Liberals: Live By Your Policies, Die By Your Policies

At the end of basically every episode of the show “Real Time With Bill Maher,” the eponymous host ends with a satirical segment called “new rules,” where he lists some sarcastic ideas which more often than not involve trashing Republicans and conservatives.  I know I speak for many when I say that Congress and liberals should start abiding by a new rule: they must live by the policies they created, support, and/or vote for.

For Exhibit A in liberal hypocrisy, look no further than the sanctuary city debate.  According to the Center for Immigration Studies, eight states, more than 100 counties, and more than two dozen cities have some form of a sanctuary policy, which may include “laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE –either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.”  Sadly, the list of sanctuary jurisdictions includes many red counties; not the just the liberal enclaves one would expect to embrace open borders.

Many of these jurisdictions like to present themselves as welcoming to the immigrant community and cite their concern that the immigrant community will not cooperate with law enforcement as excuses for implementing policies that violate federal law.  Nonetheless, liberal politicians, especially those living in California, have extolled the virtues of sanctuary cities; even after the deaths of Bambi Larson, Ronil Singh, and Kate Steinle.  Perhaps with this in mind, President Trump has floated the idea of dropping off the multitude of illegal immigrants seeking asylum in sanctuary cities upon their court-mandated release following 20 days in detention. In the past, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has romanticized illegal immigrants and immigrants in general.  She once gave a speech on the House floor, talking about how her grandson “had a very close friend whose name is Antonio, he’s from Guatemala. And he has beautiful tan skinned, beautiful brown eyes.”  She went on to say that her grandson made a wish on his sixth birthday that he would have “brown skin and brown eyes like Antonio.”

Pelosi’s past rhetoric on illegal immigration makes her reaction to President Trump’s idea to send people who primarily share the characteristics of Antonio to her city all the more surprising. In response to the President’s idea, liberal politicians representing sanctuary jurisdictions have expressed outrage at the idea. Pelosi’s office released a statement decrying the plan as an example of “this Administration’s cynicism and cruelty.” This about face really calls into question liberals’ admiration for sanctuary cities and illegal immigration in general.  If liberals like illegal immigrants so much, then they would surely welcome this policy. The hypocrisy applies to liberal celebrites in addition to the politicians they elect. For the record, actually implementing this idea might not bear much fruit; after all, the sanctuary policies in these jurisdictions will make it much more difficult for ICE to remove the illegals once a judge denies their request for asylum.  But by simply floating the idea, President Trump may have accomplished his mission: exposing the Democrats as hypocrites. 

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in late 2017, became the sole legislative accomplishment of note in the first two years of the Trump administration; as intra-party and inter-party fights prevented meaningful legislation repealing Obamacare and changing our immigration system to one that benefits American workers as opposed to the rich and the Democratic Party.  Many believe the tax reform bill did not go far enough in simplifying the tax code; as many Republicans spent years selling voters the idea of filling their taxes out on a postcard.  Nonetheless, the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions outraged liberals more than any other aspect of the bill.  While liberals like to paint the legislation as a gift to the rich, the reforms regarding the SALT deductions ends up hurting the rich; at least those living in liberal states.

For years, liberal politicians at the state level have faced little consequences for the high taxes they impose on their residents; as they have had the option to write off an unlimited amount of their state, local, and property taxes if they choose to itemize their deductions as opposed to taking the standard deduction.  Residents of high-tax states and counties still have that option but they can only write off their taxes up to $10,000.  IRS data found that residents in the highest tax states wrote off more than $10,000 on average; ranging from around $12,000 in Vermont and Rhode Island to more than $20,000 in New York State.  In the states with the ten highest average deductions for state and local taxes, between 27 and 45 percent of the residents deducted state and local taxes.

