LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Tax overhaul aftermath

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To the editor:

Republican strategists must be aware that they are facing disaster in the 2018 mid-term elections over the new tax statute.

So what is their plan? It is possible that they plan to leave the statute unchanged and rely on getting so much in increased campaign money from their fat cat friends that they can mitigate the disaster, and/or that they are counting on such huge financial rewards from those fat cats if they choose to retire or are defeated, they will not be so upset by the prospect of losing their seats.

Personally, I suspect they have a different plan, namely that before the 2018 election, they will try to amend the statute by restoring full deductability of state and local income, and real estate taxes paid in 2018 in calculating federal income tax to be due in 2019. 

Then, if they win both chambers in 2018, they will try to reduce the deficit resulting from the 2018 deductability restoration by advancing their agenda of severely cutting social programs, including especially those which they opposed as too “socialistic” from Day One, such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security itself.

After the 1952 Eisenhower landslide, he proposed going after another “socialistic” target — the Tennessee Valley Authority — but dropped that idea pretty fast.

Alan Saks

Alan Saks

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