Centrist Republicans from swing districts usually deserve a lot more leeway when it comes to their ideological purity versus the things they must do or say to keep their seats. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) has exhausted that leeway, demanding that taxpayers across the country subsidize the Democratic tax system in his own state.
This has been the core of the issue for centrist Republicans demanding greater federal state and local tax deductions for residents of their state, which has been holding up House Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill.” Lawler on Tuesday came out and put it as plainly as possible.
“New York has the highest tax burden of any state in the country,” he said. “We need to raise the cap on SALT to deliver relief for middle-class families across New York.”
This may be a news flash for Lawler and other SALT Republicans, but New York does not have “the highest tax burden of any state” because of the federal government. New York has the highest tax burden because New York taxes its residents more than any other state. If New Yorkers don’t want to pay so much in taxes, they should stop electing tax-hungry Democrats who continue to jack up their taxes.
A Republican would adopt exactly that message, and use the fact that New York “has the highest tax burden of any state in the country” to put pressure on Democrats, such as Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY), to lower taxes on New Yorkers. Instead, Lawler is using it to pressure his fellow Republicans to exempt rich New Yorkers from paying their share of federal taxes. Rich people are who actually benefit from raising the SALT cap for deductions. In fact, Lawler wants to raise the cap from what it was in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, even though there were tax cuts for every income bracket in his district from that legislation.
REPUBLICANS SHOULD LET THE ‘ONE BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ DIE ON SALT HILL
What Lawler is doing is holding up the GOP agenda to get further tax cuts for his wealthiest constituents. He is legitimizing the Democratic tax system in New York and demanding that people who pay federal taxes elsewhere across the country subsidize New York’s system and cover New York’s share of federal taxes. Lawler is rolling over for New York Democrats because he is terrified that voters will punish him for their high taxes, so much so that he refuses to even make the accurate case to those voters that Democrats are responsible for their tax burden.
If Lawler doesn’t think his voters are smart enough to know who is responsible for their taxes, then he should come out and say that. Instead, he has chosen to pretend that the federal government is somehow being unfair to rich New Yorkers by not letting them opt out of paying federal taxes on top of their high state taxes. Lawler is defending New York Democrats raising taxes on New Yorkers and blaming Republicans if the problem isn’t resolved. That doesn’t seem like a very Republican position, does it?