New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who last week signed an executive order allowing New Yorkers to pay their 2018 property taxes before the end of the year, Thursday called provisions in the new federal tax law a "bait and switch" that led to double taxes on his state's residents.
"This bill was rushed through Congress and the Senate," the Democratic governor told CNN's "New Day" co-host Alisyn Camerota. "It is a bait and switch. They sold it as 'we are going to help the middle class,' and it wound up being a benefit for the rich and the rich corporations."
Proponents are saying the bill also will spur job growth, Cuomo said, but if lawmakers really wanted to make that happen, they would have required doing so in the bill.
"It's all a marketing employ," he said. "One of the devilish things in the bill, they eliminate the deductibility of state taxes ... what it says is up until now, over 100 years, you pay the local tax and state tax and deducted that from your federal tax, and they are eliminating that. You are now paying two taxes. You pay a tax to the state or local government, and then the federal government taxes that tax. It happens to occur coincidentally over on Democratic states."
The tax provision, he continued, used the money gained by eliminating state and local tax deductibility and using that money to finance the tax cut in the red states.
"There's always politics in the crafting of legislation, but this was obnoxious," he said. "They said let's pillage the blue to give to the red. That's partisan politicking over any semblance of good government. By the way, you want to hurt New York? You want to hurt California? They are the economic engines. How are you going to grow the economy after you put a dagger in the heart of New York and California? It's all politics all the time."
New York is planning to restructure its tax code, but meanwhile, Cuomo said he's not sure what Congress did was "legal and constitutional," and state officials are examining the matter.
"You can change the tax code, but can't penalize my state because of its political affiliation," said Cuomo. "There has never been a double taxation before in the history of the nation, so there are legitimate grounds. Now that they own the courts, it might be harder."
He predicted taxpayers won't forget that they had line up on a holiday to prepay their tax bills.
"They know exactly what has happened, and they are going to remember because you are hurting them right in their pocketbooks," said the governor. "Democracy ultimately works. Maybe it worked for the Senate because they don't have any Democratic senators in the states, which is the epitome of political arrogance."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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