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The End of the Federal Tax Subsidy for Blue States

notquiteright said:
I did my research- federal mandates provide what the red states either can't or refuse to fund. Things like WIC, SNAP,STAMP, Medicare and Medicaid.

Now show me where I said cut off funding to my state (I live in a very red state)??? You are moving the discussion. (FYI my state is doing exactly what you lament- cutting spending on schools, roads, safety, medicare and LOSING the federal funding.) Our road system is running out of money and the federal money has all but dried up. Our rural roads will suffer. Our local governments (below state level) are increasing taxes/bonds because our foolish regressive state government has cut it's tax base past the bone. Our school system loses teachers every year because we don't pay a decent wage- and that compares to the rest of the nation.

I don't promote class warfare- the idea of attacking blue states through the federal tax system is political warfare. I don't envy the blue state wealthy- I'd say the red state promoters do. I don't support bigger federal government- this capping the tax deduction will GROW the federal government... :roll:

I'd say the foolish one is the one who uses the topic to vent the usual red bait red state ranting points... :peace
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So you are now an expert on what red states refuse to fund? That is liberal arrogance that you are now going to pay for and well deserved. you simply have no idea what taxes you pay or what they fund. Federal Tax dollars only go to Inter-state highways not state and local highways and those come from excise taxes you pay at the pump.

Please stop with the leftwing bs and find out what taxes you pay, what they fund and the difference between federal, state, and local taxes. It isn't the federal taxpayers responsibility to pay for your schools, police, fire departments, etc which you would learn in basic civics. You don't like what your state govt. is doing change it but don't expect federal tax dollars to fund what you cannot do in your own state.
 
Jack Hays said:
You are avoiding your fair share of the federal burden by keeping more for yourself, and asking others to make up the difference.
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Are you intentionally being intellectually dishonest? If I was paying in a dollar and getting back 60 cents in spending while you were paying in a dollar and getting back 1.50 in spending, how was I avoiding paying my fair share?

For once in your tens of thousands of posts on here, can you not admit that your original post was using a flawed argument?
 
ludin said:
the liberal left should be applauding the fact that more of their money is going to the government. I mean after all that is what they constantly push for.
now they get the chance to put their money where their mouth is they are howling.

the leftist hypocrisy continues.
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So its hypocrisy for the left because there is even a bigger wealth transfer now? You don't see any hypocrisy on the right with that one? My entire life I have heard right wingers rail against wealth transfers.
 
Jack Hays said:
Then Oklahoma should stop subsidizing New York, et al.
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As usual, you have things backwards.

"An Associated Press Fact Check finds it’s actually the other way around. High-tax, traditionally Democratic states (blue), subsidize low-tax, traditionally Republican states (red) — in a big way...

In fact, most high-tax states send more money to Washington than they get back in federal spending. Most low-tax states make a profit from the federal government’s system of taxing and spending."

https://www.apnews.com/2f83c72de1bd440d92cdbc0d3b6bc08c

This has been the case for decades, and widely known. So when did you fall off the cabbage wagon?


"...when President Barack Obama briefly had a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate. Did he use it to shift spending away from red states? Hardly. His signature accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act, was most generous to poorer states, where more people lacked insurance — that is, red states."

"Yet major efforts by a dominant party to significantly redistribute resources toward states that support it are in fact extremely rare.... A new spoils system based on state partisanship wouldn’t just poison our politics. It could also cripple our economic future..."


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/opinion/tax-plan-states-gop.html

Vampire politics.
 
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Jack Hays said:
It's a matter of fairness. Wealthy individuals in richer states should not be able to avoid paying their share of federal taxes at the expense of the less wealthy in poorer states.
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It's a matter of political infighting as your OP points out the democratic coalition faces a bit of a quandary... :roll:

They are paying their share, the Republicans want to cap a deduction only for the wealthy in blue states (again as your piece pointed out) to prop up the failed fiscal policies of red states. I live in one of those red states- we don't lack for paths to federal funding, we lack common sense in out state house. Instead of passing a balanced budget our august group passed a law declaring the 10 commandments an historical document just like the magna carta (which no one has attempted to place on government owned ground)

Interesting pov, now would you be for ending the caps on social security- currently the very wealthy are protected once a certain level of income is reached.

How about removing the mortgage deduction on homes worth over 1 million- surely the wealthy can afford that?

