Rep. Engel Speaks Out Against GOP Tax Plan on House Floor

  Congressman Eliot L. Engel, a top member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, took to the House to condemn House Republicans’ plan to overhaul the tax code by providing large tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and big corporations while eliminating critical deductions for New Yorkers like state and local income tax, mortgages, and charitable donations, among others.

“It’s a classic bait and switch,” Engel said in his remarks. “It may look like middle class people are getting a tax break, but when you add on all the deductions that they will no longer be able to take, it’s a negative for the middle class.”

The full transcript of Congressman Engel’s floor remarks can be found below, and video of the remarks can be found at this link.

“Thank you Mister Speaker, and let’s put rhetoric aside when it comes to the Republican tax bill. This is a bill that gives tremendous tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, while it hits the middle class. It may look like middle class people are getting a tax break, but when you add on all the deductions that they will no longer be able to take, it’s a negative for the middle class.

“Government is always accused of giving you something in one hand and taking it back the other hand, a classic bait and switch. That’s what this bill is about, and in my home state of New York, which is a high tax state, people will no longer have the ability to deduct state and local taxes or deduct mortgage interest to the degree that they have now.

“So, when you add it all up what does it do? Higher taxes for the middle class and lower taxes for millionaires and billionaires like our President—a classic bait and switch. New York is a donor state. We give more money to the Federal Government than we get back, and this is just hitting New York in the head again. We should be protecting the middle class, and letting people who can afford to pay more – millionaires and billionaires – pay more and not the other way around. And finally, what ever happened to the fiscal responsibility of the Republican Party? This blows a hole in the deficit, $1.75 trillion over 10 years.”