Democrats plan to repeal state and local tax (SALT) deduction limits

Democrats are talking about repealing the SALT limits. What nobody's talking about is that SALT is largely irrelevant to the middle class. A SALT repeal only helps the rich. And it's a lot of money. 

The middle class being largely untouched by SALT limits is due to two main factors. First, the large increase in the standard deduction. You need a lot of deductions to get over the $24,000 standard deduction. Yes, you can get there pretty easily with a huge mortgage and high state taxes. But then there's the AMT. The Alternative Minimum Tax already didn't allow SALT deductions, and upper-middle-income people in high-tax states were the people most affected by AMT. If you were previously paying AMT, the Trump SALT limits are irrelevant to you. Tax reform effectively eliminated AMT for almost everyone.

Here are some hypothetical examples of how SALT limits and tax reform affected people in a high-tax, high-property-value, blue state city.

Will the Democrats really repeal SALT limits for the rich, just to let the middle class fall back into AMT?

San Diego County's idiot health department says it will vaccinate children before middle-aged adults

Without government, who would hire the incompetent people?

San Diego County Health web site:

It's anyone's guess where the incompetence lies: the people establishing the vaccination phases or the people posting them on the web site.

Zuckerberg cornhole game

 

Happy Taint Week!

't ain't still Christmas, but 't ain't yet New Year's!

Socialism is like a pot luck

 The latest product of the American public education system, I presume:

      

Sure, socialism is just like a pot luck.

You would have enjoyed the way they did pot lucks in Cambodia. You could call it a Pol Pot luck.

Exodus! Movement of Jah people!

 Joe Rogan is yet another multimillionaire fleeing California’s insanity.

Who’s going to be left to pay the bills?

More academic malpractice against gold

This is just pathetic.

WSJ:

Gold is, in fact, a poor hedge against inflation. Accounting for changes in the cost of living, gold has returned an average of minus 0.4% annually since 1980, versus positive annualized returns of 7.9% for U.S. stocks, 6.2% for U.S. bonds and 1.2% for cash, according to Prof. Spaenjers.

1980, you say? I wonder how Prof. Spaenjers chose that starting point.

Oh, this.




Of course you can make returns look bad if you cherry-pick the absolute worst starting point!

Anyone making an honest inquiry would find that not only does gold have pretty good returns, but  also excellent diversification properties.