The Patriot Post® · Once Claiming Economic Apocalypse, Dems Eat Up Tax Windfall

“Politicians never accuse you of ‘greed’ for wanting other people’s money — only for wanting to keep your own money.” —Joseph Sobran

The Democrat response to GOP tax cuts provides a case study in both greed and hypocrisy. Prior to passage of the bill, Democrats excoriated it as an apocalyptic measure that would destroy the lower and middle class while making the rich richer. “Armageddon,” Nancy Pelosi warned — before she dismissed the cuts as “crumbs,” anyway. Now that the tax cuts have resulted in a massive influx of new revenue to the states, Democrat-controlled states are using every scheme they can think of to keep those tax cuts from staying in the pockets of American workers.

As the provisions of the proposed GOP tax cuts were debated, Democrats engaged in misrepresentation, lies and outright demagoguery to prevent Republicans from securing a legislative victory for President Donald Trump. Much of this related to state and local tax deductions, which Republicans reduced for higher earners in exchange for lower rates.

California Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown decried the tax cuts as “evil in the extreme,” while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo hysterically labeled the bill as a “missile of destruction … aimed at New York.” The New York Times peddled the claims of “state and local officials in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California,” who warned the tax cuts would “strain state budgets.” Likewise, The Washington Post claimed the law would make it “harder for states and cities to pay their bills.”

Democrats, overcome with the vapors at the mere thought of workers keeping more of the money they earned, have not only been strangely silent on the actual impact of the tax cuts, they are quietly maneuvering to steal all of its benefits.

The Republican tax cuts have generated significant new revenue by expanding the base of taxpayers while simultaneously limiting tax deductions and lowering rates. In other words, more people pay to fund the government they say they want, but each person pays a lower rate. This has stimulated wage increases, bonuses, capital investment, business expansion and repatriation of foreign profits.

So far this year, California has seen $3.8 billion more in tax revenue than the state projected. In New York, tax revenue exceeded forecasts by $315 million in February alone. Connecticut coffers were flooded with an additional $1.3 billion over projections, and Colorado ($197 million) and Minnesota ($416 million) are also projecting huge rewards.

For state governments, that is.

While legislatures in Republican-controlled states like Georgia, Idaho and Iowa have used higher revenues generated by the tax cuts to lower state income tax rates, Democrat-controlled states are looking for ways to spend the money before the taxpayers ever see it.

In Minnesota, for example, Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton vetoed a bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature that would have prevented a tax increase on Minnesota residents.

It is abject hypocrisy to watch the same Democrats who wailed that the tax cuts would devastate their taxpayers now steal the additional wages right out of their pockets. For what? To justify more vote-buying schemes and government spending. And they are quite open about the fact that they don’t care if, much less how, it is paid for.

At the national level, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced a bill to make most college free, but deflects questions about cost, admitting, “After the tax cut, there’s almost no enthusiasm for worrying about how to pay for new proposals.”

Indeed, much like the so-called “stimulus” bill (which never stimulated anything but Democrat cronies) passed by Democrats and signed by Barack Obama, Democrats see this flood of new revenue as an opportunity to fund a leftist wish list of government spending. Schatz aligns with Sen. Bernie Sanders in demanding “free” college. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) demand another $100 billion for education. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has called for a “public option” (i.e., fully socialized health care) and expansion of Medicare by lowering the eligibility to age 55, and to do so with no budgetary offsets. Pelosi and other Democrats are calling for taxpayer-funded guaranteed jobs.

Pelosi was very ominous in an interview earlier this month, claiming the GOP tax cuts are “a dark cloud over our children’s future” and expressing deep concern about the growing national debt. Yet when asked how the guaranteed jobs would be paid for, she stated she would need to see first how much it might cost, before adding, with no apparent sense of irony, that “Democrats believe you must pay as you go.”

Yes, these would be the same Democrats who called President George W. Bush’s $4 trillion in new debt “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” before racking up a staggering $10 trillion in new debt. These are the same Democrats who are willing to shut down government rather than concede to even minuscule spending cuts.

This whole process has proven definitively what Republicans have been claiming for years — namely, that people respond to incentives and disincentives accordingly. Democrats raise taxes on soft drinks and cigarettes to discourage their consumption, yet bafflingly, can’t grasp that higher tax rates discourage productive labor, capital investment and consumption.

But while Democrat brains seem impermeable to economic facts, we hope the American people will remember, come November, that rather than a Democrat-predicted economic Armageddon, these braying jackasses instead look foolish decrying economic prosperity thanks to Republican efforts.