Senator Lindsay Graham on Sunday had his tax cuts argument comprehensively pulled apart by a member of his own party.
On Fox News’ weekend broadcast of Sunday Morning Futures, host Maria Bartiromo played a clip from an interview with the veteran GOP lawmaker in which he railed against New York’s policy of letting residents deduct certain taxes paid to state and local governments on their federal forms, known as the SALT deduction.
Graham said during the clip: “I’m saying that as we negotiate tax cuts, they’re tax-cutting people, and I’m one of them, that won’t vote for border [security] until they get all their taxes.”
He went on, “I live in South Carolina, I’m not a big fan of the SALT deduction. I live in South Carolina, where we have low taxes. Why should people in South Carolina subsidize California and New York?”
Introducing her next guest, New York GOP Representative Mike Lawler, Bartiromo asked about Graham’s fervent opposition to raising the cap on SALT deductions.
Lawler responded, “The fact is that we’re a high-donor state to the federal government, New York sends more federal dollars than almost any other state down to the federal government.”
He went on, “So the fact is that our folks are not subsidized by, you know, red states. We, in fact, are helping subsidize the federal government on an annual basis. If you look at South Carolina, for instance, they are one of the biggest recipients of federal dollars in comparison to other states by a percentage.”
Analysis by WalletHub, a company specializing in personal finance, indeed reveals South Carolina receives approximately 35% of its revenue as a state from the federal government, whereas New York ranks 47th for dependence on this sort of funding.