I would like to feel sorry for the people who live in these states who have to pay more in taxes now but I don’t.  At the very least, I don’t feel sorry for the liberals in these states.  All of these states have voted Democratic for Presidential elections since 1992 and they have all had Democrats controlling at least one house of the legislature and/or the governorship since then. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in late 2017. All but one of the Republicans who voted no hail from high-tax areas.  Therefore, they most likely predicted that their voters would punish them for supporting a bill that would make them pay more in taxes.  Five of these 13 Republicans lost re-election anyway while two of them opted not to run for re-election.  Of all the House seats Republicans lost in the 2018 midterms, nearly half of them came from high tax states: seven in California, two in Illinois, four in New Jersey, and three in New York.  It looks like voters chose to punish the people who represent them in Congress as opposed to the people they should have punished: the tax-and-spend liberal politicians in their states who imposed the high taxes on them in the first place (that residents of lower tax states effectively had to subsidize prior to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act).    California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont had gubernatorial and legislative elections since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  Residents of these states could have elected Republican governors and legislators, who more likely than not campaigned on cutting taxes.  If they didn’t, they need to find a new campaign manager.  In nearly every single case, voters elected a liberal SJW as their governor and a majority of residents elected liberal legislators.  Republican governors in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Vermont effectively get cancelled out by overwhelmingly Democratic state legislatures.  Voters had their chance to elect tax-cutters and they blew it either by staying home or supporting the Democrats because they agree with their “woke” positions on abortion, immigration, and every other social issue liberals’ obsession with cultural Marxism has thrust onto the national stage.  To all liberals upset about the fact that you have to pay higher taxes, you should take Billy Joel’s advice, laid out in his song “Big Shot,” “don’t come b****ing to me.”

Exhibit C in liberal hypocrisy doubles as Congressional hypocrisy.  In 2010, Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; better known as “Obamacare.”  If liberals in Congress really liked Obamacare so much, they would have live-streamed videos of themselves signing up for Obamacare.  Even after the passage of the law that they once worshipped as much as Obama himself (at least until they began pursuing Medicare-for-all), Congress refused to subject themselves to it.  They continue to get their healthcare heavily subsidized by the American taxpayer.  Perhaps they might feel differently about Obamacare if they found themselves getting kicked off their healthcare plans because they didn’t cover one of the approximately 400,000 “essential health benefits” that the law mandates all insurance plans cover and/or if they had to watch their premiums skyrocket because rather than pay for their own healthcare, they end up subsidizing the who consume an enormous amount of If Congress really wanted to make healthcare affordable to every American, they would follow Ann Coulter’s advice, which includes giving “the poor and tough cases health stamps” and allowing everyone else to “buy health care – and health insurance – on the free market.” But they don’t.  They would rather follow Saul Alinsky’s advice: “control healthcare, you control the people.” 

For the final example of liberal hypocrisy, look no further than the #MeToo movement.  Democratic Presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand, one of many liberals quick to pounce on Republicans such as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh for his decades-old sexual assault allegations, has come under fire for her handling of much more recent sexual misconduct allegations at the hands of one of her staffers. The staffer in question, Abbas Malik, walked off with a warning after allegedly making “unwanted advances and misogynistic remarks” to a female staffer in addition to “intimidating the staffer and then retaliating after she complained.”  An investigation conducted by Gillibrand’s office concluded that Malik’s conduct “did not rise to the level of sexual harassment.” It looked like Malik would get away with his alleged misdeeds until Politico got wind of the situation and confronted Gillibrand’s office about it; at which point Malik finally got the axe. Remember that Gillibrand said that she believed Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, because “she is telling the truth.”  Why didn’t she believe her female staffer, whom she surely knew better than Ford?  If Gillibrand followed the standards she set up when it comes to dealing with sexual misconduct allegations against every other man in America, she would have ousted Malik long before Politico cornered her.

Liberal celebrities have also demonstrated hypocrisy when it comes to the #MeToo movement.  Alyssa Milano, one of many celebrities who joined the anti-Kavanaugh mob, all too happily came to liberal former Vice President Joe Biden’s defense when many women came forward to talk about how uncomfortable the elder statesman made them by sniffing their hair or touching their thigh.  Speaker Pelosi also brushed aside the allegations against Biden, arguing that people should look at “his record” when it comes to supporting legislation important to women, rather than judging him by the handful of allegations  For consistency’s sake, the “believe all women” should apply to all men, even if it means that the Democrats’ most viable candidate to beat President Trump must step aside. 

If liberals would actually live under the policies they create for everyone else, they would embrace the President’s proposal to drop more “Americans-in-waiting” in their cities, vote for politicians that would actually lower their taxes, abolish the Congressional exemption from Obamacare, and hold their politicians As for when liberals will actually start living by their own rules and accepting the consequences of the policies and politicians they support, expect it to happen right after the cows come home.