The group Patriotic Millionaires has, to my knowledge, always been a reliable Democratic front. I receive their press releases, and I read their talking points, and I’ve been pretty much convinced for years that they would never say anything that isn’t straight party line.
Until now.
The group has suddenly issued a release pushing back against Speaker Nancy Pelosi for considering, as part of the next coronavirus relief package, restoration of the full state and local tax deduction, known as SALT — a tax break for the rich that Republicans took away in President Trump’s 2017 tax cut bill.
Trump’s tax reform bill capped the SALT deduction, meaning that wealthier residents of high-tax jurisdictions could no longer deduct more than $10,000 of their state and local tax bills on their federal returns. Suddenly, states and local jurisdictions had to be careful about raising taxes because their residents couldn’t just recoup much of it from Uncle Sam. This is likely part of the reason Republicans lost the House in 2018. The SALT cap was especially unkind to upper-middle-class suburbs with high-income residents and high property taxes — precisely the jurisdictions that gave Democrats their current House majority.
In the time since, many Democratic lawmakers have hilariously and hypocritically doubled back in trying to restore the full SALT tax break, after decades (in some cases) of savagely attacking all tax-cutters for supporting “tax cuts for the rich” and “the wealthiest 1%,” etc., ad nauseam.
This has been amusing to watch — one of the major benefits of the Trump era. (Another is that suddenly every liberal wants to start a new Middle Eastern war for a Kurdish homeland. What brave spelunker could hope to plumb the depths of their cynicism?)
But this statement from the Patriotic Millionaires’ chairman, Morris Pearl of Black Rock, is a sign that maybe the far Left will put its foot down and demand a more consistent position against the restoration of SALT:
The only previous mention of SALT that I can find from this group previously was from 2018, criticizing Republicans for capping it, for “voting to raise taxes on their constituents just to make a point.” So, it’s a pretty big shift in rhetoric for them now to accuse pro-SALT Democrats of “prioritizing tax cuts for wealthy taxpayers.”
I’d also note that liberal opposition to restoring the full SALT deduction has been almost nonexistent up to now. In December, it was considered extraordinary that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez voted with Republicans to prevent SALT’s restoration. She couldn’t even get buy-in from Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, or Ilhan Omar, which seemed like a sign that leftist Democrats were more or less united on the issue of restoring tax cuts to wealthy Democrats.
I wonder whether she didn’t put some steel into these guys’ spines and whether this new attack on restoring SALT couldn’t be the start of something bigger.
Conservatives strongly supported capping the SALT deduction at $10,000 to bring down overall tax rates for everyone. In the long run, it will force state and local taxes down or at least put a much-needed curb on their rise. So, I agree with this position. Even so, I can’t help but laugh at Pearl’s attitude, so typical of wealthy leftists. He really thinks he speaks for everyone affected by the SALT cap.
Like Chelsea Clinton, the Patriotic Millionaires can’t bring themselves to care about money because they don’t know anyone who has ever wanted for it.
The SALT cap doesn’t just affect billionaires in their Manhattan penthouses. It also falls on upper-middle-class families in expensive, high-tax suburbs like Westchester County and northern New Jersey, couples doing well, earning perhaps $150,000 to $200,000 per year, but who would definitely be in trouble if they lost a job to the coronavirus. Especially if they are parents, their cost of living is astronomical and their expenses significant. The ludicrous taxes they have been paying might be straining their finances.
So, yeah, “tax cuts for the rich,” even bad ones like SALT, help a lot of pretty ordinary people. Who knew?
But anyway, to see a SALT message like this one, promoted by a group that has always been so closely in lock-step with Democratic leaders, might really be an early sign that SALT will never be restored to its pre-Trump glory.
