GOP donors in New York sour on party's tax plan

Wealthy Republican donors in the Northeast are closing their wallets, livid with the party for supporting a federal tax overhaul that penalizes their lifestyle and, in their view, abandons core tenants of conservative fiscal policy.

In gruff phone calls and angry emails, loyal GOP financiers have declined invitations to fundraisers and refused meetings with prominent Republican officials. The rejection has been especially acute in New York, a liberal bastion, but a major source of the party’s campaign cash.

“I think checkbooks stay closed until they see how it plays out,” said Eric R. Levine, a Manhattan attorney and Republican donor who bundled contributions for Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in 2016. “I’m not even trying to raise money in the fourth quarter.”

During former President Barack Obama’s tenure, GOP donors pumped millions into the party to help Republicans win control of Congress and the White House on the promise that they would enact reform that cuts taxes across the board and treats all industries equally, ending Washington’s practice of picking winners and losers.

Upscale Republicans, donors and voters in high-tax blue states like New York, fear that’s not what they’re getting under the House-passed overhaul or legislation moving through the Senate, both with the support of President Trump.