Thank you for being here. As you know, today House Republicans unveiled a bill that raises taxes on millions of middle class families and borrows trillions from the future just to give massive new tax breaks to the wealthy and especially to their friends, Corporate America. The American People deserve real bipartisan tax reform that puts the middle class first, creating good paying jobs and lowers the deficit. This republican plan doesnt do any of that. In fact, its a give away to corporations and the wealthiest. They have bragged about saying they have a sample family that if you make this much money, you get this much tax break. Whats really important to know about what theyre doing is what they give you with one hand they take away with the other. They are raising taxes, again, on millions of middle class families hoping that the American People wont figure it out because theyre going to race this through. We know theres some members on the floor of the house today who are on the ways and Means Committee who have never even seen this bill. So if youre a middle class family, how do you judge this . If you own a home or want to one day, you lose. If you have a sick child or a Family Member with longterm medical care needs, they take away the medical deduction. You lose. If you have Student Loans or want to have Student Loans or use the credit for lifetime learning, theres a credit for lifetime learning, you lose. If your corporation wants to pay for learning for employees, that deduction is gone. You lose. If your family lives in a state, any state, and dont want your income taxed twice, you lose. And if you plan to live past 65 and need medicare, you lose. Hidden in the pages of the bill are devastating plans to raise taxes on working families by dismantling state and local Tax Deductions, encouraging corporations to ship jobs overseas. This is very important. Shipping jobs overseas costs you less than creating jobs in america. Offshoring jobs at the expense of the american worker. 1. 5 trillion in tax breaks for Corporate America. This all goes together. Its a package for Corporate America. 1. 5 trillion in tax breaks for Corporate America. The same exact amount they cut from medicare, 500 billion, medicaid, 1 trillion. Gift to Corporate America. And the additional gift of lowering the cost of shipping, making it cheaper for them to ship jobs overseas than to create jobs in the united states. Even after ransacking all the middle class benefits, republicans are still adding trillions to the deficit. Scheming to use the debt they pileup today to obliterate medicare and medicaid tomorrow. This is a shell game. A ponzi that Corporate America will ben trait penetrate on the people. R ransacks benefits for the middle class. If youre the middle class, they will give you the sun, the moon, and the stars which is the backbone of our democracy. Im pleased to welcome back to the house side and yield to the distinguished democratic leader of the senate, chuck schumer. Thank you, nancy. When i was in the house and ron was in the house, we didnt have such a fancy room here. We had that little place up on the third floor which i inhabited regularly. Camera shy. Dont need any addons here. Were still pouring through the fine print of the House Republican tax plan. One thing is crystal clear. This plan is a tax burden that ought to be on the backs of the wealthy and the biggest corporations, but instead it drops it squarely on the backs of the middle class. Youre a big corporation, youre a wealthy individual, you do great. Youre a middle class person, you suffer. Republicans are trying to argue that the middle class gets a tax break, but what they wont tell you is that many, many, many middle class families will see their taxes go up under this plan. Let me give you two examples. A family in new york or illinois or virginia, they have a Household Income of about 100,000. In those states thats not very much because teacher, policemen living together, husband and wife, make over that. Now, they if you take the typical amount of each of those deductions, their taxable income would fall 44 fall to 44,397 meaning this family pays 5,727 more in taxes while the wealthy get a huge break. People like that are the backbone of the middle class. Theyre all over the suburbs of new york and california, illinois, pennsylvania, virginia, colorado. Many of them in the districts of our republican friends. Theyre going to pay a whole lot more. Now, lets take another family, a poorer family making 40,000 a year. Now this family could get an increase of 810 because the Child Tax Credit doesnt help those families. Instead the bottom rate goes up and they pay more. So throughout the middle class, millions upon millions of hard working citizens are paying more. I wonder if you can find someone whose income is over 1 million a year whos going to pay less. Whos going to pay whos going to pay more. They wont. Middle class pays more. Wealthy pay less. And people in different individual circumstances get clobbered. If you pay Student Loans, if you have a mortgage, if you have medical expenses, your taxes could very well go up. Because they eliminate the deductions for the middle class and increase the ability of the wealthy to pay less. So family