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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Mr. D'ESPOSITO. Mr. Speaker, we have been in this Chamber for a few minutes now, and we have been reminded at least three times with fancy posters and words from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle about how we got here. Clearly, we know how we got here, and that is why we are trying to fix it.
We have also heard that, well, we don't want to support this because it is only 1 year, and we have heard offers of 2 years. We just got past the Super Bowl, and I am pretty confident that for every play in football, you don't get to throw a Hail Mary and score a touchdown or run a 90-yard run back into the end zone. Sometimes you need to make your way down the field in order to score that touchdown. That is exactly what we are trying to do here.
My constituents in New York's Fourth Congressional District sent me here to Congress to provide meaningful tax relief to local families, and the SALT Marriage Penalty Elimination Act will do exactly that. This important bill would double the State and local tax deduction for married couples from $10,000 to $20,000 for the 2023 tax year. This would allow middle-class families to receive tax relief when they file this year.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act wrongly penalized married taxpayers as the $10,000 cap was implemented for single taxpayers as well as married couples who filed jointly. Married couples were further penalized with the establishment of a $5,000 SALT cap if these taxpayers filed separately.
The SALT Marriage Penalty Elimination Act fixes an anti-family policy and will help middle-class families across New York and the country.
Since my first day here in the House of Representatives, I advocated for lifting the SALT cap, including as current vice chair of the House SALT Caucus. This bill is an important first step to deliver needed tax relief for constituents and increasing or ultimately removing the SALT cap.
We have heard countless stories of Americans who are suffering from sky-high inflation due to the Biden administration's rising gas and grocery prices and out-of-control spending. We must advance these policies.
Just the other day, Leader Jeffries sent out a tweet that New York Republicans were sent here to provide SALT relief, and they have failed because it wasn't in the tax package. Mr. Speaker, it will be on the floor just today. We look forward to Leader Jeffries and others supporting this for New Yorkers and this country.
Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ.
We have seen the Republicans kill a lot of their own rules. A record number of Republican rules have been killed on the floor of the House. I think it is a little too early to crow about getting this done when you don't know if you are going to get your Republican colleagues to vote for your own rule.
There is something else that is in this rule, and that is H. Res. 987. My colleagues like complaining a lot. They have a politics of grievance, but they don't actually solve the problem. They go on and on about various issues, like energy, immigration, other things, but they do not solve the problems. They don't actually pass laws. They don't take up the bills that actually would solve the problem.
That is what we are seeing today in H. Res. 987. It is just a bill of complaint. It is also not very accurate. They are complaining about President Biden's energy policies. Let's look at those energy policies.
The United States is producing a record 13.2 million barrels of crude oil per day, more than Russia or Saudi Arabia, more than any time during the Trump administration. We are also producing record amounts of natural gas.
H.R. 987 itself even notes that the U.S. became a global leader in LNG exports for the first time in 2023, which was under President Biden.
Moreover, oil and gas companies are reaping the benefits. In the last 2 years, we have seen record profits, $196 billion one year and $123 billion the next.
What we see a lot in this other resolution is complaining but not a good recitation of facts on the ground. The resolution also complains that there isn't enough domestic production of reliable and affordable energy.
Let's talk about affordable energy. When Democrats were in control last Congress, we and President Biden took historic action to spur clean energy development right here at home.
We know that clean energy helps stabilize prices because we are not subject to international price fluctuations. As we talked about earlier, as Representative Crow mentioned, one of the reasons we saw the surge in gas prices was because of Putin's war, yet we are not taking up the bipartisan security package that passed overwhelmingly in the Senate. If we want to look at ways of making sure that our international markets don't go crazy, let's address Putin's war.
They don't want to do that.
What we are doing at home is looking at that renewable energy because when we produce renewable energy here at home, we are not dependent on Saudi Arabia, and we are not dependent on Russia.
President Biden knows the importance of energy independence, and we are creating independence by weaning ourselves off of those international markets.
Let me tell you, we are doing that in New Mexico, because when we build in New Mexico, we bring down costs.
What are we doing in New Mexico? Last year, the Inflation Reduction Act created more than 170,000 clean energy jobs and provided $369 billion in investments. Some of that went to New Mexico. I am going to give you a couple of examples from my own beautiful State.
It spurred $1.4 billion in funding for clean energy projects to create at least 2,105 jobs.
In New Mexico, these clean energy jobs are also bringing to our State manufacturing jobs, like in Belen where we will be building wind towers. For the first time, we are creating manufacturing jobs in the United States.
Wind power and solar power are actually the cheapest electricity we can invest in. Our big companies know that, and they are investing in wind and solar.
Indeed, I recently met with Chevron representatives, and they told me excitedly about the plans they have to invest in clean energy, to invest in wind and solar.
Rather than pass a resolution that doesn't do anything but complain, I invite my Republican colleagues to work with Democrats to pass bills that bring down our energy costs while we invest in America's clean energy future here at home.
Help us build on progress we made last Congress so that we can grow the middle class and lower costs for the American people. We can achieve both goals when you put people over politics.
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