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This Is Rich: Democrats Fight To Protect A $1.8 Trillion Tax Break That Benefits The Top 1%
Investors Business Daily ^ | October 23, 2017 | Editorial Staff

Posted on 10/28/2017 2:30:22 PM PDT by TBP

What do you call a tax break that delivers 88% of the benefits to upper-income families and subsidizes rich states at the expense of poor ones? If you're a Democrat, you call it a sacred cow.

One provision of the Republican's tax-cutting plan that has drawn intense opposition from Democrats is the elimination of state and local tax deductions for those who itemize.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi said it was "an insidious effort to raise taxes on middle class families … across America." Sen. Ron Wyden said that "hardworking middle-class folks are not going to appreciate Congress double taxing them." New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called it "a pure tax increase."

So what is it that Democrats are valiantly trying to protect?

This SALT deduction, as it's sometimes called, will cost the federal government $1.8 trillion over the next decade, according to the Tax Foundation.

And the benefits go almost entirely to upper-income families.

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1percent; boomerssux; democrats; elite; notmysacredcow; progressives; taxhypocrisy; taxmyneighbornotme
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To: NorthMountain
Yeah! Damn those productive, highly paid people. Damn them all! Soak the rich!!! Make them Pay Their FAIR SHARE!!!

Wouldn't you rather not have deductions and just lower the statutory rate even more? Get rid of SALT. Get rid of mortgage interest. Get rid of child tax credits. Get rid of EITC. Get rid of all deductions. We should NEVER encourage higher local taxes (SALT) or debt (mortgage interest).

121 posted on 10/28/2017 5:52:36 PM PDT by rb22982
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To: rb22982
A dinky, little 2,500 square foot house isn't even as large as the apartment we lived in, before we moved into this house; let alone as many square feet a just the first floor of this house!

And how many acres are we talking about; less than one? *snicker*

Move to Charlotte? Why the bleeding hell would I want to move there? I don't have any friends or family in that area, nor, after the stupid riot there, it is unappealing.

And since Trump/Congress hasn't gotten rid of the damned ObamaCare tax, added onto the sale of any home, that and the moving costs, etc., on top of everything else involved, would murder me!

You will STILL be able to deduct your MASSIVE mortgage payment. LOL

Look, you can attempt to insult and impugn me all you want to; however, you're the one who is coming off badly...not I.

122 posted on 10/28/2017 5:54:54 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: rb22982
Oh you poor baby....

Get off your high horse, before you fall off it !

123 posted on 10/28/2017 5:56:47 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: editor-surveyor

He can’t even afford any “pearls” and wouldn’t know real ones, from fakes, if his life depended upon it.


124 posted on 10/28/2017 5:57:59 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: rb22982

You’re just STUCK ON STUPID and bereft of a an knowledge and a decent vocabulary.


125 posted on 10/28/2017 6:00:41 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: nopardons

you are quite honestly the most pent up angry person I have ever seen. It’s fairly funny. Have a good night.


126 posted on 10/28/2017 6:05:44 PM PDT by rb22982
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To: rb22982
And now YOU are so upset, you became incapable of writing grammatically correct simple English prose! I must have really hit more than one nerve! LOL

If you do math for a living, I pity your clients and company!

Excuses, excuses, excuses and yet MORE bragging. You have a MASSIVE problem; diddums!

You are in for a MASSIVE surprise; kid. You are assuming a whole lot of things about this TAX HIKE proposition, that shan't come to fruition.

127 posted on 10/28/2017 6:05:49 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: nopardons

So much irrational anger LOL


128 posted on 10/28/2017 6:06:49 PM PDT by rb22982
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To: rb22982

Go look into a mirror, or the nearest shiny object...a laughingstock and a fool will be looking back at you. :-)


129 posted on 10/28/2017 6:08:13 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: nopardons

Anything is possible! Have a good night nopardons, and I can honestly say I truly hope you end up with the biggest tax cuts of anyone on this thread, assuming anything actually passes


130 posted on 10/28/2017 6:11:27 PM PDT by rb22982
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To: rb22982
Unfortunately, where the government is concerned, the "anything is possible" line usually turns out to something horrible. But where there's life, there's hope; I guess.

Thanks for the last bit, but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm angry, because a TAX CUT FOR EVERYONE promise means something other than what we have seen/heard thus far.

Reagan pulled one off and he didn't have both Houses. And it worked for EVERYONE!

Good night..........

131 posted on 10/28/2017 6:31:34 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: rb22982
It is ridiculous you were ever able to deduct for other taxes or mortgage interest in the first place.

So I presume you don't think businesses should be able to deduct expenses either.

In the case of taxes, how is it reasonable to tax someone on money they never even see? If you have no choice but to hand over 6% of your income to the state, shouldn't the state pay the federal income tax on that part if anyone does?

By your logic even if you never get the money you owe taxes on it. That really is ridiculous.