after family after family gets hurt. Well give you the examples of the families making 100,000, the family making 40,000 and how much more they pay. And so this bill is everything america doesnt want. America doesnt want the wealthy to pay less taxes. They know that big corporations are swimming in money and dont need any more and they wont produce any jobs. They want middle class tax relief and this bill takes away so much of middle class tax relief that millions of middle class families will be in pain from this bill. And now we see what our republican colleagues are doing. The bill comes out thursday. They want to start marking it up monday. A bill of enormous complexity that affects millions of people in so many different ways. Thats a disgrace. To rush a bill like this through without a hearing, without scores, without experts looking at it, all the businesses want to look at it. Everybody wants to look at it. Theyre trying to rush it through. Why . Theyre ashamed of both parties worked together at length. Proposals were vetted. I was there. I worked on that bill. Along with chairman gephardt. Senator bradley. There were countless hours of hearings. The problems that existed in the initial draft were changed and perfected and modified so at the end it was a bill that everyone could be proud. Republicans are not proud of this bill. If they were, they would march the bill down the streets of america with a big brass band and say, hey, everybody, look at our bill instead theyre hiding the bill. And thats because theyre not doing tax reform. Theyre doing tax giveaways to the wealthy and the powerful, and telling the middle class, take a hike, youre on your own, baby. We will fight this bill tooth and nail. I believe we will prevail. Even in the shortened time they try to rush it through. Tax legislation is extremely complex. And you cannot have a successful bill if you rush it through in the dark of night. Richie. Thanks, charlie. This is a missed opportunity. And i say missed opportunity, because i want to highlight what happened back in 86 specifically. There were 30 hearings in the full ways and Means Committee. There were 12 hearings in the ways and means subcommittees. More than 450 witnesses testified and the markup took 26 days. A reminder. We have not even seen the chairmans mark. Were likely to see that maybe tomorrow. As of the moment, we have not seen the distribution tables. We have not had a chance to go through anything other than what they have presented by a press conference. But we do know the following. That theyre going to say on one hand that theyre giving 1150 to the average family, and then simultaneously taking it away by capping deductions that they have for Home Ownership and how about the fact theres 1 trillion worth of student debt in america, and theyre taking away the ability of students to deduct that interest. When you consider what theyre doing on the charitable front, this is going to discourage charitable giving. These were guarantees they made to people that this wouldnt happen. Urban issues . Getting rid of new markets tax credits . Getting rid of the historic tax credit and then talking about st stimulus . Stimulus is from old market tax credits. Thats how its done. So when you look at what weve had this exercise in, trying to decipher simplicity, one thing we can be all assured of today, this is anything but simplification of the tax code. Youre going to have a chance to pore through these details now during the course of the next few hours. Were all anxious to see the distribution tables so we can finally figure out who gets what. But its very clear at this moment that their advertised effort on behalf of the middle class is simply not true. Rich, thank you. And good to be with the speaker and my leader, senator schumer. I think its important to recognize what this bill is really all about. Its designed to offer what appear to be enough crumbs for some middle class folks in order to distract from the multitrilliondollar giveaways to the big corporations that ship jobs overseas and the mega wealthy. And let me give you an example, and senator schumer and i have been looking at these examples all through the morning. Say you have a family who makes a little bit over 50,000. On a good day, maybe, just maybe, that family might get an ittybitty sliver. But if they have to send a kid to school, or they have to pay medical expenses, which they could no longer write off, this bill leaves that family behind. And that is going to be the message we are going to be getting out over the next couple of days. My colleague said the overwhelming winners in this bill are the people who have the power. The people who can hire all the technicians and all the experts who are already thriving in an economy that leaves so many working class people behind. Now, we know that there is a lot still to be evaluated. I think it takes your breath away to believe that you can on monday talk about a bill and actually begin considering it formally that would remake the American Economy with such flimsy amounts of information that are available. And what im going to be stressing im on my way, and i appreciate both the leaders recognizing that we west coasters have flights and the like. Im having town