Democrats are all for soaking the rich to pay for radical and leftist agendas and policies; unless, of course, it’s rich Democrats who are getting soaked.
That becomes a different story entirely, as evidenced by House Democrat’s latest scheme to expand the SALT cap, essentially providing a massive tax break for their rich cronies living in high-tax, mostly blue-leaning states.
The state and local tax (SALT) deduction allows taxes paid to state and local governments to be deducted against Federal income taxes. That deduction was capped in 2017 under President Trump and Republicans – you know, those evil deplorables who only care about rich folk – to $10,000 per year.
In a move typifying Democrat hypocrisy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leftist pals are now trying to lift the annual SALT deduction cap to $72,500 through 2031.
The Wall Street Journal called it “a giant political payoff to House Democrats from New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California so they vote for the Sanders-Pelosi $4 trillion tax and spending bill.”
Desperate to ram through their massive social spending spree, Democrats are trying to sneak through a pinch of SALT so nobody will notice their inherent insincerity.
“Democrats didn’t want to let this embarrassment rot in the sun for too long, so they kept SALT out of the House Ways and Means tax measure,” the WSJ said. “Instead, they’ve now stuffed it into the reconciliation bill at the last minute, literally hours before a vote, with no press conference or fanfare, much less debate.”
Because their shamelessness knows no bounds, Democrats try to argue that expanding the SALT cap is actually a move to help lessen the impact of the pandemic on the disenfranchised. This is nonsense, of course, as noted by Brookings.
“It is the most affluent who are hit by the cap—and they are not, in general, in the front lines when it comes to COVID-19,” reported Brookings, not exactly a gaggle of staunch partisan conservatives.
“In fact, the richest neighborhoods of New York emptied out as the pandemic hit,” Brookings continued. “This is a tax cut for people with secure jobs and excellent health insurance, working from expensive homes.”
Pelosi and her Democrat cohorts know this; they just don’t care.
“The Democrats are the party of elite billionaires,” said Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado. “Republicans stand with middle class families.”
Anybody argues differently … tell them to pound salt.
