From the New York Post: GOP tax plan is a ‘dagger at the economic heart of New York’: Cuomo.

Why?

WASHINGTON — Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday called the GOP tax overhaul a “dagger at the economic heart of New York” and predicted dire consequences for New Yorkers from tax hikes to mortgage foreclosures under the plan.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if home values drop, if you saw mortgage foreclosures go up… The economic consequences are going to be a major issue for us going forward,” Cuomo told John Catsimatidis on his 970 AM radio show.

What’s a huge concern for residents of high tax states like New York, California and New Jersey is capping state and local tax deductions to $10,000 and lowering the mortgage interest deduction on new homes from $1 million to $750,000.

“It’s devastating to New York State and 12 other states,” Cuomo said. “What they did here was reprehensible. I call it an economic civil war. They just divided the nation. They’re using 12 states, which happened to be blue states … to finance the tax cut in the other states.”

Let’s talk housing.

I lived in the suburbs outside Chicago.  I was a consulting engineer.

I started that job with a salary of $85K/yr.  I bought my first home there with a minimum down payment of $7,000.  It was a graduation gift from my grandmother (she used to be a real estate agent and wanted to give me a gift that would be useful).

I lived in a town home, roughly 1,600 sq-ft, 3 bed 2.5 bath, end unit.  My mortgage and escrow was $1,450/mo, which was what I could budget from my income.  My property tax from Will County, Illinois, was over $7,000/year.

I bought a new home in Alabama this year after changing jobs.  It is in a nice development, just under 2,900 sq-ft, 4 bed, 3 bath, fenced in 0.25 acre yard.  I paid the minimum down payment of $9,000 with some money I inherited from my dad.  My mortgage and escrow is $1,450/mo.  My salary got bumped up a little to tad over $90K, so my housing budget stayed pretty much the same.  Madison County, property tax was $2,400 this year because my seller screwed me and the house was not homesteaded, next year it will drop to $1,200.

I went to Zillow and looked for homes for sale in Manhattan and San Francisco roughly comparable to what I am in now.

In NYC, 4 bed, 3 bath, 2,800 sq-ft gets you a condo for $2.5 million and over $9,000/mo in mortgage.

In SF, 4 bed, 2.5 bath, 3,000 sq-ft gets you a house for $2.9 million and $10,600/mo in mortgage.

I found one apartment for rent in Manhattan at roughly my price point.  It is a one bath studio that is so small it doesn’t list the sq-ft.

In San Francisco that gets me a 1 bath studio that is 230 sq-ft, or smaller than my living room.

These places are unaffordable by – to use their language – the 99%.  People like me, educated professionals, are priced so far out of the market it is insane, let alone working class Americans.

I think housing prices in these areas can take a little dip, that might actually help most of the people in NYC.  But more importantly, why does he want to make it more difficult for an engineer in Alabama to get a tax break to protect the millionaires and billionaires in his impossibly expensive hyper elitist cities?

Unless he’s a fucking hypocrite who hates everybody outside his bubble?

Oh yeah, there’s always that.