It makes as much sense and seems to promote both class warfare and prop up failed red states... :peace
 
Jack Hays said:
It is progressive and enlightened for the better-off to pay more to help the less-well-off. As pointed out in the OP article, blue states possess a disproportionate share of wealth.
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Except when it is positioned as a "bleed the beast" rationale. Then the beast has every right to sour the milk to force the parasite off its tit.
As to your fantasy that red states are subsidizing blue states, you are suffering from a cranial-rectal inversion.
You should either get help for that or get a glass belly button so that you can see where you're going.

yxyv6.jpg
 
Jack Hays said:
Sometimes good government can also be good politics. It may be that the most important provision of the recent tax cut was the cap on deductions for state and local taxes. This ends the federal tax subsidy for high tax blue states and localities. It also poses some difficult strategic problems for the Democrats' coalition.





Democrats are about to have to pay up


Before the ink was dry on our new tax bill, outraged blue states were screaming about the cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes. Their governments were also frantically seeking ways around it, and small wonder. For decades, high-tax states with a lot of wealthy residents enjoyed a hefty subsidy from the rest of America. Legislators were understandably panicked over what voters might do when handed the rest of the bill.
That panic generated some desperate ideas. The most popular, currently, is allowing people to convert tax payments above the $10,000 cap into a “charitable donation.” New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have already passed laws to allow this.
While charmingly innovative, this approach is likely to fall afoul of tax courts, as will the other proposed tactics. Blue-state taxpayers may finally have to confront the full cost of the government they want. And Democrats will finally have to confront the tension between what those voters want government to do and what they’re willing to pay for. . . .


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LOL So good Government consists of subsidizing Red States with the Tax $ of Blue States? The so called "high tax States send more $ to Washington so they must be penalized? It seems to me that we need to stop the mooching of the low tax States if we want good government. It is apparent that we are enabling their low taxes by subsidizing their budgets with money from States that pay their own way. Let's get rid of the "welfare" States benefits that exceed their contributions.
It is true that taxpayers in high-tax states benefit the most from the deduction. However, these states send far more tax dollars to Washington than residents in low-tax states.
In fact, most high-tax states send more money to Washington than they get back in federal spending. Most low-tax states make a profit from the federal government’s system of taxing and spending.

THE FACTS:
Connecticut residents paid an average of $15,643 per person in federal taxes in 2015, according to a report by the Rockefeller Institute of Government. Massachusetts paid $13,582 per person, New Jersey paid $13,137 and New York paid $12,820.
California residents paid an average of $10,510.
At the other end, Mississippi residents paid an average of $5,740 per person, while West Virginia paid $6,349, Kentucky paid $6,626 and South Carolina paid $6,665.

Low-tax red states also fare better when you take into account federal spending.
Mississippi received $2.13 for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington in 2015, according to the Rockefeller study. West Virginia received $2.07, Kentucky got $1.90 and South Carolina got $1.71.
Meanwhile, New Jersey received 74 cents in federal spending for tax every dollar the state sent to Washington. New York received 81 cents, Connecticut received 82 cents and Massachusetts received 83 cents.
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https://www.apnews.com/2f83c72de1bd440d92cdbc0d3b6bc08c
 
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Jack Hays said:
Sometimes good government can also be good politics. It may be that the most important provision of the recent tax cut was the cap on deductions for state and local taxes. This ends the federal tax subsidy for high tax blue states and localities. It also poses some difficult strategic problems for the Democrats' coalition.





Democrats are about to have to pay up


Before the ink was dry on our new tax bill, outraged blue states were screaming about the cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes. Their governments were also frantically seeking ways around it, and small wonder. For decades, high-tax states with a lot of wealthy residents enjoyed a hefty subsidy from the rest of America. Legislators were understandably panicked over what voters might do when handed the rest of the bill.
That panic generated some desperate ideas. The most popular, currently, is allowing people to convert tax payments above the $10,000 cap into a “charitable donation.” New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have already passed laws to allow this.
While charmingly innovative, this approach is likely to fall afoul of tax courts, as will the other proposed tactics. Blue-state taxpayers may finally have to confront the full cost of the government they want. And Democrats will finally have to confront the tension between what those voters want government to do and what they’re willing to pay for. . . .


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Yup. New York is going to have to start facing the public and explain their spending.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Are you intentionally being intellectually dishonest? If I was paying in a dollar and getting back 60 cents in spending while you were paying in a dollar and getting back 1.50 in spending, how was I avoiding paying my fair share?

For once in your tens of thousands of posts on here, can you not admit that your original post was using a flawed argument?
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You should pay more and you should get less, because you have more and others have less. That's progressive, enlightened policy. It is sneaky greed to try to get back a hidden subsidy via a tax benefit.
 
late said:
As usual, you have things backwards.

"An Associated Press Fact Check finds it’s actually the other way around. High-tax, traditionally Democratic states (blue), subsidize low-tax, traditionally Republican states (red) — in a big way...

In fact, most high-tax states send more money to Washington than they get back in federal spending. Most low-tax states make a profit from the federal government’s system of taxing and spending."

https://www.apnews.com/2f83c72de1bd440d92cdbc0d3b6bc08c

This has been the case for decades, and widely known. So when did you fall off the cabbage wagon?


