Providing for Consideration of H.R. Salt Marriage Penalty Elimination Act; and Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Denouncing the Harmful, Anti-American Energy Policies of the Biden Administration

Floor Speech

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Mrs. KIM of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the rule and the underlying bill, H.R. 7160, the SALT Marriage Penalty Elimination Act, to allow families to keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets.

I thank my colleague, Representative Lawler, for his leadership to introduce this bill and push for its consideration.

H.R. 7160 would eliminate the so-called marriage penalty on the State and local tax deduction for families who file their taxes jointly. Under the current tax code, married couples filing jointly are penalized and have the same SALT cap of $10,000 as single filers.

H.R. 7160 doubles the SALT deduction cap for married couples to $20,000 and does right by them.

Limited housing supply, high mortgage rates not seen in decades, and high housing costs are making it impossible for many first-time homebuyers to purchase a home and reach the American Dream.

The SALT cap is not and should not be a blue versus red issue. We are simply advocating for our constituents who want us to consider progrowth, profamily values and policies.

In my district, the median price of a home is over $1 million. However, we can pass this rule today to allow us to provide much-needed tax relief and stop discriminating against families through the tax code.

H.R. 7160 will not mark the end of our fight to provide full SALT tax relief for our constituents. This is only the first step to get us there. I will always fight to make life more affordable for my constituents.

I also encourage my colleagues to consider the underlying resolution to condemn the Biden administration's disastrous energy policies and promote affordable sources of energy. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill and resolution. I urge my colleagues to support all of these measures.

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Pascrell made a really important point, and that is that this problem arose and impacted middle-class Americans. That happened because Republicans and the Trump tax cuts didn't really much care about middle-class Americans. They didn't much care about working- class Americans.

In fact, as we know, the Trump tax cuts mostly benefited the wealthy. The Trump tax cuts highlight the priorities that we see in this Chamber between Republicans and Democrats because they imposed the SALT deduction cap for a reason.

They wanted to make sure that they could pass these tax cuts that, as you can see, benefited the richest Americans so much more than they did middle-class Americans. The magnitude is astounding.

Their goal of what they tried to do and what they did do back then worked. The top 0.1 percent had an average tax cut of $193,000. What kind of cut did middle-income Americans receive? A paltry $930. If you earned $3 million or more a year, you got to keep an extra $193,000. People who earned $1 billion got to keep even more.

Do those millionaires and billionaires really need that help? Do you know who really needed that help? The middle class, which got $930, that is barely $77 a month.

These were their priorities. These remain their priorities, except for the fact that there are some election problems happening over there in New York, and they acknowledged it. A few of the New York Republicans helped them get their majority, so this is what they are getting back for 1 year and 1 year only because they didn't want to vote for a 2-year fix.

Imagine what a middle-class family would have been able to do if they had gotten thousands of dollars of tax cuts. They would have been able to do some of the things we are talking about: buy a house, send their kids to college, go on a vacation, make sure that they didn't have to worry about the bills. Mr. Speaker, they could have bought 20 years' worth of groceries if we just allowed them to get what the rich got. But that didn't happen.

Democrat priorities are that we are always standing with the working class and not the wealthiest corporations and CEOs. We want to lower costs and grow the middle class.

H.R. 7160, you know, it is not solving the problem. It is not a permanent fix. It is not even a 2-year fix. When you guys get up and complain that this should not be a problem for us, we wanted to fix it for 2 years. You said no.

They just don't want to let us vote on things that are important. They don't want to let us vote on a 2-year fix. They don't want to let us vote on Ukraine funding, on emergency security issues that are about protecting our troops.

Let us vote on these issues. Let the House Members have a say.

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