A handful of conservative lawmakers in Kansas, Tennessee and South Carolina are throwing their support behind raising taxes in order to increase federal revenue and pay for the programs pushed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Republicans find themselves in a conundrum, where they want to simultaneously cut the tax and regulatory burden on the American people while also pay for massive infrastructure improvements, health care reform and other key state programs.
In the face of real, tangible fiscal problems, however, Republican lawmakers are quickly finding out the limits to cutting taxes, The New York Times reports.
Republicans vetoed to overrule South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster’s veto to increase the state’s gas tax and blocked a filibuster. The same Republicans also blocked broad tax cuts, claiming that the cuts were too expensive in the face of the state’s other liabilities.
Republican Gov. Bill Haslem of Tennessee signed the state’s first gas tax into law, amid outcry from conservative groups that argued a state with over a $1 billion surplus should not increase taxes on its citizens.
Conservative lawmakers in Kansas overrode their governor’s push for steep cuts to personal and corporate tax income rates in June, and increased taxes by $1.2 billion.
The Illinois Democratic-controlled House, with the help of Republicans, levied giant, permanent personal and corporate income-tax rate increases Sunday. Passed with a 72-45 vote, the $5 billion tax bill raises the personal income tax rate from 3.75 to 4.95 percent and the corporate income tax rate from 5.25 to 7 percent.
Trump and his administration are unfazed by the recent Republican upheaval regarding tax and regulatory reform. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin continues to promise that tax reform will get signed into law in 2017, along with a litany of deregulation.
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