meetings, four of them, over the weekend. The first thing im going to talk about is if you want to do a tax bill right, you dont start with a double standard. The Corporate Tax breaks in the republican plan are permanent. Written in ink, set in stone, locked in place, key thrown away. But look at the bill so far, a lot of families are going to be settling for temporary tax cuts. Theres a double standard on double taxation. The corporations are still going to get to deduct their state and local taxes, but individuals and families wont. A recent college grad who didnt come from much and took on tens of thousands of dollars in Student Loan Debt loses their deduction for student Loan Interest payments, but guess what . The multinationals who ship jobs overseas still get to deduct their Interest Payments now, what could be more clear evidence of the kind of double standard that my colleagues and i are talking about . And the last point i want to mention is deeply personal, and i have talked about this with my friends over the years. I was director of the great panthers for many years back when i had a full head of hair and rugged good looks. And, boy, this is really anti senior as it relates to the change in the medical deduction. A senior whose got an Expensive Health condition. For example, a rare cancer or a dental problem that requires frequent treatment loses under this proposal the ability to deduct those medical expenses. But Corporate Tax breaks for expenses will get even bigger. Let me tell you something. President trump didnt tell seniors in america during the campaign that they were going to lose the opportunity to be able to afford health care. So along with my colleagues who said it very well, this is going to be a fullcourt press, because what they want to do is get this bill out before americans have had the chance to put a dent in their holiday shopping. Thats because this bill cant stand the light of day. Were going to make sure that we take to the American People what this bill is really all about. I just want to make one correction before we do questions. I left out the 100,000 family, okay . A lot of states like mine, married teacher and police officer, make considerably more than that. They deduct their state and local taxes, their mortgage interest, Student Loans and medical expenses. Take a typical amount for each of those deductions. Their taxable income falls to 44,397. They would owe 5,727 in taxes. Heres the part i left out. They get 3,000 in Child Tax Credits so their tax burden goes to 2,727, which is 993 more. So people making 100,000, people making 40,000, and lots of people in between pay a lot more in taxes while the big fat cats do just grand. I just wanted to put three facts together here about Corporate America. Because you said the president didnt say this or that during the campaign to seniors. He didnt say to americas workers that were going to give 1. 5 trillion tax break to Corporate America, the same amount were going to take out of medicare and medicaid, give a 1. 5 trillion tax break to Corporate America, make it cheaper to send jobs overseas than to create jobs here. And then as the senator said, that Ranking Member on the finance committee, vice chairman, whatever they call it there, said, while individuals in the states cannot deduct their state and local taxes, corporations can. And even corporations who make that money overseas. Its a total rip. And when he said they found some crumbs, it just reminds you of a big banquet for all of the rich and powerful. Sharing all the money that theyre taking from the middle class while they throw some crumbs. Its a flimflam. It has to be rejected. You have to help us get the word out. Any questions . No questions . On the amt, too many of you followed the work weve done on that, myself having earned a phd in it, i think. On amt, we took care of the middle class on amt in the famous new years eve get together we had almost a couple of years ago. The middle class does not pay amt any more. This is now what theyre doing. Its limited to the highest income americans. Its about 4. 5 million families. Thats all that are going to pay amt. Questions. Reconciliation. The republicans can move taxes without you guys. So what is your role here . We know youre against this. But whats your role Going Forward . Same role we had in health care. Let the American People know about the bill. They wont like it. And as a result, they wont get enough votes to pass it. This bill is so against what the average american wants. And theyre beginning to see it, most of the polling data shows that when they that people are now against the trump tax plan. The poll i saw, it was 58 said they thought it was for the wealthy. 