Scrapping State, Local Deductions Will End Left's Tax Infatuation

newsmax ^ | November 30, 2017 | Deroy Murdock

[Oshkalaboomboom]

As the GOP’s tax-cut bill advances through Congress, Republicans should completely scrap the federal deduction on state and local taxes (SALT).

While this reform is not yet enacted, it's already having a positive effect. Liberal Democrats are holstering their magic wands and focusing on the consequences of their lust for high taxes.

"We’ve got to hit the pause button right now," Democrat Steve Sweeney, president of New Jersey’s State Senate told Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto on Nov. 21. "After I had got elected, I had said, 'First thing on the agenda is the millionaires' tax. We gotta get it for school funding.' And then this happened, and it’s like, 'Wait a minute, I gotta take a step back and be more pragmatic and think about what’s best for the state of New Jersey.' You know, 1 percent of people in the state of New Jersey pay about 42 percent of its tax base. And you know, they can leave."

Sweeney seemed chastened, refreshingly cautious, and suddenly aware that hiking levies on those who already pay more than their fair share of taxes is a perfect way to "force people to look to another place" to live and work. And if paying 42 percent of income taxes is not beyond "fair" for the top 1 percent, then what is?

Tax-happy Democrats elsewhere seem similarly concerned.

"The repeal of SALT could force an uncomfortable tax discussion for high-tax states," Politico recently reported. "Should they consider lowering tax rates, to alleviate the additional tax burden that the elimination of the deductions creates? Or keep taxes as they are — and run the risk of losing wealthy residents who might move elsewhere to soften their tax burden?"

[Rome2000]

MDC - Business on Parade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dsf9LeLpd0U

[clintonh8r]

I’m for eliminating the deduction even though I’ll have to take some pain. It’s the right thing to do.

[vortec94]

Include Soc Sec and Medicare and amke it a flat 15% for everybody even welfare chencks and I’m in.

[Secret Agent Man]

Bull. Pucky.

[itsahoot]

Printed, fiat money is the sugar on which this cancer feeds.

It is not just that it is fake money, it is because it comes into circulation interest bearing. That being the case the debt can never be paid off because we will always owe more than there is money in circulation.

[cherry]

its a big mistake...the govt is going to get us by the ankles and string us up to shake every dollar out of us..

these takeaways WILL NEVER EVER COME BACK but your SALT will never go down...

in several yrs when the bill will be revisited, you better bet they'll increase tax rates and put all sorts of stipulations on the standard deductions...

what is wrong with people...

[cherry]

its a heist...no way around it....

[trebb]

Yep - on the flip side, there are a lot of FReepers who think it should stay because they personally benefit - funny how “hard core conservative constitutionalists” will decide it ain’t all that important to try to get back to where the Founders intended....

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Reagan did indeed do away with credit card interest deductions. But he reduced ALL individual tax brackets on average 25%, with the top bracket slashed to 28%. And he did this with DEMOCRAT control of Congress.

Putting caps on SALT and mortgage interest picks winners and losers based on class warfare. We can do better. And should do better with full GOP control of Congress and the White House.

[SkyPilot]

its a big mistake...the govt is going to get us by the ankles and string us up to shake every dollar out of us.. these takeaways WILL NEVER EVER COME BACK but your SALT will never go down... in several yrs when the bill will be revisited, you better bet they'll increase tax rates and put all sorts of stipulations on the standard deductions...

Exactly, yes.

And as Mark Levin so eloquently stated last night on his program, this is not what the GOP ran on, and this "tax cut" bill is not what they promised they would do. I would include Trump in that basket, because he was the one promising middle class tax relief for ALL middle class - FIRST. Instead, the corporations are raping the rest of us by having us "pay for" their massive tax cuts.

what is wrong with people...

Now that is the question.

Here is what I believe is going on with people who are buying into this travesty. There are several factors, and I'll list them.

1. Some are looking only to the Stock Market as the source of wealth and endless prosperity. The markets are acting like a drunk at the roulette table with a cocktail waitress on each arm.