"...when President Barack Obama briefly had a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate. Did he use it to shift spending away from red states? Hardly. His signature accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act, was most generous to poorer states, where more people lacked insurance — that is, red states."

"Yet major efforts by a dominant party to significantly redistribute resources toward states that support it are in fact extremely rare.... A new spoils system based on state partisanship wouldn’t just poison our politics. It could also cripple our economic future..."


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/opinion/tax-plan-states-gop.html

Vampire politics.
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Please read the OP article. You have missed the point.
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
It only increases the wealth transfers from states like NY and California to states like Mississippi and Oklahoma. I thought you guys were against wealth transfers? Think how much lower taxes would be in a state like New Jersey if they did not have all these freeloaders that benefited from their federal tax dollars in more rural states. Part of why state taxes are higher in a state like NY is they get far less back in federal spending than they pay in federal income taxes thus the state has to be pick up the slack.
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No, part of why NY state taxes are so high is because we are known as the welfare state. Come to NY and collect all sorts of goodies, no waiting time, no minimum time of residence.
 
notquiteright said:
It's a matter of political infighting as your OP points out the democratic coalition faces a bit of a quandary... :roll:

They are paying their share, the Republicans want to cap a deduction only for the wealthy in blue states (again as your piece pointed out) to prop up the failed fiscal policies of red states. I live in one of those red states- we don't lack for paths to federal funding, we lack common sense in out state house. Instead of passing a balanced budget our august group passed a law declaring the 10 commandments an historical document just like the magna carta (which no one has attempted to place on government owned ground)

Interesting pov, now would you be for ending the caps on social security- currently the very wealthy are protected once a certain level of income is reached.

How about removing the mortgage deduction on homes worth over 1 million- surely the wealthy can afford that?

It makes as much sense and seems to promote both class warfare and prop up failed red states... :peace
Click to expand...

The Social Security cap is quite low; it could certainly be raised. No problem capping the mortgage interest deduction at $1M either. As I already posted, I would also favor raising the top rate on individual income. Our federal government is not taking in enough to meet its obligations. That has to change.
 
Jack Hays said:
Sometimes good government can also be good politics. It may be that the most important provision of the recent tax cut was the cap on deductions for state and local taxes. This ends the federal tax subsidy for high tax blue states and localities. It also poses some difficult strategic problems for the Democrats' coalition.





Democrats are about to have to pay up


Before the ink was dry on our new tax bill, outraged blue states were screaming about the cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes. Their governments were also frantically seeking ways around it, and small wonder. For decades, high-tax states with a lot of wealthy residents enjoyed a hefty subsidy from the rest of America. Legislators were understandably panicked over what voters might do when handed the rest of the bill.
That panic generated some desperate ideas. The most popular, currently, is allowing people to convert tax payments above the $10,000 cap into a “charitable donation.” New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have already passed laws to allow this.
While charmingly innovative, this approach is likely to fall afoul of tax courts, as will the other proposed tactics. Blue-state taxpayers may finally have to confront the full cost of the government they want. And Democrats will finally have to confront the tension between what those voters want government to do and what they’re willing to pay for. . . .


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As soon as they can the D's will change the tax code back to the way they like it, constantly majorly changing the tax code is likely to be a constant now, with all the negative ramification anyone not stupid would predict from introducing yet more instability into America.

Till the crash gets here, then maybe we wise up.
 
Conservative said:
Just like most leftwingers, you buy the rhetoric and ignore the substance. Do some research and find out what federal tax dollars going to red states fund instead of buying that it funds deficits. Most states aren't allowed to have deficits and most states expect the federal govt. to pay for federal mandates to the states instead of forcing citizens of the state to fund them. Use the following link to find out what the federal govt. funds for your state by just changing TX to your state. That will change your tune of federal dollars going to the red states and again prove just how distorted the liberal data and rhetoric are

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/smart/texas/
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Interesting information at that link, thanks.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
As soon as they can the D's will change the tax code back to the way they like it, constantly majorly changing the tax code is likely to be a constant now, with all the negative ramification anyone not stupid would predict from introducing yet more instability into America.

Till the crash gets here, then maybe we wise up.
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A crash was just here 10 years ago. No wisening took place.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Except when it is positioned as a "bleed the beast" rationale. Then the beast has every right to sour the milk to force the parasite off its tit.
As to your fantasy that red states are subsidizing blue states, you are suffering from a cranial-rectal inversion.
You should either get help for that or get a glass belly button so that you can see where you're going.
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Apparently you missed the OP article so I'll quote a bit more for you.

