National Review Editors Urge Congress to Keep SALT Cap | Eastern North Carolina Now

Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Mitch Kokai.

    Editors at National Review Online explain why Democrats in Congress should drop one of their bad ideas.

  • Liberal Democrats have found a tax cut for the rich they love. Some of them wanted it included in the "COVID relief" legislation passed last month. Now they want it in the "infrastructure" bill Congress is considering. Never mind that it has little rational relation to either topic.
  • Since the Republican tax reform of 2017, the federal government has allowed taxpayers to deduct $10,000 of their state and local tax payments from their federal taxes. What the Democrats now seek is a restoration of the unlimited tax deduction that had previously been in place. Only the highest earners hit that cap, so getting rid of it would directly benefit only them. The Tax Foundation estimates that lifting the cap would raise the after-tax incomes of the bottom-earning 40 percent of households by nothing. People in the middle of the income distribution would see an average increase of 0.01 percent. People in the top 1 percent, on the other hand, would receive a 2.8 percent increase. Another analysis, from the Tax Policy Center, found that the top 20 percent of taxpayers would receive 96 percent of the benefit of repealing the cap.
  • A tax cut with that distributional impact would normally outrage progressives, but could be worth supporting if strong considerations of economic growth or justice weighed in favor. They are, however, absent here. The Democratic enthusiasm for this tax cut has two sources. It disproportionately benefits not just high earners but high earners in high-tax, which is to say liberal and Democratic-run, jurisdictions: the kind of people who fund Democratic campaigns everywhere. It also makes it easier for state and local governments to maintain high levels of taxation: Taxpayers in other parts of the country pick up some of their burden. Public-sector unions are, for that reason, also enthusiastic about the deduction.

Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




Georgia Voting Law Shows Division Between GOP, Big Business John Locke Foundation Guest Editorial, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics Biden makes his move against guns


HbAD0

Latest Op-Ed & Politics

Barr had previously said he would jump off a bridge before supporting Trump
illegal alien "asylum seeker" migrants are a crime wave on both sides of the Atlantic
Decision is a win for election integrity. NC should do the same.
Biden regime intends to force public school compliance as well as colleges

HbAD1

prosecutors appeal acquittal of member of parliament in lower court for posting Bible verse
Biden abuses power to turn statute on its head; womens groups to sue
The Missouri Senate approved a constitutional amendment to ban non-U.S. citizens from voting and also ban ranked-choice voting.
Democrats prosecuting political opponets just like foreign dictrators do
populist / nationalist / sovereigntist right are kingmakers for new government
18 year old boy who thinks he is girl planned to shoot up elementary school in Maryland
Biden assault on democracy continues to build as he ramps up dictatorship

HbAD2

One would think that the former Attorney General would have known better
UNC board committee votes unanimously to end DEI in UNC system
Police in the nation’s capital are not stopping illegal aliens who are driving around without license plates, according to a new report.
Davidaon County student suspended for using correct legal term for those in country illegally
Lawmakers and privacy experts on both sides of the political spectrum are sounding the alarm on a provision in a spy powers reform bill that one senator described as one of the “most terrifying expansions of government surveillance” in history
given to illegals in Mexico before they even get to US: NGOs connected to Mayorkas
committee gets enough valid signatures to force vote on removing Oakland, CA's Soros DA

HbAD3

 
Back to Top