A brief excerpt on FOX News capturing Sean Hannity talking about paying more taxes after the Trump administration tax cuts was notable for the media star’s candor, with Democratic candidate for Congress — and former Congressman — Mondaire Jones (D-NY) calling out Hannity for “acknowledging that Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress raised our taxes here in the Hudson Valley and throughout New York.”
Here’s Sean Hannity acknowledging that Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress raised our taxes here in the Hudson Valley and throughout New York. https://t.co/SfKklzyMg7
— Mondaire Jones (@MondaireJones) April 30, 2024
In conversation with former Trump administration Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow, Hannity said: “When I was a resident in New York and the Trump tax cuts passed and he eliminated the state and local tax deduction, I ended up paying more.”
Hannity protested the rise in his total tax owed after the Trump tax cuts, saying: “I didn’t deserve that because you’re rewarding states that elect high tax and spend liberals.”
This characterization drew commentary from the actress-activist Heather Thomas, who wrote: “The entire idea of rewarding and punishing states for their dominant party is another grotesque and un-American practice Trump employed.” (Though in this case, the strategy may not have worked as Thomas implies, as Hannity paid the “liberals” in New York more, not less, and so the state may not have been “punished” by Trump’s move.)
Hannity has since switched his residence to Florida, where individual state income tax isn’t a problem. The Trump tax cuts are often derided by the Left for benefitting the top income brackets at a cost to the rest of the nation and for failing to deliver the trickle-down effect they promised.
As a result of those 2017 tax cuts, “households with incomes in the top 1 percent will receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center (TPC),” according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (Offsets in state and local tax breaks, which Hannity addressed, are not taken into account in this data.)
The CBPP’s reporting also revealed that “revenue as a share of GDP has fallen from about 19.5 percent in the years immediately preceding the Bush tax cuts to just 16.3 percent in the years immediately following the Trump tax cuts, with revenues expected to rise to an annual average of 16.9 percent of GDP in 2018-2026 (excluding pandemic years), according to CBO.”