House Democrats raise a deduction that goes mainly to high-tax states. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board writes:
Don’t Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich? We seem to recall this—correct us if we’re wrong—but then how are they going to explain their expansion of the state-and-local tax deduction for largely affluent taxpayers in mainly Democratic states?
We realize that last point answers the question. This is 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. As a raw exercise in political and economic hypocrisy, this is one for the ages.
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. 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.
[The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, "Pelosi’s SALT Scheme," The Wall Street Journal, November 4]
