Mikie Makes a Move

Gavin Newsom has floated the idea of California withholding tax payments to the federal government as a way of protesting Trump's regime.  Now it looks like New Jersey's incoming governor might beat Newsom to the punch.

Politico has reported that Mikie Sherrill is seriously looking into having New Jersey withholding federal tax dollars from Washington, telling native New Jerseyan Jon Stewart on his podcast that she has thought about it all time, calling it a "great idea. "If they’re not gonna run the programs, then what are we paying them for?" she said. "It’s like, you know, 'you’re paying us for a service,' and they're not delivering. So let's stop paying for it."

You know whom they are delivering services for with New Jersey's - and California's - federal tax dollars?  Republican states like Louisiana, Arkansas, Montana, and Nebraska, among others, as well as Wyoming, North Dakota - you know, the states Jimmy Stewart once called "the rectangular ones."  

The Democratic states are repeatedly paying for services poorer, more conservative states get more of, and they have to raise state taxes to provide the programs and amenities their constituents expect with less and less help from the federal government - and no state and local tax (SALT) deductions anymore, thanks to Trump.  Sherrill - and, hopefully, Newsom - are ready to rub SALT deductions in Trump's wounds.

Upon hearing of Governor-elect Sherrill's commetns, a White House spokesperson repsonded,"Wow, a Democrat encouraging lawbreaking. What else is new?"

She who refuses to submit federal taxes to a national administration run by a megalomaniacal tyrant violates no laws.

And this could be the first act of New Jersey seceding from the Union.  Theoretically speaking, of course.  😉  

I can't wait to see what Virginia's new incoming female govenror, Abigail Spanberger, does when she takes office.  And is she wants to take her state out of the Union - hey, the state's motto is Sic semper tyrannis - she can always dust off Virginia's 1861 ordinance of secession.

Of course, the Virginia legislature will have to rewrite and amend the part about the federal government "having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States."

Let Me Tell You How It Will Be . . .

We're screwed.  

Congress passed the tax bill, and by next week, when it goes to the White House, it will be law, thanks to Donald J. Trump.  Also thanks to Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican senator who switched his vote to yes, which he insists had nothing to do with a provision in the bill that allowed deductions on his real-estate holdings.  

The rich will make out like bandits, of course.  The middle class will only get temporary relief from this bill, and Trump is gambling - perhaps correctly, if we consider just how stupid voters can be - that enough of these rubes will be taken in by the extra money in their pockets in the fall of 2018 to reward the Republicans with continued control of Congress.  And what do the Democrats think of all this?  No one cares.  I watched MSNBC for an hour yesterday and didn't see any Democrats being interviewed on the subject.  MSNBC did, though, cut away to Paul Ryan when he spoke about the tax reform bill.  Perversely, Martin O'Malley got to speak out against it on Fox News.

The biggest takeaway is the taking away of unlimited deductions for state and local taxes, now capped at $10,000.  In New Jersey, this will make it much more difficult for incoming governor Phil Murphy to raise taxes on the rich, because if the rich can't deduct their state taxes, they'll move to a low-tax state . . . and leave everyone else holding the bag.  Unless state taxes are lowered.  That means, no universal pre-kindergarten education, no mass transit improvements, no highway repairs - none of that stuff.  In short, Murphy will not be able to create in New Jersey an American Denmark, a place of the sort of amenities that make any place worth living in.  

Should ten-grand caps appear too small . . . be thankful they won't take it all. 

And to those of you stupid enough to continue to support the GOP once this law goes into effect on January 1, I have another George Harrison lyric I'd like to paraphrase . . ..  Ring out the old, ring in the new, ya ding-dongs! :-p