WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday lambasted high-tax states like California, New York and New Jersey, arguing the rest of the country is “propping up profligate, big-government states” even as they pay billions more in taxes than they receive in return from the federal government.
Ryan’s attack came as he defended the Republican tax proposal that would repeal the federal deduction for state and local taxes, saying it has forced the rest of the country to support those states’ high taxes and reckless spending.
House Republicans from those states are bucking President Donald Trump’s tax overhaul package and GOP leadership over the popular tax deduction. The move to end the state-local deduction has angered GOP lawmakers and caused them to balk at supporting the nearly $6 trillion tax overhaul plan. The deduction is claimed by around 44 million people and costs the government an estimated $1.3 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years.
“States that got their act together are paying for states that didn’t,” Ryan said at an appearance at the conservative Heritage Foundation. He said the rest of the country is “propping up profligate, big-government states.”
The three states send far more in taxes to Washington than they get back in federal spending, new data show. Divided by total state residents, New York gets back 81 cents for every $1 it pays in, New Jersey receives 74 cents and California, 96 cents, according to an analysis released last month by the Rockefeller Institute of Government.