How Much Would You Pay For A Tax Break?
Why would so many Republicans abandon fiscal sanity and support the current administration?
For some people, it’s all about the tax breaks.

I was born a Republican and raised on fiscal conservatism. Any time you’re using someone else’s money, you should be careful about your spending. And this applies doubly to government, since they have the power to extract money (taxes) from a mass of people, both willing supporters and unwilling opponents. But it’s also true for corporations, where any expenditure is “our” money, and banks, which can only exist where depositors believe in their fiscal responsibility.
That’s why I became disillusioned by the Republican party and find it downright despicable today.
Despite the rhetoric, Republicans have been more than willing to run up deficits for socially- and electorally-popular programs: Defense projects spread across every state, subsidies for farmers, and tax breaks for religious institutions. Much-maligned programs supported predominately by Democrats, including food and education support for the poor and immigrants, are a mere drop in the bucket compared to these. And the history of deficits under Republican and Democrat presidencies strongly backs this assertion.
I had thought that the “Tea Party” movements, as ill-informed as they were, might result in a permanent austerity for the country. But they were only focused on income (taxes) and not on spending. “Starve the beast,” the saying goes. But the beast will keep growing if you let it, and that’s what has happened today. We are running massive budget deficits and cutting taxes at the same time.
What happened to sensible Republicans?
I briefly brought this up with a fellow small business owner this week and was shocked at what he said. “I voted for Trump, and I’m glad I did because of those wonderful tax cuts. I don’t care about everything else, and I’ll vote for him again!” He really said this.
Now, the fact is that the Trump/Republican tax cuts of 2017 did not actually benefit many small businesses. In fact, many of the provisions eliminated tax deductions that benefit small business owners and contractors like me. Many formerly-deductible activities (including state and local taxes, mileage, and unreimbursed employee expenses) are eliminated. And the higher standard deduction doesn’t make up for this in many cases.
Similarly, small businesses lost the ability to deduct some expenses, and the vaunted corporate tax break doesn’t benefit businesses structured like mine. Plus, frankly, my business taxes aren’t all that bad. And I bet theirs aren’t either.
But he believed that Trump had given him something of a tax windfall. And that this was sufficient benefit to support everything else: The incompetence, complete lack of strategic thinking, angry and flailing rhetoric, not to mention $2.2 trillion added to the federal deficit. All this was fine as long as he believed that a few percent was knocked off his business and personal taxes.
As the old joke goes, the Republicans have already established what kind of person he is. Now they’re just haggling over the price.
