federal monopoly, to the entire exclusion and destruction of the State governments.’” Federalists believed those worries were overstated, arguing that Americans would police the boundaries between state and federal authority by voting to preserve the separate spheres. Federalist leaders were also scornful of warnings about double taxation.

3. The Trump tax cuts in aggregate still have tax cuts to over 86% of American families. So, it is not a net loser politically. It’s a net winner politically. How are measuring "net loser politically"? I'll spell it out for you: it tipped the balance in the House of heavily Republican district in several "Blue" Democrat states, and killed the GOP politically in D.C. because of this shortsighted approach of favoring corporations over the middle and upper middle class.

Democrats won and took Republican seats who had previously retrained House seats in otherwise heavily Democrat metropolitan areas in and around Philadelphia, Northern Virginia, Minneapolis, New York New Jersey, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, Tucson, Seattle, and the areas around Los Angeles.

Even President Trump admits it was an error, and is "open to" changing it.

Trump Says He’s ‘Open’ to Changing SALT Cap; Grassley Disagrees

“His comment (and it IS true) is that the SALT and other tax deduction caps and eliminations caused us to lose the House in 2018.”

I see no causal link between removing deductions for state and local taxes and losing the House. Do you have some evidence of the causal relationship between the two?

Also, it is not a tax upon a tax. It is a subsidy of federal tax payments and taxpayers to states that have the highest state taxes. The subsidy and write off were simply moved. If you don’t like your states high taxes, you can: 1. Work to change those high taxes in your state, or 2. Move.

Your tax cut spin is pure Democrat talking points. The middle class as a whole benefited from the tax cuts to income. This is established fact. Do we really need to debate that on FR, that is a more DU type of debate.

Also, our corporate tax rates were higher than most industrialized nations, including Communist China. The middle class benefits from those tax cuts as well.

You seemingly have bought the Radical Leftist Kool Aid.
I look forward to your evidence that there is a causal relationship between taking the State Tax subsidy away and losing the House. If you even have any.

I would posit 2 reasons whey we did lose the House.

1. Historically, the President’s Party always has poor off General Elections or Mid Terms.

2. Nonstop media coverage of seemingly “legit”, claims that Trump was involved in colluding with Russia. The Mueller Report and erroneous anonymous leaks that made the President look bad, nonstop from His Electon until the midterms and beyond.

I see no causal link between removing deductions for state and local taxes and losing the House. Do you have some evidence of the causal relationship between the two?

Of course you don't, even though I posted to you those areas where Republican bastions in "Blue" states lost. Moreover, I see that no "evidence" will convince you. Do you have "evidence" that it didn't? No? See, how this game can be played?

But to give you further information that you should ponder, but probably won't read....

https://www.salon.com/2018/11/17/orange-county-goes-all-blue-last-house-seats-fall-and-a-gop-bastion-is-vanquished/

- Many have pointed to the Republican tax bill, which hit Orange County hard by limiting state and local tax deductions, as a key reason for the Republican wipeout. According to the Orange County Register, the average taxpayer saw a 45 percent tax increase as a result of the cap. The tax bill was also a key issue in New Jersey, where just one of the state's 12 congressional seats will be held by a Republican. Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur, one of the architects of the Republican Obamacare repeal effort and the only New Jersey Republican to back the tax bill, lost his seat to former Obama national security adviser Andy Kim.

And that's just a couple of seats. We could go on and on, but you probably won't read the articles.

But here's another one you should read.

What this law professor (who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia by the way) says is absolutely correct:

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/507824-memo-to-mitch-repeal-the-republican-tax-increase

- It is often forgotten that the big Republican tax “cut” in 2017 actually raised taxes on about 10 percent of Americans. Some people weren’t rich enough to get much of an income tax rate reduction but they still lost the ability to deduct all of their state and local taxes (known as “SALT”). The law capped SALT deductions at $10,000 per year....

- Until the SALT cap, the Republican Party hadn’t supported a tax increase like this in over 25 years. Indeed, the reason many Republicans are Republicans to begin with is because of our party’s straightforward tax cutting philosophy. We’ve turned our back on a lot of our principles in the last couple of years; let’s not turn our back on this one, too.

