Repealing SALT

John Tamny, FreedomWorks’ Center for Economic Freedom Director, wants the SALT deduction cap repealed, and he thinks all Republicans should agree with him.

Among the several Tamny rationalizations for why Republicans should leap at the chance to repeal SALT is this gem.

Repealing the SALT cap might not restore that vision [convolutedly, of limited government], but it would direct money away from Washington and toward states and localities.

No. A better way, the only truly effective way and the only legitimate way, to direct money away from Washington and toward states and localities is to end altogether the interstate transfer of taxpayer monies.

The money us citizens allocate to our various government jurisdictional levels are best left within those jurisdictions entirely. Taxes allocated to our central government should be exclusively for the Constitutional purposes of paying the national debt, funding a defense establishment adequate to defeating external threats, and seeing to our nation’s general Welfare as enumerated in Art I, Sect 8. Those taxes allocated to our respective States and lower jurisdictions are best left within those jurisdictions, subject to the requirements and specifications the citizens of each State set for their State.

The only legitimate interstate transfer of tax dollars is in response to a declaration of a regional or national emergency.

Fair Share

CPA Jay Starkman asked a question in his Wednesday Wall Street Journal op-ed. His piece centered on the President Joe Biden (D) tax hikes and expansions. Starkman noted that as recently as 2018—after the Trump tax cuts—the top 5% of American taxpayers still paid 60.3% of all the income taxes paid that year while the bottom 50% paid just 3% of the total.

Thus, his question:

How much higher than 60% will satisfy calls for the rich to pay their “fair share”?

With the Progressive-Democrats’ refusal to say what a “fair share” is, or who should pay it other than their carefully nebulous “the rich”, the answer to the question is obvious: all of it.

As that hero of the Progressive-Democratic Party, John Nance Garner said: We have got to confiscate wealth.

Bipartisan Negotiations Progressive-Democratic Party Style

There is a bipartisan group of Senators who are close to agreement on a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill. Set aside, for the moment, whether the bill is good or bad. Consider, first, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D, NY) and his Socialist colleague Bernie Sanders’ (I, VT) position and planned move regarding that bill.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders have started the process of adding elements of Biden’s agenda to a large-scale budget reconciliation bill, regardless of the outcome of ongoing bipartisan negotiations on infrastructure.
Schumer has said the reconciliation bill will include the parts of Biden’s $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan and $1.8 trillion American Families Plan that are not included in a potential bipartisan agreement on infrastructure spending.

The bipartisan negotiation is a sham, a decoy, an attempt at a shiny object. The Progressive-Democrats in that group are fully aware of this, and they’re enthusiastic participants in the distraction.

This is what Republicans and Conservatives have to deal with.

An Expanded Child Tax Credit?

The current law providing for a child tax credit requires those children to have Social Security Numbers in order for their parents to be able to claim the credit.

Saira Soto, a Deputy Executive Director for Children’s Defense Fund California, wants immigrant children who lack Social Security numbers also to qualify their parents for the credit.

In order to ensure a fair and just system that helps grow and boost our economy, and one that supports our children, immigrant families must be included.

Of course, immigrant families already are included in the present form of the child tax credit. It’s illegal alien families and non-citizen families in our nation legally who are not.

Soto knows this full well; her demand is an illustration of the dishonesty of the Left’s Free Stuff for Everyone movement.

You Didn’t Build That

The Progressive-Democrats are continuing their attack on American citizens being successful. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) has populated her Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth.

The past several decades have shown with devastating clarity the marked imbalance between the financial fortunes of CEOs and workers….

Never mind that the last four years before the present Progressive-Democrat-run administration and Congress has seen a marked decrease in the disparity in the financial fortunes of CEOs and workers, as workers got bigger pay raises, in per centage terms, than have the CEOs, significantly closing the gap. Never mind, either, that that decrease in the financial fortunes gap also has been markedly potentiated by the historic lows in minority and women unemployment as those especially on the bottom rungs of our economic—financial fortune—ladder saw marked increases in their wages: they got actual jobs, they became workers.

Pelosi went on:

The devaluing of work has had a negative impact on consumer confidence, job creation and economic growth….

Never mind that the only ones devaluing work, and through that negatively impacting consumer confidence, are Progressive-Democrats with their government (not economic) policy of paying people not to work. Never mind, either, that Job creation has been so anemic under this Progressive-Democrat government that there are millions more jobs available than there are workers willing to take them—especially in the low-skill milieus—because Progressive-Democrats insist on paying those least fortunate to not work, to continue being the least fortunate.

Pelosi’s wonderful select committee? It’s chaired by Congressman Jim Himes (D, CT) and populated with Progressive-Democrats like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D, NY), Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D, WA), Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D, OH), Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D, WI), Congressman Vicente González (D,TX), Congresswoman Angie Craig (D, MN), and Congresswoman Sara Jacobs (D, CA).

It’s hard to find farther left members, even for the Progressive-Democratic Party.

Pelosi to Americans: you didn’t build that. You’re not going to, either, without Government.