. . . . Eventually, however, Democrats are going to have to either give up their big dreams or hand those voters the bill, because they’re the ones with most of the money. This creates a certain cognitive dissonance for progressives. “There’s a bitterness that all the tax cuts went to the rich,” says Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “and not enough of them went to the rich in New York and California and Connecticut.” Until that dissonance is resolved, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will keep promising big new programs with laughably inadequate financing mechanisms — and blue-state legislators will denounce inequality while cooking up tax-evasion schemes to perpetuate it.
Blue-state professionals have enjoyed a disproportionate share of the prosperity gains over the past few decades; if they want a bigger government, they’ll have to give up those gains to fund it. But thus far, Democrats haven’t managed to convince these voters that providing lavish government to every state means that they need to be taxed like a Rockefeller — or even like a Dane.
 
holbritter said:
No, part of why NY state taxes are so high is because we are known as the welfare state. Come to NY and collect all sorts of goodies, no waiting time, no minimum time of residence.
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Actually NYS get's only $.80 back for every tax dollar sent to DC. A low tax State like Mississippi get $2.00 back for every dollar sent. That is a "welfare State" and most Red States are too. No wonder their taxes are low, because high tax blue States are subsidizing them. No State should receive more in Federal revenues than they contribute.
 
iguanaman said:
LOL So good Government consists of subsidizing Red States with the Tax $ of Blue States? The so called "high tax States send more $ to Washington so they must be penalized? It seems to me that we need to stop the mooching of the low tax States if we want good government. It is apparent that we are enabling their low taxes by subsidizing their budgets with money from States that pay their own way. Let's get rid of the "welfare" States benefits that exceed their contributions.


https://www.apnews.com/2f83c72de1bd440d92cdbc0d3b6bc08c
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The wealthy blue states give more than they get because that is what should happen in a progressive, enlightened country.
 
Critter7r said:
A crash was just here 10 years ago. No wisening took place.
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The Little People learned much from that as evidenced by the success of Trump, the elite have yet to get there.
 
Jack Hays said:
The wealthy blue states give more than they get because that is what should happen in a progressive, enlightened country.
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LOL So "progressive" means screw the blue States to you? They send most of the money the Fed spends and this plan just exacerbates the imbalance between them and low tax welfare States. Instead we should be looking at ways to make these welfare States pay more of what they spend. They might even have to raise their taxes....
 
Jack Hays said:
It is progressive and enlightened for the better-off to pay more to help the less-well-off. As pointed out in the OP article, blue states possess a disproportionate share of wealth. That's why wealthy blue states pay more. What has ended is a subsidy from the less-well-off to benefit the better-off.
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Though your principle seems sound, but if the blue states subsidize the poorer states, how is it a subsidy that benefits the former?

Presumably, poorer people pay a higher portion of their income in sales taxes. In those cases the subsidy seems to work to the wealthus' advantage. Back when Colorado was a strongly republican state, they used to tax food. (Don't know if they still do.). Obviously, a subsidy from the poor to the rich.

This whole thing was a GOP Trump-like way to sock it to some states that didn't vote for him.
 
Jack Hays said:
The Social Security cap is quite low; it could certainly be raised. No problem capping the mortgage interest deduction at $1M either. As I already posted, I would also favor raising the top rate on individual income. Our federal government is not taking in enough to meet its obligations. That has to change.
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On these I must agree with you wholeheartedly.
SS is an insurance program. Actuaries make adjustments to insurance funds all the time to keep them solvent. Raise the cap to $250k and SS will be solvent into the next century.
$1M in mortgage interest deductions is sufficient, again I must agree. Raise the top rate on income and the marginal top tax rate as well.

But if a state is insolvent because it refuses to raise its taxes, it doesn't get to drain the coffers of a high tax state to underwrite its overhead any more than Wal-Mart should be allowed to underwrite their employee overhead by stuffing food stamp applications in with their HR package for prospective workers. If Oklahoma can't pay its teachers or keep its bridges from falling into the river, it's going to have to raise its taxes.
 
Critter7r said:
A crash was just here 10 years ago. No wisening took place.
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People voted for Trump based on how much wall street denounced him during the primaries.
 
Nickyjo said:
Though your principle seems sound, but if the blue states subsidize the poorer states, how is it a subsidy that benefits the former?

Presumably, poorer people pay a higher portion of their income in sales taxes. In those cases the subsidy seems to work to the wealthus' advantage. Back when Colorado was a strongly republican state, they used to tax food. (Don't know if they still do.). Obviously, a subsidy from the poor to the rich.

This whole thing was a GOP Trump-like way to sock it to some states that didn't vote for him.
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That is exactly what it is, and I believe I even heard him or one of his toadies even brag about it openly on the Sunday talk shows...but I'd have to dig like mad to track it down.
 
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