As the Republicans see it, the purpose of national government is to rein in states and localities that believe in and enforce a social contract. The GOP tax bills are still to be reconciled with each other, but both have been designed to force Democratic-controlled states to roll back their progressive taxes and, with that, their support for public schools and universities, environmental protections, public-sector unions—the works. By eliminating state and local tax deductions, they aim to compel blue states—California and New York most of all—to become more like such bastions of enlightenment as Mississippi and Alabama.
That's not an incidental by-product of the GOP's tax bills; that's their intent. “It's death to Democrats,” right-wing economist Stephen Moore told Bloomberg News. “They go after state and local taxes, which weakens public employee unions. They go after university endowments, and universities have become playpens of the left. And getting rid of the mandate is to eventually dismantle Obamacare.”
Justice Louis Brandeis famously termed states and cities “laboratories of democracy.” Lest anyone doubted it, Republicans have again made clear that they're no fans of either democracy or laboratories, much less both.
