Ted Cruz to New York and San Francisco: Too bad your taxes are going up

Sen. Ted Cruz finally admitted that the GOP tax bill will raise taxes on the so-called coastal elites.

While giving a speech in support of the Republican tax plan on the Senate floor Tuesday night, he said that only “really rich people in Manhattan and San Francisco” would pay more taxes under the GOP’s bill, which passed the House and Senate earlier that day. But the House has to re-vote Wednesday due to multiple violations of procedure.

“The only people whose taxes are going up are the really rich. The middle class, their taxes are all going down. The working class, their taxes are going down. Every taxpayer, their taxes are going down,” Cruz said. “Except rich people in Manhattan and San Francisco, some of them, their taxes may go up.”

It’s true that taxes will largely go up for people living in high-tax blue states — like New York, New Jersey, and California. There, taxpayers will likely wind up paying more because of a cap to the state and local tax deductions, referred to as SALT. High local taxes in those places work because they can be deducted from federal taxes, but the GOP tax bill sets the deduction cap at $10,000 and limits the deductions to property taxes.

Votes on Tuesday in both the House and Senate played out largely along party lines — though 12 Republicans in the House, almost all from New York, New Jersey, and California, where taxes will likely go up, voted against the plan.

Despite his liberal-bashing on Tuesday, Cruz was against raising taxes on anybody, including blue-states, back in November.

“There are some taxpayers who are losing exemptions, particularly in some high-tax states like New York or California that could conceivably be paying higher taxes. I think that is a mistake. I think tax reform needs to cut taxes for everybody,” he told reporters at press conference, according to The Hill.