Restoring Tax Fairness for States and Localities Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTEN of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5377.

I want to start by thanking my colleagues across the aisle for passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. My predecessor campaigned on it, and I wouldn't be here otherwise, so I thank them all.

It is important to understand we need to pass this bill to undo the damage done by that bill and the hurt it gave to middle-class families, teachers, and first responders across the country. From the very first tax code in 1913, we have included allowing a deduction for State and local taxes for the simple reason that we shouldn't tax people twice.

It is not just going back to 1913. Our Founders got that point as well. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 32 wrote that independent and uncontrollable authority to raise their own revenues for the supply of their own wants would be a problem.

What Hamilton understood is that certain services--roads, schools, fire departments, and libraries--are better and more efficiently provided by local authorities, and when we double taxation, we create a fight between Federal and local authorities for finite resources to the detriment of those critical local services.

Repeal the State and local tax deduction in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes''.

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