I’m with Instapundit and National Review Online: if you’re a Democrat talking tax hikes and you are NOT talking about ending the deduction of state/local taxes from federal returns, then you are simply NOT being serious on fiscal responsibility. Particularly since it’s a tax that mostly avoids the middle class (NRO worked it out as “households in the $200,000-and-up range would pay an average of $5,166 more without the deduction, while those in the $30,000-to-$50,000 range would pay only $70 more”). But, of course, if that happens then a lot of high-tax states – which, shock! Surprise! vote Democratic – are likely to discover that their constituents will suddenly have a remarkably different (and more jaundiced) view over what exactly constitutes a reasonable state/local income tax burden.
Which should not stop the GOP from taking this policy initiative, smiling nicely at the Democrats, and folding said initiative until it’s all corners…
Moe Lane
PS: Actually, I live in a high-tax Blue state. So Democrats don’t even have that excuse for being so regressive about this, the greedy piglets.
