Restoring Tax Fairness for States and Localities Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Madam Speaker, to my friends here, I wasn't going to come up here and try to do firebrand or the theater, but we do have a little moment of intellectual inconsistency. Let's try a quick thought experiment.
We, as a body, my brothers and sisters on the left, you support a progressive tax system, right?
Well, Madam Speaker, if you support a progressive tax system, then the fact of the matter is, if you have a high-income earning State community, you pay more taxes. It is just a little line of intellectual consistency.
So, you support the wealthier paying more. What happens when you have a deduction that you want to put back?
I am sorry, but you know me and charts; it is a problem. I am working on a 12-step group to deal with it.
The fact of the matter is, the top 5 percent of income earners get 77 percent of the benefit. You can't intellectually have it both ways. I mean, aren't your brains just exploding, saying: Well, on the one hand, we want you to give rich people these deductions, but on the other hand, we want to tax rich people more, except for this bill where we want to give the really, really rich people the benefit.
You are going to get a chance. We are going to have an MTR. At least, this way, you can take it away from the really, really, really, really, really rich people who make $100 million or more, saying they don't get to take the SALT deduction. We will see what level of super-rich people we are defending in this debate.
I understand, from a political standpoint, you are doing the right thing. You are doing the work from your district. But at least we could be intellectually honest about the math.
If you represent a district that has high taxes, whether it be the income taxes or property taxes, coming and defending SALT is fine. It makes sense. But be honest about what the math means. If you are a donor State, it is because you have high incomes. If you want this, it is because you are defending your wealthy.
It is just math, and the math, Madam Speaker, always wins.
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