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left wing journalists like taibbi who are willing to criticize today's Dems are scarce as hen teeth.
Quote:
Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey, made an inspired plea recently. The Harvard man and Alpha Epsilon Pi brother is a member of the so-called “SALT caucus,” a group of congressfolk threatening to hold up Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill if it doesn’t include a full repeal of a Donald Trump-imposed $10,000 cap on deductions of state and local taxes.
“It is high time that Congress reinstates the state and local tax deduction, so we can get more dollars back into the pockets of so many struggling families,” intoned Gottheimer, one of 32 members of the SALT caucus, which includes 8 Republicans.
I had not heard of The National Post before, surprised to see it is Canadian.
Quote:
There are legitimate reasons to be in favor of restoring the full deduction, but instead of talking about them, Democratic leaders and pundits have mostly been trying to sell the public on an absurd lie: that a tax break for which only 1 in 10 Americans even qualifies, and overwhelmingly benefits those in the highest-earning percentile, is a “middle-class” benefit. No one seems to mind that this is the same take Democrats blasted when used by Republicans to argue for the Bush tax cuts or the repeal of the estate tax.
Yep, Schumer and the other usual suspects started squealing immediately about "working class" families that are now "struggling" when Trump pushed through the SaLT cap.
My own take on SaLT caps is that they should be set to $0, not as high as $10,000.
Let local cities/states make their own decisions and pay their own way. The rest of us should not have to subsidize local tax schemes, as we do not get the benefits.
The fact that Trump's SaLT cap in 2017 irritated mostly wealthy blue coastal types was just a little delicious icing (made from liberal tears) on a practical and fair policy.
Last edited by snebarekim; 05-01-2021 at 08:03 AM..
This is probably the most important paragraph in the article:
Quote:
There are legitimate reasons to be in favor of restoring the full deduction, but instead of talking about them, Democratic leaders and pundits have mostly been trying to sell the public on an absurd lie: that a tax break for which only 1 in 10 Americans even qualifies, and overwhelmingly benefits those in the highest-earning percentile, is a “middle-class” benefit. No one seems to mind that this is the same take Democrats blasted when used by Republicans to argue for the Bush tax cuts or the repeal of the estate tax.
This SALT tax cap has both liberals AND republicans arguing against their core values, because in this particular instance, their core values are harmful to their own constituents. But it shows a complete lack of consistency on both of their parts.
As the article states, there are legitimate reasons to remove the cap. Reasons that align with conservative core values. Conservatives believe that the money you earn is YOUR money.
They believe that charitable donations should not be taxed. Why? Because the giver is diverting some of his income to a worthy cause. In essence, part of his work day is donated to that worthy cause rather than himself, so why should he/she be taxed on work that he is doing for charity rather than himself? That makes sense to most conservatives, doesn't it.
Conservatives also believe that if the federal government is taking 35% of someones paycheck, that means that one out of every 3 days a person works, he is working for the government, not for himself. If, as a conservative, you believe that the money you earn should be YOUR money, then this is a reasonable belief.
So likewise, if your state is taking $100k out of your paycheck, then that is not truly your money. So for the federal government to tax that $100k, which is money that the worker never sees as income, then the federal government it taxing people on money that is not their own. Just as if they taxed them on $100K that was donated to charity.
Does a conservative really want the federal government to tax people on money that was taken from them, to be redistributed to other people? That doesn't sound like true conservative core values to me.
Last edited by AnesthesiaMD; 05-01-2021 at 08:15 AM..
I agree. Don’t reinstate salt, raise the estate tax, raise the corporate tax rate, close all loopholes rich people use to lower their taxes, lift the social security and Medicare tax cap, raise the top rates to tax the rich even more.
This is probably the most important paragraph in the article:
This SALT tax cap has both liberals AND republicans arguing against their core values, because in this particular instance, their core values are harmful to their own constituents. But it shows a complete lack of consistency on both of their parts.
As the article states, there are legitimate reasons to remove the cap. Reasons that align with conservative core values. Conservatives believe that the money you earn is YOUR money.
They believe that charitable donations should not be taxed. Why? Because the giver is diverting some of his income to a worthy cause. In essence, part of his work day is donated to that worthy cause rather than himself, so why should he/she be taxed on work that he is doing for charity rather than himself? That makes sense to most conservatives, doesn't it.
Conservatives also believe that if the federal government is taking 35% of someones paycheck, that means that one out of every 3 days a person works, he is working for the government, not for himself. If, as a conservative, you believe that the money you earn should be YOUR money, then this is a reasonable belief.
So likewise, if your state is taking $100k out of your paycheck, then that is not truly your money. So for the federal government to tax that $100k, which is money that the worker never sees as income, then the federal government it taxing people on money that is not their own. Just as if they taxed them on $100K that was donated to charity.
Does a conservative really want the federal government to tax people on money that was taken from them, to be redistributed to other people? That doesn't sound like true conservative core values to me.
Meh.
Its a conflict of interests at best. Taxed on money you no longer control, or subsidize areas making decisions that you do not (cannot) benefit from.
Local entities rely on the subsidy specifically so they can raise local taxes (often heavily). They loudly proclaim this themselves! The local tax payers do not mind being the sole beneficiaries of the local taxes. Me? I dont like having my fed taxes I have to pay subsidizing inflated pensions on Long Island, especially in very wealthy areas. I dont live there, but where is my cut? Every dollar written off due to SaLT offsets has to be made up by the fed taxpayer. Unless the argument is we just go down this deficit spending hole even deeper............
The 10K limit that Trump had settled on seems a compromise perhaps, allowing the lower income (90+% of America) some relief on it.
If the double taxation issue bothers "true conservatives" then they can make the argument that the local area gives the tax break on the income already taxed by the fed govt.
Last edited by snebarekim; 05-01-2021 at 11:18 AM..
I agree. Don’t reinstate salt, raise the estate tax, raise the corporate tax rate, close all loopholes rich people use to lower their taxes, lift the social security and Medicare tax cap, raise the top rates to tax the rich even more.
Don't you use the same rules (you call them loopholes) to reduce your taxes ?
We have 1 set of rules for individuals.
In an editorial published this week, the New York Times correctly notes that Democrats’ defense of the SALT deduction contradicts the party’s pledge to make wealthy people pay their fair share, since SALT deductions primarily benefit the rich. In fact, the top 1% of earners in the United States would receive 54% of the benefits of the change, and the top 20% of earners would receive 96% of the benefits, the editorial board argued.
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