Dem. Govs Outraged as Trump Tax Law Gives Them Taste of Their Own Medicine
Before the ink was even dry on the great Trump tax cuts of 2017, Democrat governors’ cheeks were wet with blue state tears.
No more would the tax code allow high-tax states like New York and California force the rest of the country to subsidize their free-spending ways by letting residents write off their state and local taxes on federal tax returns.
Deep blue states love to boast about their enlightened social policies, of course, but rarely mentioned that they were paid for by wealthy residents who avoided paying federal taxes because they were already being bled by their local and state authorities.
Democrats have spent far too much time in power in post-war America writing tax policies as they see fit. But now that a united Republican Party managed to pass a long-needed tax reform bill, the bleeding is going to have to stop.
And the blood-suckers in Albany, Sacramento and other Democrat-run workers’ paradises aren’t happy about getting a taste of their own medicine.
Last week, Govs. Mario Cuomo of New York, Daniel Malloy of Connecticut and Jim Murphy of New Jersey – all Democrats – announced a plan to sue the federal government to challenge the law in court, according to The Washington Post.
“The new federal tax law destroyed a century-old tax structure between the federal government and the states,” Cuomo wrote in a Twitter post. “New York will sue.”
The new federal tax law destroyed a century-old tax structure between the federal government and the states.
New York will sue.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 26, 2018
Oh, please.
The day Democrats at any level start proclaiming the independence of state governments from their all-powerful federal leviathan is the day Americans know to keep their hands on their wallets.
The fact of the matter is, the Republican tax reform plan, which passed without a single Democrat vote, is essentially putting the power of taxation – and the responsibility for it – back where it belongs, as close to the people as possible.
When residents of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey – not to mention California and other Democrat havens – start paying state and local taxes without the buffer of being able to write them off on their federal taxes, they’re going to have much bigger questions about where all that money collected by their state government is going.
There’s no way to tell for sure, of course, but it’s a pretty good bet that a fair percentage are going to start wondering just what’s so great about building a huge “safety net” for illegal aliens who shouldn’t even be in the country in the first place.
They might start thinking about all the money that’s being spent on public education systems run by liberals that are turning out functionally illiterate high school graduates.
They might even think there’s a better way to spend money than funneling it to Sacramento, or Trenton, or Beacon Hill, or Albany or whatever other Democrat den of iniquity might be governing their state – once the sticker shock of how much they’re actually paying starts to sink in.
Of course, that’s what Democrat elected officials have been afraid of since even before the Republican tax cut bill passed.
It’s why, as Business Insider pointed out in late December, Cuomo and Co. started out immediately contriving one scheme after another to let their well-heeled, liberal-unless-it-hurts constituents avoid the consequences of the tax reform.
And it’s why they hate it now, even as the tax reform’s benefits are becoming apparent almost immediately, whether through Apple’s announcement that it plans to invest $350 billion in the U.S. over the next five years, or other companies announcing pay hikes and bonuses, and foreign companies announcing plans to expand their U.S. presence because of the tax cuts.
Democrats hate the Republican tax cuts because they’re proving already what every conservative knows to be true: Taxes are inevitable, of course, but they need to be as low as possible at all times.
And even more importantly, the responsibility for the taxation should be clear to the taxpayers.
The GOP tax bill does both, by cutting taxes at the federal level, and making state and local governments more responsible for the taxes they impose on their citizens.
Raj Shah, principal deputy White House press secretary, summed up the reaction of the White House to the blue states’ lawsuit perfectly:
“This is a ridiculous, meritless publicity stunt by governors trying to blame the president for their high taxes and anti-growth policies,” he told The Washington Post.
The Democrat governors and lawmakers involved already know this is true. Pretty soon, their constituents are going to know it too.
And then they’ll really have something to cry about.
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