Federal Budget and Taxes

Limitations on the State and Local Tax Deduction Hurt Pennsylvania in Two Ways

Posted by Marc Stier on December 16, 2017 10:21 am
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A major issue in the debate over the Republican tax cut bill is whether the deduction for state and local taxes (the SALT deduction) should be eliminated or reduced. The conference committee bill released on Friday proposes a “compromise” that would allow individuals to deduct up to $10,000 in some combination of state and local property and income or sales taxes. 

That compromise is deeply problematic for Pennsylvania and many Pennsylvanians, in two different ways. 

First, substantial numbers of upper middle-class Pennsylvanians will see their taxes go up as a result of the limitation on state and local tax deductions in the conference committee bill. These taxpayers are likely to be concentrated in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where a high percentage of taxpayers take the state and local deduction. 

Second, the state as a whole will suffer because the limitation on the state and local tax deduction will make it more difficult for the state to raise taxes. This is a serious issue, especially at a time when the state suffers from both recurring budget deficits and a deep public investment deficit and yet there is little political will in the General Assembly to raise taxes. 

We consider these two problems in order after the break.

The GOP-Backed Tax Bill: A Lose-Now, Lose-More-Later Plan for Low- and Middle-Income Americans

Posted by Diana Polson on December 14, 2017 4:38 pm
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GOP-backed tax bills have passed both the House and the Senate. Many of us have already seen charts which show how, under these plans, low and middle-income families will eventually see their taxes raised (by 2027), while the top 1% sees huge savings (see, for example, the chart below showing the Senate bill’s impact on Pennsylvania). What hasn’t been discussed as much is that these bills are step one in a two-part process, designed to severely cut critical government programs.

The GOP Tax Bill: An Assault on Economic Equality and Democracy

Posted by Marc Stier on December 2, 2017 1:20 pm
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Budgets, it is frequently said, are an embodiment of our moral ideals and commitments. If so, the tax plan adopted by the Senate on Friday represents an extreme moral failure on the part of the senators from the Republican Party who voted for it. At a time when incomes are becoming ever more unequal, the Republican tax plan will ultimately make the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer. Not only will working people and the middle class suffer, but so will our whole country. 

For Many Pennsylvanians, Insurance Premiums Increase Are Greater Than Tax Cuts

Posted by Marc Stier on November 24, 2017 5:09 pm
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As we have pointed out previously, because it repeals the individual mandate, the Senate tax cut proposal will not only lead to 13 million fewer people having health insurance in the United States, but it will lead to much higher premiums for many who do purchase health insurance on the individual market. The CBO’s estimate was that premiums nationwide would increase by 10%.

Help for Your Thanksgiving Day Tax Debates

Posted by Marc Stier on November 23, 2017 2:34 pm
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If your family is anything like ours, politics tends to come up around the Thanksgiving Day table and diverse opinions are often put forward, including by one or more of our cranky uncles who mutter about “those people” and the “damn government.” Since your cranky uncles like mine no doubt listens to Rush and his friends, they are going to present you with a lot of misinformation about the GOP federal tax cut bill. 

But have no fear as we have your back.

The Rich Get Richer: Why the Senate Tax Bill is a Total Sham

Posted by John Neurohr on November 22, 2017 4:59 pm
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The Senate Republican tax plan would provide enormous, permanent tax cuts to high-income households and corporations – all while adding at least $1.5 trillion to the deficit. And to pay for its permanent tax cuts for corporations, the bill would raise taxes on many middle-income families and repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, increasing the number of uninsured Pennsylvanians by 505,000 and raising individual market premiums nationwide by 10 percent.

GOP-Trump Tax Plan: A Windfall for Top 1% of Pennsylvania, a Tax Increase for Many Middle Class Pennsylvanians

Posted by Marc Stier on October 4, 2017 11:21 am
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A 50-state analysis of the GOP tax framework reveals that in Pennsylvania, the top 1 percent of taxpayers would receive a substantial tax cut worth $67,970 while many upper middle class Pennsylvanians would face a tax increase. This plan is bad for Pennsylvania and our country.

Rigging the Economy to Further Benefit the 1% -- the Pennsylvania Numbers

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on October 3, 2017 4:07 pm
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Last Friday, we got the first national estimates of who benefits from the Trump Tax plan -- the "Unified Code for Rigging Our Tax Code Further to Benefit the 1%." While that's not the official title, it's more accurate than the Trump Administration name -- "the Unified Framework for Fixing Our Broken Tax Code." Last week's analysis by the Tax Policy Center showed that, by 2027 (Table 3 in the Center's report), 80% of the benefits would go to the top 1%, an increase from 53% in 2018 (Table

The GOP Federal Tax Proposal: Multiple Reasons to Worry

Posted by Marc Stier on September 27, 2017 12:00 am
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The outline of the tax proposal released by President Trump and Republican House and Senate leaders should worry all Pennsylvanians for multiple reasons.

How Would Trump’s Food Stamp Cuts Hurt Americans? Let Us Count the Ways.

Posted by Shelley Aragoncillo on July 20, 2017 12:16 pm
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This guest post is from Brian Barth, a writer for Modern Farmer. Modern Farmer is a quarterly magazine devoted to the people, policy, issues, animals, plants, and technology of farming and food. The piece ran as a blog post on the blog of the Coalition for Low Income Pennsylvanians.

President Donald Trump has proposed deep cuts to funding for the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as food stamps. The administration’s fiscal year 2018 budget seeks a $193.3 billion decrease in SNAP funding over the next decade, a nearly 30 percent reduction over current levels. Such deep cuts have virtually no chance of gaining congressional approval, but they lay bare the President’s approach to our nation’s security net. Who stands to lose?

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