General Leave

Floor Speech

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Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The State and local sales tax deduction is an important tax provision for Americans living in States without a State income tax who cannot take advantage of the State and local income tax deduction.

Although I support this deduction as an important alternative for taxpayers in States without income taxes, H.R. 622 is fiscally irresponsible, given that it permanently extends this deduction without any offsets.

Frankly, I am quite surprised that the Republican leadership is advancing this bill that would add $42 billion to the deficit. Just last year, then-Chairman Dave Camp proposed eliminating the State and local sales tax deduction in the Republican tax reform draft. At that time, current Chairman Ryan said he approved of eliminating the sales tax provision before us.

Further, just last month, the Republican leadership presented a budget that requires offsetting the cost of any tax extenders that are made permanent with other revenue measures. Indeed, the GOP budget principle is in line with the Republican tax reform draft last year, which adopted a fiscally responsible approach.

I am at a loss to understand why the Republican leadership is adding $42 billion to our deficit to permanently extend a provision it thinks should be repealed. This bill coupled with the next bill under consideration would add over $300 billion to our deficit, almost half of the amount the Republican budget said we must cut from domestic discretionary spending.

The Republican budget said that we had to cut $759 billion over the next 10 years in domestic discretionary spending in the name of fiscal prudence but can throw $300 billion to the wind for a provision that they have proposed eliminating in tax reform.

We need to provide certainty to taxpayers in affected States that the sales tax deduction will be available to them this year, and then we need to focus on comprehensive reform. This bill moves us farther away from tax reform, not closer.

In addition to being fiscally irresponsible, this bill coupled with the next one under consideration reflect misplaced priorities for this House; rather than pushing a piecemeal, deficit-inflating agenda, we should be helping hard-working American families by raising the minimum wage, ensuring equal pay for equal work, making college more affordable by increasing the Pell grants and improving student loans, helping low-income families afford quality child care, encouraging work via effective tax programs, improving investment in low-income communities, and strengthening the research innovation and competitiveness of our Nation, just to name a few critical efforts on which we should focus.

I am ready to work with the majority on tax reform. However, I cannot support this piecemeal, fiscally irresponsible approach, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, I emphasize my surprise at Republican priorities before us. This week, the Joint Economic Committee issued a report on the economic challenges facing the African American community. The findings are stark and detail the significant racial inequities in employment, earnings, wealth, and poverty.

The report shows that the median income of African American households is $34,600, nearly $24,000 less than the median income of White households. Black Americans are nearly three times more likely to live in poverty than White Americans.

At 10.1 percent, the current unemployment rate for Black Americans is more than double that for White Americans. In my congressional district, the rate of Black unemployment is 24.5 percent compared to only 5.1 percent for White unemployment.

These facts exemplify the extraordinary growth of inequality in recent years. Massive inequality and the injustices which flow from the great imbalance grips so many of our neighborhoods, so many of our towns and villages, so many of our people who need and deserve the opportunity to share in all of our Nation's potential and all that it has to offer.

These are the topics on which policymakers should focus, not hundreds of billions of dollars in piecemeal tax cuts for the wealthiest corporations and heirs to estates over $10 million. The Republican budget proposes to raise taxes on 26 million working families and students by discontinuing important improvements to the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, and education tax credits.

The Republican budget proposes making college more costly by freezing the maximum Pell grant award, eliminating mandatory Pell funding, reducing eligibility for Pell grants, eliminating the in-school interest subsidy, and cutting the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program.

The Republican budget would end Medicare as we know it and proposes undermining the retirement and employee benefits of Federal workers and postal workers. It cuts funding for the Internal Revenue Service, which results in less revenue for our government, undermines taxpayer assistance, and encourages fraud.

We should focus on repairing our Tax Code and enacting policies to help hard-working Americans share in the economic opportunity enjoyed by the wealthiest Americans and most profitable companies.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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