- Next, the facts. The truth is that the SALT cap ensnares lots of people who are not millionaires and who do not live in blue states. Consider my state of Tennessee. We are as red as you can find. We don’t even have a state income tax. Yet, plenty of my neighbors are caught up in the SALT cap. In my hometown of Nashville, the median house is worth around $300,000. The property taxes on a house with that sticker price in 2019 were around $2,500 a year. We also have a sales tax of 9.25 percent. That means anyone who spends $80,000 a year on taxable stuff pays another $7,500 in sales taxes. That’s $10,000 in SALT right there. In other words, lots and lots of non-millionaires in Tennessee and other states are running smack into the SALT cap.

Also, it is not a tax upon a tax.

Your semantical juggling of words mean nothing at the voting booth.

People had to pay taxes to Fedzilla upon money they already paid to their states. Did you even read the link I sent you about the history of the SALT deduction?

I am sorry you can't grasp this, but it is one the reasons you don't understand what a disaster the Tax Bill of 2018 really was.

Your tax cut spin is pure Democrat talking points.

Bovine Scatology. I said back back in December 2017 that if the GOP was stupid enough to RAISE taxes on millions in the middle class, we were going to lose the House in 2018. I hate being right, but it was true. The Democrats didn't even have to lie in their ads on this one, which is almost historic.

Work to change those high taxes in your state, or 2. Move.

As far as stopping the tyrants in state government, sure, I'll do that. Right after I part the Red Sea. Hey, how is that approach working for Trump right now? Is he stopping the riots in Democrat states? No. He tweeted about doing it. Is he putting a stop the COVID mask muzzles in the states? Nope, can't do that either. You see, it's easy to punch words on the keyboard.

As far as the tried and told Free Republic snit of yelling "Move!" to people, that's akin to telling a robbery victim: "It's your fault! You shouldn't have gone outside!"

We had bastions of solid Republican Congressional seats in California, New York, New Jersey, and other areas that we tossed away with this stupid tax bill. Rather than retreating, we should have focus on gaining political ground. Moreover, people who own homes, businesses, have elderly parents that they care for, have grandchildren and children that they want to grow old with - should not have "Move!" because the Republicans decided it was better to give corporations a huge tax cut from 35% to 21%, while sticking the bill to the middle and upper middle class.

I look forward to your evidence that there is a causal relationship between taking the State Tax subsidy away and losing the House.

Yeah, you didn't (and won't) read what I sent, and I look forward to your links saying it absolutely didn't. More of this game play. Lotsa fun.

SALT Cap Comes Back to Haunt GOP With Key Tax Writers Losing Their Seats

At least six House Republicans in high-tax states lost their seats Tuesday, defeated in part by voter frustration over the GOP tax law’s new cap on state and local tax deductions. Two of the key players behind the tax overhaul -- Illinois’ Peter Roskam and Minnesota’s Erik Paulsen -- were among the six casualties. They sit on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, whose Republican bench has been wiped out by losses, as well as retirements. Ten of the 24 Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee won’t return to Congress next year...

You know what Trump's one major legislative "accomplishment" was in 4 years? It wasn't repealing ObamaCare, it wasn't passing National Reciprocity, or any of those other things we hoped for. It was this tax bill. That's it. And it screwed him and us.

You know what's also so tragic about this? In a mere few weeks, the US spent every dime in the tax increases on millions of families in order to give free checks and ATM cards to Americans because of the COVID shutdown.

But don't worry: Microsoft, Nike, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Oracle, AT&T, Apple, and other corporations got their tax cut from 35% to 21% - and are spending the Billions saved on promoting LGBT propaganda, funding Democrats, spreading COVID hysteria, and destroying America.

1. I have no evidence to prove my point. I’ll put quotations of other people who provide no evidence.

Oh please. I gave you links and articles. You just ignore it and say it is 100% to your standards, and then ignore my challenge to prove me wrong with your own proof. Moreover, I sent you a link where Trump himself said he was considering restoring deductions. Again, you just ignored it. Then demand "proof." Rinse, repeat.

2. Still no causal link.

The Democrats control the House. See above.

3. Can’t accept reality that Federal State tax deductions are not a tax, but a subsidy of high state tax dwellers (me included)

Shakes head. Capping or making long-standing deductions in the tax codes, so that people have to pay more Federal taxes is a de facto tax increase. Why do you think the Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee stated that they needed to increase taxes on many in the middle class in order to "pay for" slashing the corporate rate from 35% to 21%?

4. “Some people say...”, and then quote Democrat talking points.

Really? So, raising taxes on the middle class is a Republican talking point? It was under that ba$tard Paul Ryan. I think you're on the wrong forum. The GOP is not supposed to be raising taxes on millions of families, but they did. That's why the Tax Bill was a dismal failure at the ballot box in key House seats - that we lost.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.