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-reform-bill-driving-stock-market-crazy-2017-11

The prospect of companies using the money to buy back their own stock instead of pay taxes (that the rest of us have to pick up) is making them giddy. I don't believe most companies will "reinvest" and make wages better for the average family. I believe that this Zerohedge article nailed it - - they are going to simply buy back their own stock and line their own pockets. When and if the markets finally meet fiscal reality, there will be blood on the walls.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-15/moment-gary-cohn-realized-his-entire-economic-policy-disaster

2. People are using these "tax calculators" and looking at how much they will pay less if the factors are favorable to them, and have determined (correctly) that high tax states, those who use many deductions such as medical expenses, mortgage deduction, etc. are going to get soaked and pick up the tab for them. This bill picks winners and losers. But the short term gain is going to massacre the GOP politically. People bought homes and built lives based on deductions and economic assumptions that the GOPe is going to wipe off the map today in the Senate with one lousy vote. The Democrats are going to be able destroy the Trump middle class and forgotten person voting block, not only in 2018, but for years to come. The campaign commercials will write themselves, and this time the Democrats don't even have to lie. The GOPe cared about the donors, not the middle class. There is also a tremendous amount of geographic hatred among some here (and in the GOP) for certain states. Bigotry is an applicable word. They don't care who gets hurt - and long as they cynically believe they are somehow superior and someone else picks up the tab for their tax cut.

3. A feeling that Trump must be followed blindly, no matter what. Because Trump wants a "victory", people are willing to give him one, no matter what it is. This is wrongheaded and stupid on so many levels. There is a messianic bent to this, and it is fruitless to try to convince those who cannot see the forest for the trees. I love Trump, but he is wrong on this. He campaigned to help the middle class, and he is abandoning millions of us. Obama didn't even raise our taxes this way. Further, Trump has turned over the steering wheel for this runaway tax bill car to horrible people: Mnuchin and Cohen are Goldman Sachs snake oil salesmen who are paying off their Billionaire friends. Ryan and McConnell are vermin who cannot be trusted with walking your dog. Put it all together, and it is the perfect storm of betrayal for millions of conservatives who are going to get hurt by this bill.

It will pass the Senate today. There will be huge "fix" that pull the wool over everyone's eyes and the GOPe will sell it everyone like a cheap yard sale.

This entire process was never about the "forgotten men and women" that Trump promised it would be. Instead, the entire tax bill had one central structure: massive cuts for the corporations and make middle and upper middle class taxpayers pay for it by capping or destroying almost every deduction they have.

[grey_whiskers]

If Iran were to simultaneously nuke Brussels, Basel, and David, it’d accomplish much the same thing.

[BobL]

Your first paragraph is correct, Reagan did cut back all tax brackets.

But no, Reagan did ‘pick winners and losers’, since he also started the idea of capping deductions:

“One important footnote: While the 1986 reform supposedly had just two rates—15% and 28%—the benefit of the 15% rate and then of the personal exemptions were phased out sequentially, producing a 33% marginal rate for the upper middle class.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2012/10/22/10-reasons-reagan-could-cut-the-top-tax-rate-to-28-but-romney-cant/#245bbc2a4c1d

Like I said early, if rich people want Trump’s support, they can start by treating him with some RESPECT. Trump doesn’t owe them jack, and I’m more than happy to see them having to spend their money in taxes, rather than giving it to Democrat superpacs.

[Scotswife]

No one ran on a message of eliminating personal/dependent exemptions or helpful deductions.

They promised huge tax cuts - “relief” - Christmas presents!

Meanwhile - we’ve already begun our automatic “cuts” in household spending in anticipation of what this crap sandwich is about to do to our take home pay after withholding.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

> Like I said early, if rich people want Trump’s support, they can start by treating him with some RESPECT. <

Good grief. I’m arguing for logical and fair tax policy - not respect for Donald Trump. Not a single candidate in 2016 ran on eliminating or capping deductions on SALT, mortgage interest, or long-term medical care. They ran on reducing/reforming the federal tax burden on all of us.

My daughter in CA is married with two small children. The median home value in her market is $780K. THEY ARE NOT “RICH”. But she will get clobbered by this GOP tax plan - a plan that DISRESPECTS her and her husbands hard work building a family.

[Scotswife]

The increase in CTC does not offset the elimination of the dependent exemption in the 25% bracket.
When you are talking about eliminating the dependent exemption for children older than 17 - it is especially harmful. (details on who qualifies still seem to be in flux re: which children qualify)
This appears to be a crap sandwich for my large family.
Too many kids - wrong tax bracket

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Yep, I’m surprised Chuck & Nancy aren’t co-sponsors of this crap sandwich.

[Scotswife]

Punish larger families - eliminate the adoption credit.
I thought democrats were supposed to be the party that dislikes kids right?

[SkyPilot]

Post #74 - amen.

[Architect of Avalon]

Scrapping SALT deductions rips hard-earned cash out of working people’s pockets and stuffs it into the corrupt coffers of the federal government.

It also damages the coalition that Bannon and Trump put together, endangering Republican control of Congress.

SALT deductions should be left alone, and the standard deduction should be increased to $24,000 per person.

[Architect of Avalon]

When Congress talks about Christmas presents, they mean for themselves and for their sycophantic corporate cronies, not for hard-working people.