NY governor rips tax bill for going after blue states

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) slammed President Trump’s tax-cut bill on Thursday, arguing the legislation penalizes his and other blue states because they don’t have Republican senators.

“What the Senate was saying is ‘because we have no senators from the blue states, we don’t care. So let’s pillage the blue to give to the red,'” Cuomo told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on “New Day.”

“That’s never been done in this nation before. That’s partisan politicking over any semblance of good government,” he continued. 

{mosads}”You want to hurt New York? You want to hurt California? They’re 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.” 

The tax bill Trump signed into law last week limits to $10,000 the total deduction taxpayers can take for local, state and property taxes. The change is expected to hit New York, New Jersey and California especially hard because of high property taxes in places like the New York suburbs. These states also tend to have higher state and local taxes.

The GOP tax bill cuts individual tax rates and doubles the standard deduction, but it could cause taxes to rise for some people who now itemize their tax deductions and benefit from larger deductions of property and other local taxes.

The governor’s comments come after various states, including New York, urged residents to find ways to avoid the cap on local and state deductions.

“We’re doing this to circumvent the bill the president just signed?” Cuomo said last week, adding “You’re damn right I am.”

Some taxpayers have reportedly rushed to prepay their property taxes for 2018 before the new rules go into effect.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) posted an advisory notice on their website on Wednesday, however, warning homeowners that they could only prepay property taxes for 2018 if local offices offered an assessment for 2018 of their properties. This could prevent some people across the country from prepaying their taxes.