To suggest that Trump has thrown a wrench in the functioning of the United States would be an understatement. His administration is like the most extreme expression possible of the darkest sides to America that many have, for long, sought to live with.
With a man in the White House who boasts of his supposed freedom to sexually assault women and acts as though he’s a Chinese emperor, saying we need a wall in between us and Mexico, it’s not as though we can ignore these parts of American society any longer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl5HJBnPitU&t=2s
Among the many incendiary moves undertaken by the president is the signing, last year, of the GOP’s tax reform plan. The president has claimed over and over again that the plan he signed into law is the largest tax cut in American history, but that’s false. What the plan does constitute is essentially a giveaway to upper income people financed through slashing deductions like that for state and local taxes.
Now, Maryland’s Democratic Attorney General Brian Frosh has announced that he’s suing the Trump administration over this provision of the tax plan, which stands to impact taxpayers in his state.
Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot has said that the tax plan “would result in a net $2.75 billion net federal tax cut, but 376,000 [Marylanders] would owe more in federal taxes,” something that Frosh is not interested in putting up with.
He’s joining a multi-state coalition in suing the administration that includes New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Such a coalition has taken on the Trump administration on other issues as well, including the president’s plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which is meant to protect undocumented immigrants brought here as young children.
Of the latest issue — that of SALT deductions being slashed — Frosh commented:
‘By eliminating the SALT deductions, Trump’s tax bill will jack up taxes for more than half a million Marylanders. It is an attack on state sovereignty and an attempt to cripple our ability to educate our kids, protect the Chesapeake Bay, and build the infrastructure that Maryland needs to be competitive in the world economy.’
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has spoken similarly to Frosh of the tax law, calling it “a fundamental violation of states’ rights and repugnant to the very concept of federalism that formed this nation” because of it seemingly targeting Democratic states where taxpayers already pay more in SALT.
It remains to be seen if those taking on the federal government over the tax law can win in their efforts.
Among the other issues that some of those who are party to this lawsuit have recently announced plans to sue over is the EPA’s delay of the implementation of the Waters of the United States rule, which officially establishes government regulatory control over small bodies of water that feed into larger, more obvious bodies of water.
The administration, as in the case of other issues, took industry’s side in the case of the Waters of the United States rule, legitimizing the industry idea that the burden of complying with the Waters of the United States rule would be too large. Now, the state of New York — via its Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman — is suing.
#BREAKING: I will lead a multistate lawsuit to block the Trump Administration’s reckless and illegal suspension of the #CleanWaterRule. https://t.co/DyGJHSwuBF pic.twitter.com/Tbd0nZrzUU
— Eric Schneiderman (@AGSchneiderman) February 1, 2018
Featured Image via Alex Wong/Getty Images
