Tax Reform and SALT

There are, unfortunately, some Republican Congressmen who don’t get it.  One such is Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (R, NY).

I worry about the way this bill erodes the deduction for state and local taxes, which has been in place since 1913.  …  This would compound the already excruciating financial burden that my state’s lawmakers have placed on New Yorkers.

How long the deduction has been in place is only an indication of the age of the error, nothing else.

More importantly, the decision of New York’s politicians to have such a usurious State tax code in no way obligates the rest of us to support the foolishness of SALT. If New York politicians—including Tenney—and those of other high-tax States truly are worried about the fiscal welfare of their citizens, they’d work to reform their State’s tax code and reduce their State’s tax rates and thereby allow their State’s citizens to keep more of their money.

At the Federal level, politicians like Tenney would work to reduce—even eliminate—Federal transfers of the hard-earned funds of one State’s citizens to another State absent a regional or national emergency. New York, for instance, sends more of its citizens’ money to other States than it receives from other States’ citizens; such a reform would seem highly attractive to the State’s politicians.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *