Expressing Support for Tax Policies That Support Working Families

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, wouldn't it be fun if we actually did these sorts of discussions and debates sort of like we do term papers where you actually have to give the footnote of where the numbers come from. That is because I hear numbers from my brothers and sisters on the left, and I say: Where did that come from?

So the first number I am going to give you today, Mr. Speaker, from the Joint Economic Committee, tomorrow is the first day that you actually work for yourself, meaning the first 3\1/2\ months you have been working to pay taxes, whether it be your property taxes, State income taxes, or Federal taxes, Mr. Speaker. This is for the middle income of our brothers and sisters.

Welcome to Tax Freedom Day, which technically might be actually tomorrow.

The rest of the numbers I will give you, Mr. Speaker--if you want to go on to the Senate Finance Committee's website, you will actually find the facts and the numbers. I would love someone who is actually a researcher and likes to look at them, look and then compare them to what the Democrats say and what we say.

For Arizona, we were one of the epicenters of inflation. Our brothers and sisters in our State, after the Biden years of inflation, their wages are just now starting to catch up. Our brothers and sisters were poorer.

One of the things we did in the tax bill last summer is we actually found a way to use the tax system to raise wages, whether it be because of paying less taxes or some of the economic growth.

So let's actually walk through some of the numbers. For a couple, there is a $6,800 real wage increase. You can find that on the Senate's website, Mr. Speaker, $7,400 to $10,600 real take-home pay increase for the average Arizona family. Remember, Mr. Speaker, this is a State that was crushed. I think when the Biden inflation years were over, we came in number two in the country.

Our brothers and sisters in that hardworking middle class are still poorer today because we are just now starting to catch up.

I am actually taking a look at small business. I have 514,000 small businesses that now have the 20 percent deduction locked in. Mr. Speaker, tell me that isn't stability, when you start to walk through things like the $6,000 bonus deduction for seniors in that middle realm of income.

These things are remarkably important to growth, stability, and actually having to deal with the fact that inflation is the biggest tax in the last 40 years, those years of the Biden inflation. Inflation is a tax.

In many ways what we did here in tax reform, we are just trying to make things a little more even for those working brothers and sisters.

I have 822,000 families in Arizona who got an increase in the child deduction of $2,200. I thought that was something the left actually liked.

When you start to walk through our work, Mr. Speaker, to try to make life better for my brothers and sisters in Arizona, that is why this was so important.

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