(The Center Square) — A coalition of conservative New England watchdog groups is trying to sway the region’s largely Democratic congressional leaders to support renewing President Donald Trump’s tax cuts.
The groups, which include the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and Yankee Institute, held a live-streamed briefing on Monday where they warned of the “dire” consequences taxpayers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine and other New England states if Congress fails to reinstitute the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, approved during Trump’s first presidency, included many provisions that expire at the end of the year, including individual income-tax rates, an increase in the standard deduction and expanded child tax credit, which will revert to their pre-2017 levels if Congress does not extend them. Trump’s tax cuts also lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, which remains unchanged regardless of whether the law is re-authorized.
Greg Moore, regional director for the New Hampshire chapter of Americans For Prosperity, said if Trump’s tax cuts lapse, many taxpayers in the New England region will take it on the chin.
“That’s a huge number of people who are going to be suddenly given a crude realization of what the dynamics of the current tax law are,” Moore said. “Americans, in fact, after having years of inflationary pressure that has exceeded their wage growth, want tax relief.”
Moore said TCJA’s tax cuts for small businesses created an estimated 6,000 new jobs in New Hampshire and pumped $345,000 into the state’s economy.
“This small business tax relief is absolutely essential, and watching that go away means we are going to lose a lot of gains we have made over the last few years as a result of our small businesses flourishing and thriving,” he said in remarks. “It is essential that members of Congress understand the impact it has on their constituents and small businesses within their districts.”
The groups face an uphill battle to convince Democrats, who hold most of the congressional seats in the New England region, with the exception of Maine’s Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Democratic legislative leaders have signaled their opposition to renewing the tax plan, arguing that it would require deep funding cuts for Medicaid and other federal government social safety-net programs.
But Harris Van Pate, a policy analyst at the Maine Policy Institute, said with the “uncertain economic and fiscal picture” in Maine, “Congress must act to assure Maine families that their costs will not continue to grow to unsustainable levels.”
“The last thing [Mainers] need is punitive tax increases at the federal level, and that’s what a failure to extend the TCJA amounts to — a substantial nationwide tax increase,” he said.
Paul Craney, executive director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, said federal and state taxes are already “eating away” at Massachusetts workers’ paychecks, and allowing the federal tax law to lapse will make it even worse.
“Massachusetts is already a high-cost state, and the inflation of the last four years really shrunk a lot of workers’ paychecks,” Craney said in remarks. “Adding a massive tax hike by not renewing an important tax cut will only hurt workers, hurt small businesses, investment, and economic growth. It would also make us the highest taxed New England state.”
AFP’s national chapter has launched a $20 million “Protect Prosperity” digital advertising campaign that includes details about the possible impact on every state if lawmakers don’t re-authorize Trump’s tax cuts.
Ross Connolly, AFP’s Northeast regional director, said Washington has a spending, not taxing problem and shouldn’t be asking Americans “to pay more instead of asking the federal government to tighten their belts and look at spending reforms.”
“The real madness this march is within the halls of Congress and the New England federal delegations who are vocally supporting a tax increase on their constituents,” he said.
