[Rajoo]

Blue states may get their revenge for the GOP tax bill

All those taxpayers in high-tax states or with high property bills can blame President Trump and their GOP members of Congress for their tax headaches. Republicans figured that it would be clever to stick it to blue-state residents who have had the advantage of itemizing (with ample use of the SALT deduction). Never before has such a pointedly partisan tax bill been cooked up to punish people who generally don’t vote for the party in power. Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore, who worked strenuously for the bill, stupidly wisecracked that the bill was “death to Democrats.” (Odd for a scholar from a tax-exempt think tank to extol such base partisanship, isn’t it?). Others noticed as well. (Jonathan Chait remarked, “For eight years, the notion of a gangster government using its power to punish its enemies existed as a lurid persecution fantasy on the right. Now it is being touted as a governing blueprint.”)


But here’s the rub: In addition to congressmen who represent enclaves with an unusually large number of constituents who itemize (like endangered Virginia Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock), there are 14 (three voted against it) Republican House members from California, five (four voted against it) from New Jersey, nine from New York (five voted against it), three from Minnesota, five from Wisconsin and three from Iowa (all are among the highest tax states). Voters might decide to vote each and every one of them out of office. (Even those who voted against it voted for the party leadership that imposed the tax bill. Change the party of the representative, and the majority for the wallet-busting bill disappears.)

It might just be that the partisan design of the tax bill wasn’t clever in the least. To paraphrase Moore, the tax bill might turn out to be “death to the GOP majority.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...=.a3eae665dda7