Our friends on the left have a funny take on the issue of taxation. Many of them seem to think that government has an inherent “multiplier effect.” In other words, once your money is taxed away and used for some government purpose, it has a greater chance of leading to economic growth. So, high taxes are good.
Others seem to think that taxes don’t matter when it comes to where businesses locate and that efforts to cut taxes here in New Mexico, nationally, or in say Kansas are simply harmful.
But when in the real-world high-tax “Blue” states see tax policies shifted in ways that result in higher burdens for their taxpayers as in the recent federal tax reform which resulted in drastically-limited tax-deductibility for state and local taxes, suddenly taxes matter a great deal. As the New York Times reports, many of these states are desperately (and creatively) looking for ways to blunt the impact of what could be significantly-higher taxes paid by their residents.
While the left may be confused, we remain consistent in our approach. Taxes matter a great deal to economic growth with low taxes being better than high taxes. Simplicity better than complexity, and tax reductions on economic activity resulting in greater economic growth than other tax reductions.
That said, taxes are not the entire game when it comes to economic freedom which New Mexico lags in as do many of the blue states who are now scrambling to ensure that even more of their residents don’t escape to lower-tax regions of America (as they have been for decades).
The left is so confused. First, they claimed the tax reform just favored the rich. Yet now they are screaming because the rich will have limits to their SALT. For the rest of us, just know that doubling the Standard Deduction means some 85% of all taxpayers will never itemize again. The upper 15% will continue to support our CPAs!
Best