132 posted on 10/28/2017 6:40:57 PM PDT by freeandfreezing
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To: CodeToad
Nonsense. States have widely varying property tax rates, and those rates serve as a proxy for other kinds of taxation.

Why should anyone have to pay income taxes on what are in effect taxes imposed by a governmental authority? You certainly don't get to spend the money you pay in state or local taxes. And for a business owner those taxes would obviously reduce their income, and hence the taxes they pay.

133 posted on 10/28/2017 6:43:42 PM PDT by freeandfreezing
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To: nopardons
Why should the country allow you to take off mortgage payments? People should live within their means and NOT borrow!

You sound like you'd be happy living in the stone age. Without people willing to borrow money to build something today for benefits in the future we'd all be living in grass huts.

Mortgage deductions help incentivize people to buy real estate, generating millions of jobs and a significant portion of our economy. The federal government extracts money from the owners of that real estate when they sell their property.

134 posted on 10/28/2017 6:48:45 PM PDT by freeandfreezing
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To: freeandfreezing
So I presume you don't think businesses should be able to deduct expenses either

I actually do not think businesses should be able to deduct interest (I think anything that encourages debt is stupid), but that is neither here nor there. There are TONS of things you cannot deduct to that make way more sense. For example, if I invest $1,000,000 in company X and it falls in value to $500,000, I can only deduct $3,000 of that against income this year! I can't deduct interest on my car. I can't deduct my sales taxes paid (if I deduct state). I can't deduct credit card interest. I can't deduct personal loan interest. I can't deduct repairs on my house. I can't deduct investment projects in my house. We need to get government out of steering us to do what it wants.

By your logic even if you never get the money you owe taxes on it.

Uh, no, that's not what I said. But even if you were "right", why isn't it the other way around, anyway? Why isn't it the state that lets you deduct from federal? Pretend this deduction didn't exist today and then rationally argue for it over just cutting the statutory rate.

135 posted on 10/28/2017 6:48:49 PM PDT by rb22982
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To: rb22982
I've read enough of your replies to not waste time going back and forth with you. I will note however that reducing rates is always a good idea, as is retaining and/or expanding deductions. The overall goal is to reduce the tax burden for everyone.

The best possible thing to do would be downsize the government so that it could function on vastly reduced taxes.

Over time you will probably learn that when politicians remove a deduction, and thereby expand the scope of taxable income that change is permanent. Rates however, even if they are cut as a part of the deal which removes the deductions, always creep back up.

In your laundry list of things you can't deduct are more than one thing you used to be able to deduct from your personal income, like interest expenses.

136 posted on 10/28/2017 7:02:19 PM PDT by freeandfreezing
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To: rb22982
Pretend this deduction didn't exist today and then rationally argue for it over just cutting the statutory rate.

Simple, a rational tax system might only tax a person's discretionary income, much like a business is only taxed on its actual net income. In such a scenario, a taxpayer would not owe taxes on monies that they were required to pay to third parties, such as taxes, or required insurance premiums, or child support, etc.

The rate is independent of the question of what constitutes taxable income, conflating them is not beneficial to society, but helps politicians in their game.

137 posted on 10/28/2017 7:06:43 PM PDT by freeandfreezing
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To: freeandfreezing

Yes because the banks lobbied for it and got a lot of things deductible. We should have a very low flat tax and no deductions, period. Any time you carve out “special” exemptions and deductions you create an us vs them scenario. You only want it because you benefit from it (as do I). We, as conservatives, have to move beyond what only benefits us and do what is right.


138 posted on 10/28/2017 7:11:41 PM PDT by rb22982
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To: freeandfreezing

Please define discretionary income, in numerical terms. The truth is, you can’t.


139 posted on 10/28/2017 7:12:33 PM PDT by rb22982
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To: editor-surveyor
Eliminating this deduction will turn Trump’s “Tax cut” into a tax increase for all middle class payers.

Absolutely. I claim Single/0 as does my wife. My wife takes out extra taxes to compensate for the "marriage penalty". The SALT deduction amount to about $20,000 annually. It is my only deduction. Absent that deduction, I would be hammered to pay even more taxes to the feds. Property taxes alone are $5,000 of that sum.

My annual sign-up for "benefits" arrived in the mail. For 26 years I have earned 7.68 hours for every 80 hours worked. That amounts to 200 hours of PTO earned for 2080 hours of labor. The "new, uniform policy" will cut that to 160 hours. My employment contract is being violated. The cap on PTO hours has been 480...and I've been locked at 480 for two years while the company neither paid me for hours earned nor credited beyond the "cap". The new "cap" hauls the number down to 400 as well. Lots of unsavory changes coming outside of the tax proposals. Screwing up 401k programs to finance their profligate spending is another knife in the back.

140 posted on 10/28/2017 7:27:35 PM PDT by Myrddin
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