The tax plan announced by Speaker Paul Ryan is a positive move towards simplifying our tax code and making taxes more transparent to working families.
While some Californians will be adversely affected by an elimination of the deductions that currently exist for state and local taxes paid, a bigger question arises: Why don’t we just lower the tax burden on California’s hard working families in the State to offset the impact that comes with the removal of federal deduction for state income taxes?
It’s never made sense that we’re able to raise taxes on California’s working families to pay for big social programs and then just say that it won’t really cost anything because families can write the state income tax off on their tax returns. All that policy does is allow California’s big spenders to have the federal government ultimately pay the bill for our own state’s costly programs.
After all, the Governor campaigned for Proposition 30 which raised income taxes on Californians. The tax was supposed to be temporary, but as is usually the case, there is no such thing as a temporary tax in the State of California.
It seems clear the proposed tax plan unveiled yesterday is upsetting California’s entrenched liberal Legislators heartburn because it’s going to force the State to finally be honest with constituents about how much their pet programs and social engineering are really costing the State.
If the Democrats in control of Sacramento want to keep spending, they should be honest and just own up to the fact that the federal government isn’t responsible for the fiscal mess we’re in. The Democrats keep raising taxes in California – it’s about time the federal government stops letting them off the hook by giving them cover with an overly complicated federal tax system.”
There will be a lot of work done over the coming weeks in Congress, but I’m hopeful that the discussion on taxes is less about what the federal government is doing to California and focuses more on what big spending liberals in the Legislature are really doing to the taxpayers of California.