We're getting some estimates now on how many American households may be paying more in taxes due to Republican maneuvering to screw blue-state voters in their "Trump tax cut" plan. About 11 million filers will be hit by the Republican law's cap on tax deductions for state and local taxes paid, according to a new Treasury audit.

The $10,0000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes is a primary reason some Americans are getting surprised by steep new tax bills. This is not an accident of the law, but an intended effect: In an attempt to partially offset corporate and high-income tax cuts, Republicans inserted a tax hike explicitly tailored to apply primarily to Americans living in higher-tax states, states that use those higher tax rates to supply more robust state and local services than their low-tax counterparts. And which states fit that description?

Majority-Democratic states, of course. If you live in New York, California, or other blue states with high property values and resulting high property taxes, the Republican tax law is coming for you, specifically. If you live in a Republican stronghold state, one that more reflects the Republican ideal of low taxes and much-slashed government services to match, you're not likely to come anywhere near the $10,000 cap to begin with.

The Republican law isn't just a tax hike on certain Americans—it's a tax hike meant to punish states with stricter regulatory frameworks, more lavish school and safety net spending, more policing, and other sins against Republican orthodoxy. Those are the places in which property is the most valuable, and the taxes highest. If voters in those states want to decrease their tax payments to Uncle Sam, the Republican law suggests, those voters had better start falling in line.

It's a cynical move, but one that fits perfectly with the rest of Republican plans to govern for the sake of a core lobbyist-heavy base while sabotaging anything and everything else. Top Republican donors want corporate tax cuts, but they also want state and local taxes slashed, premised on a "need" for brutal austerity that forbids the sort of programs and safety nets relied upon in past decades. Congress can't control those state taxes, and Republicans certainly cannot control the tax preferences of voters in Democratic states—but they can, with a bit of innovation, institute new tax burdens that punish those states specifically.

A tax plan that raises federal taxes on those whose state and local taxes are already highest is a way to put the squeeze to Americans who vote for legislatures that don't uphold conservative donor values. Didn't vote for Paul Ryan's version of a new, diminished America in which everything from preschool to food pantries is now no longer a luxury we can put up with? Then eat rocks: The newest of Republican tax burdens will fall on you.