November 13, 2017

As the tax plan turns, sounds like a soap opera.  It’s crazy to see these grown adults we elected to represent the people do all but.  The U.S. tax codes have not been transformed in any meaningful way to benefit the hard working middle class since the late 80’s. 

In recent times we’ve seen the American Dream slip away from many hard working middle class tax payers and we’ve seen low income earners unable to climb into the middle class. 

Lawmakers against the tax code reform say it will never work. I ask them how do they know, at least give it a try.  Since the tax cuts of Democrat President John F.  Kennedy, history have proven that tax cuts will put money in the hands of all tax payers. What's for certain is that, if the current tax codes remains the same with high taxation, the divide between the have the have nots will certainly get as wide as the Grand Canyon.

What our law makers fail to understand is that the people in the middle and the bottom want to move up the ladder to achieve the economic successes that these very congressmen and women have done on the backs of hard working tax payers. Wheeling and dealing using tax payers money to curry favor special interest and mega corporations have garnered big pay outs for many of those in Congress. Just recently POLITICO’s article exposed insider trading with congressional staffers trading stocks made shortly before Congress passed bills benefiting companies. The public would be naive to think these staffers are alone. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/25/congress-aides-stock-market-trades-investments-analysis-242692

The argument some congressional members use to justify opposition to simplifying the tax code to make the system fairer is, class warfare, “the rich, the rich” and the song and dance of "state tax deduction elimination will harm high taxing states" like California, New Jersey and New York.  If these lawmakers, who play the class warfare game and the selfishness of bailing out high tax states, were worth their weight in salt they would bring honest dialogue to the table.  The reality is, state taxes should not be bailed out by other states that have low or no state taxes.  States like California, New Jersey and New York, for years have been bailed out for overtaxing their own citizens and tax payers in places like Texas and Florida have been subsidizing the poor fiscal decisions of high spending states. If these bailouts continue, poorly run, over taxing states will continue their bad fiscal practices. What these high taxing states should do is reduce wasteful spending and reduce the state tax burden on their citizens.

The class warfare game is a great tool to make those who have less, envy those who have earned more. The funny thing is that everyone else assumes the other is richer, but they are all in the same boat.  If the Congress play this class warfare mind game and reject substantive changes that can lower taxes to benefit the middle class, they would have failed their very responsibility to properly serve.

Jennifer Carroll

Former Lieutenant Governor

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