You shouldn't be rewarded with lower taxes just because you reproduce
I'm not asking to be rewarded. I'm asking to not be penalized under this current reform by actually raising my taxes due to stripping away a previously extremely valuable personal exemption. For lower income folks, losing those personal exemptions doesn't hurt nearly as bad because the doubling of the standard deduction more than offsets it. But for higher income folks, our itemized deductions were already comparable to the new standard deduction, so losing the personal exemption for our kids could increase our taxes - when we high wage earners already pay a higher effective tax rate than the vast majority of Americans.
Aren't you on record saying the opposite about other deductions?
Yes. The difference is that, as I have repeatedly explained, I'm already paying a higher effective tax rate than just about everyone else - over 90% of Americans. There are going to be some winners and losers with any reform, but I don't think it is "fair" to make me a bigger loser when I'm already getting fleeced. But ideas of fairness can be pretty warped when politics are involved.
I can think of one group of people who are getting screwed even worse than me - people like me except that they also live in blue state high tax hellholes with much higher property values. Like me, they were already getting fleeced and they'll fare even worse, but I just don't think the federal government should be subsidizing irresponsible state taxation.