After Republicans in the Senate passed a Tax Reform bill in the early hours of Saturday, December 2, there was a collective liberal freak out.
I documented some of the hysterics in Liberals react to Senate tax reform vote: America died in darkness (on live TV).
Nancy Pelosi outdid them all in a press conference:
“It is the end of the world. The debate on health care is life/death. This is Armageddon. This is a very big deal.”
Before you write off Pelosi and the other chicken littles, they may be onto something.
Steve Moore, a Trump economic advisor, just threw gasoline on the paranoid fire, as Bloomberg reports, ‘Death to Democrats’: How the GOP Tax Bill Whacks Liberal Tenets:
Some of the biggest losers under the Republican tax overhaul include upper-middle class families in high-tax areas like New York City, graduate students, government workers and public school teachers.The one thing they have in common? They’re mostly Democrats.President Donald Trump and GOP leaders have promised that the two main goals of a tax code revamp are to benefit middle-class families and to slash the corporate tax rate. But paying for those changes has come in large part at the expense of breaks that are important to residents of high-tax states, which tend to be Democratic.Benefits used by universities and graduate students are also on the chopping block. And the repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate to buy insurance — a centerpiece of Democrats’ biggest achievement in a generation — is estimated to generate some $300 billion to pay for tax cuts.“It’s death to Democrats,” said conservative economist Stephen Moore, who advised Trump’s campaign on tax policy.“They go after state and local taxes, which weakens public employee unions. They go after university endowments, and universities have become play pens of the left. And getting rid of the mandate is to eventually dismantle Obamacare,” Moore said in an interview, arguing that it would accelerate “a death spiral” in the health-care law’s marketplaces.
I’m not so sure this is right. I live in high tax blue states (NY and RI), and my use of the Tax Reform calculator showed me mostly close to break even (a little better under the House bill, a little worse under the Senate bill). It certainly wouldn’t be the end of my world. But then again, I’m not high income compared to what people make in places like NYC, and while my real estate taxes are outrageous, they’re nothing like what would be owed in big cities.
And even if I do take a hit, I think the tax reform will be good for the overall economy. So that’s that.
But it does seem to be prevailing wisdom that high income people in high tax (blue) states will pay more. If those people are Democrats, what’s the problem? Don’t Democrats supposedly love paying taxes?
Democrats have themselves to blame, since they sat out negotiations, Bloomberg further reports:
“The people who are going get the most whacked by this are wealthy and upper-middle class people who live in big cities,” said John Feehery, a GOP lobbyist and former communicator for House leadership. “In other words, Democrats.”“I don’t think there’s a conspiracy to go attack Democratic districts. But that’s how the legislative process works — if you’re not going to participate in a game you’re going to lose,” he said. “You need the revenue, and those constituencies are not really being represented because their representatives refused to participate.” ….Conservatives say they hope the change will mean lower state taxes and smaller governments. “One hopefully positive result of this legislation will be that state and local officials will be less eager to jack up the taxes on hard working Americans,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said after the bill passed. He mentioned California, New Jersey and New York explicitly.
So maybe Nancy’s not completely wrong. It may be the end of the world as Democrats know it.
And I feel fine.
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