Bernie Sanders Splits With Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer Over Tax Deduction in Dem States

[George II]

55. Well then, you just have to give up living the high life along with all those 1%ers....

....you rub shoulders with!



Seriously, there are a lot of ordinary Americans being hurt by the SALT cap. Lost in the discussion is taxable deductions include more than just real estate and income taxes. They also include medical expenses, child care expenses, etc.

I know republicans and others bragged about the standard deduction being "doubled", but that's not quite true, it only went up 1.8X. At the same time the personal and child exemptions were eliminated. For a family of 4 that was quite a bit.

So, let's just look at some typical deductions.

A family's deductions could be:

$9,000 property tax
$5,000 state income tax
$15,000 medical expenses

So they normally would have an aggregate of $29,000 in deductions. But with the cap, that would bring it down to $25,000. Their taxable income is $4,000 higher than it would be without the cap.

This is not atypical of a normal, middle class, NOT rich family of four. The cap is hurting them.

What Senator Sanders either doesn't realize or cares to admit is by supporting the SALT cap he's even hurting many of his own middle-class, not rich, constituents in Vermont.

There isn't a single billionaire living in Vermont, and Vermont has among the highest combined income and real estate taxes in the country. And there are very very few "rich" running around Vermont these days. At least not many outside of North Hero.