Speaker Pelosi says she would like to see another coronavirus stimulus bill. Drum roll please… she wants to include provisions handing millions of dollars to the super-wealthy. Are you enthused yet?
Trashing Trump’s tax cut… retroactively no less
So how does she want to accomplish the goal? She told the New York Times she would like to “retroactively undo SALT”. Salt is part of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Are you ready to give back your tax cut retroactively? No? I didn’t think so…
SALT capped the federal deductibility of state and local taxes at $10,000. Pelosi’s proposed “undoing” would apply retroactively. As she describes it the measure would be tailored to focus on middle-class earners. Now I had thought we were all Americans.
Nobody knows what middle class means. Is it the old Marxist bourgeois? What are the top and bottom ends of the bourgeois scale? How many of you middle-class earners are paying over $10,000 in state and local taxes? Not a lot.
The political game
What this actually does is give states with high taxes a break at the expense of the rest of us. See, Democratic strongholds like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California benefit. This is a subsidy for Pelosi’s friends. Pelosi’s push for SALT repeal is another abuse of coronavirus crisis by the Socialists.
They want to pay their special interests with your money. Worse yet, they are pushing long-standing policy goals, not measures to control or end the coronavirus. They are using the “crisis” for political advantage. It is an odious tactic.
This change would give millions in tax dollars back to the ultra-wealthy. Dollars that we do not have by the way. We are operating the government at a deficit. We are borrowing to make ends meet instead of holding ourselves to either spend what we take in or raising taxes.
Pelosi is proposing we borrow money from the Chinese, Russians, and Iranians to give to the richest among us. That is Democrat policy. It is as wrong as it can get.
Should we see how the stimulus works before doing more?
Should there be another $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus? No, certainly not at this point. We need to see if what was done is sufficient. Maybe there will be other necessary things. If we knew what they might be they would have been included in the just-passed bill.
So, let’s determine the need before throwing money after things that are not coronavirus related. Removing the SALT cap almost exclusively benefits those least in need. And it is undertaken when we can least afford it. It panders to political donors in Leftist states.
There is some policy disagreement on the merits of the SALT deduction. However, there isn’t a single tax expert who would defend removing the current cap. There are even fewer who would do so retroactively. That simply isn’t a well-reasoned stimulus measure. The action, if undertaken, is almost the exact opposite of what Congress just did with the rebates it passed.
This action does not provide relief to the bottom 85% of Americans. This proposal showers almost all the benefits on the top 15% of taxpayers, those who need it least. It penalizes the poor to advantage the rich. But that’s the Democrat way. Do you really think Big Tech backs Democrats without getting something for their efforts and money? Not freaking likely.
How much money are we talking about here?
Data from the Joint Committee on Taxation quantifies the disparity. The committee estimates those making $50,000 per year or less would see no effect on their tax bill. Nothing for you or me. Those making $200,000 to $500,000 would see a reduction of $177 on average. Those making $1 million or more would experience a savings of $58,636 on average. That’s fair, right? It’s a Nancy deal… It’s Nancy progressive and really fair… This is Democrat justice.
This disparity is why Republicans pushed the SALT cap in the 2017 TCJA. High-earning households have much larger state and local tax bills. They necessarily enjoy a larger SALT credit. They are also much more likely to itemize deductions. Only about 13% of all taxpayers itemize. Among the top 1%, 9 in 10 itemize.
To make matters worse, not only would the wealthy would benefit from SALT cap repeal… But, federal revenues would take a major hit. The Tax Policy Center estimates repealing in 2018 would have cost the federal government $620 billion of tax revenue over the following 10 years.
Values and principles… Democrats don’t have any
Last week Pelosi was all about radical amendments to the relief bill for the socialists. This week she is trying paying off the wealthy suburbs. Life for Pelosi is a female puppy. Because she has no values, no principles, she has become completely random in her actions. That’s what passes for Democrat today.
Pelosi delayed passage of the coronavirus stimulus. She was pushing a 1,400-page bill. It was full of diversity mandates and targeted subsidies without addressing the coronavirus. Democrats are following her lead. Patty Murray and Rosa DeLauro used the cover of the disease to reintroduce paid sick leave. It is the same bill they have been floating since 2004. It had nothing to do with coronavirus in 2004 and nothing to do with it in 2020.
Will you and I get more progressive taxes by Nancy? Guess we better ask Shaheen, Hassan, Pappas, and Kuster. Let’s give them a call and ask why they support raising our taxes? Why should the people of New Hampshire pay more to support rich people in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California? Why is that fair?