By now, practically every obituary for 2017 that can be written within the confines of conventional wisdom has been filed and placed in the ever-expanding library of hot takes. And as usual, most of those hot takes have to do with Donald Trump.
We are told, for example, that 2017 was a year where Trump ultimately triumphed, a year where he miserably failed, a year where he did both at once (?!!!) a year where he missed too many opportunities, and a year where he fulfilled many of his core campaign promises. And conversely, the fate of Trump’s political rivals, both Right and Left, has been debated endlessly. Those debates are worth having, even if by this point they’ve been done to death.
However, in all this discussion, a key question seems to have been overlooked, and that is the question of money. Who ends 2017 with their pockets flush, and who ends it pulling out their pockets looking for loose change? In this respect, I think the answer is obvious: 2017 is the year cultural liberalism – and its bastions in the United States – began to show noticeable financial strain: strain that will likely only get worse in the coming year.
Let’s start with the most obvious, albeit the most recent, sign of this collapse: the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. As James Piereson notes at American Greatness, this bill marks the death knell of the so-called “blue state model,” which relies on high taxes and oppressive regulatory schemes in order to function. Because the Trump tax bill caps the amount of state and local taxes that can be deducted from one’s tax return, the ability of those states to effectively charge their richest residents through the nose for the privilege of living within their borders will be severely curtailed, as rich taxpayers suddenly begin to pay attention to tax hikes. A state that cannot keep its richest citizens is not only a state where revenue is sure to decline, but also a state that is less likely to see investment, as business owners and employees will be leery of working in states where higher rates of return on investment could translate into higher taxes for them personally.
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