Donald Trump will meet with northeastern House Republicans this weekend to discuss expanding the State And Local Tax (SALT) deduction. Trump smartly put a $10,000 cap on this loophole in his 2017 tax bill.
To repeat ourselves: this is the most counterproductive and unfair write offs in the tax code. There is no justification for this deduction at any amount anywhere at any time. It simply rewards blue states and cities for their high taxes and their costly government services.
A case in point. Florida and New York have roughly the same number of residents. But New York spends nearly TWICE as much on state/local services as Florida does, even though New York has worse services than Florida. Yet no state (other than California ) receives more benefit from this tax break than New York. Crazy - especially when almost all the benefit goes to millionaires and billionaires living in Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Manhattan.
This really is a tax cut for the rich.
We have said that we could live with doubling the Salt deduction to $20,000 but only if that is offset by capping or preferably ending the corporate SALT deduction. Ford shouldn't get the tax deduction when the auto repair shop down the street doesn't. New York Republican Mike Lawler's proposal to raise the cap by 1900% to $200,000 should obviously be a nonstarter.
2) Senate Votes 84-9 on Trump’s “Cruel” Bill to Deport Criminal Aliens
Maybe Trump’s legislative agenda isn’t so “radical” after all. The first Senate vote of the year was an 84 to 9 landslide on the motion to proceed to the Laken Riley Act.
The bill would require illegal aliens arrested for theft to be federally detained, which sponsors say would have prevented the release of Jose Ibarra in New York, before he went to Georgia and brutally murdered Laken Riley.
These were the 9 nay votes, which is limited to the very radical fringe of the Democratic Party:
The 84 votes indicate that a broader immigration bill could proceed quickly on a bipartisan basis, without having to be shoehorned into a budget reconciliation process.
So pass immigration reform through the regular order rules of Congress (and dare Democrats to vote against border security) and reserve the reconciliation process that requires only a 51 vote majority in the Senate for the Trump tax cut extension bill to come - as soon as possible.
3) BlackRock, JP Morgan and Other Big Banks Quit Net Zero
We at Unleash Prosperity started calling out the big money management investment firms and banks for their radical environment and social governance (ESG) policies almost three years ago when these climate change policies were all the rage.
Now we are thrilled to report they are fleeing from the most loony idea of all - Net zero fossil fuels.
This was followed by BlackRock departing from ESG and net zero:
The Wicked Witch isn’t dead yet - but we’re getting there.
4) The Longshoreman's Union Contract Keeps Automation Off the Docks
The U.S. has some of the most inefficient dock operations in the western world, because the unions have declared war on the machines. Thank God we didn’t have a union for farm hands 100 years ago, or they would have outlawed tractors.
We are all for pay raises for blue collar workers, but the six-year deal struck by the Port operators and the International Longshoremen's Association is a Luddite abomination.
The dockworkers union won concessions blocking automation technology at most U.S. ports. Some technology will be allowed, but only if new jobs are created alongside it.
Fully automated technology will be barred!
While avoiding a strike is a relief, the agreement strengthens one of the most thuggish unions that declares war on machines.
5) Biden EPA Bureaucrats - Hurry Up and Spend, Spend, Spend
The watchdog group Project Veritas captured an EPA special advisor bragging that he was sending tens of billions of dollars in grants to climate nonprofits as "an insurance policy" against Trump's promises to turn off the spigot on such funding.
Brent Efron brags that he is thrilled to be giving money to groups he would 'find really cool" to soon go work for - a clear conflict of interest.
Efron even laughingly equates the frantic effort to throw so much money out the EPA's door to "throwing gold bars off the Titanic." All of it is an effort that will keep going until the last possible minute - that is when "the Trump people come in and tell us we cannot give out money."