18 against it. Another one, 46 against, 28 for. And these folks are going to go home, and many of them are in vulnerable districts, and their constituents are going to know that theyre hurting average voters to help the very wealthy. No one buys that, except the thousand people in the right wing contribution and the people in the think tanks. And law schools they pay. So once the public learns about this plan, now that its public, theyre not going to like it. Theres going to be huge pressure on republicans not to vote for it. Yes. Democratic unity was extremely powerful on obamacare appeal. The idea you guys didnt lose any members. This by some accounts is going to be a harder lift on that. How confident are you . We have in the senate 45 of our 48 signed a letter that asked just for three things. One, no tax breaks for the top 1 . They get a big one through the passthroughs. Huge. And a state tax. Second, budget neutrality. Dont increase the deficit. This tax bill blows a huge hole through the deficit. And third, work with us, dont use reconciliation. Even the three who didnt vote for it, listen to what they have said. Didnt sign our letter. Even the three who didnt sign our letter agree with those three principles. This bill is very far away from them. Just listen to what theyre saying about it. Peter, can i add a word on that . Go ahead. Alana, i went with the five democrats to the white house about ten days or so ago. They were the five democrats up for election in 2018 in the states that donald trump won. And all of them very specifically backed up the principles that leader schumer just mentioned. First thing out of their mouth, weve got to get this to the middle class. Second, cant get it to the wealthy. In fact, when the finance democrats brought it up, president said, oh, we dont want it to go to people like myself. And that it wouldnt clobber Social Security and medicare. So the points that he has stressed are the very ones that the finance democrats in states that the president won in 2018 emphasized when they were with the president. And youve got an interesting dynamic here. In the house, you have a lot of republicans from suburban, fairly welloff districts who are going to get clobbered by this bill. So to get it to pass, which they i dont know if theyll be able to do it, theyve got to make the deficit worse by getting rid of the few payfors, which are mainly on the backs of the middle class. In the senate, you have a good number of senators theyve already expressed, who are deficit hawks, republican. And they dont want to vote for something that has a, you know, multitrillion dollar hole in the deficit. And so what helps them pass it in the house hurts them to pass it in the senate, and vice versa. Theyre in a very difficult position. And i might add that in addition to our internal unity, we had a unity with all those outside who were paying attention to what was happening on health care. And they see this tax that was a tax bill disguised as a health care bill. What they did before. And that was defeated. Now they have a tax bill that seriously undermines the good health of the American People. So many of those same people will be making calls into the republican districts about the medical tax deduction, about what it does to medicare, and medicaid, about what it does to charitable giving. Because many of these charitable organizations meet the needs of the neediest. And they are very activated in the republican district. So our unity internally is good for our own maneuvering. But the outside mobilization is unified against this, as well. And while the tax bill the health bill was life and death, this is really everything on the line. Why are the California Republicans supported this bill when theyre in the same spot that new york and new jersey republicans are . Well, its a very good question. Earlier today, some of you may have been here, we had our california delegation democrats lined up, and 14 of them read what it meant in different districts. How many people were affected. What the average deduction would be. In one district, its over royce, its over 200,000 people, around 18,000 in the deduction, as he voted for it. And it will be interesting to see. Our governor has sent letters to them. We have had lots of press going on about it, so that they are hoping that their constituents dont know whats happening here. And thats what the point the leader made earlier. Theyre just hoping they could masquerade in this week of halloween, masquerade as fiscal conservatives and the rest. But they i said i indict them for what they are doing to their own constituents. Costing them money. Why . Why . Why is always the question. Why . So they can give tax cuts to the high end and to Corporate America. Enabling them to ship jobs overseas at an advantage, take their deduction, even for the money they make overseas, while depriving their own constituents of that. So they will be hearing from their constituents on it. Lets hope that they were just enabling the process to go forward. Lets hope that thats the case. Or maybe idea logically theyre just trickledown guys, and their constituents have to make a judgment about that. But the Republican Leadership, house and senate, told them, dont stop it now. Let it go forward and lets see what happens. Well likely to get worse. And its going to get worse. And the likelihood, they may be living in the old world. Back in 2000, if you gave huge tax breaks to the wealthy and crumbs to the middle class, the middle class would say, okay, im getting something. The world is different. With Income Distribution the way it is, with the populism and anger that propelled donald trump to the presidency, you cant get away with that any more. You cant say, ill give the middle class a crumb or two, give almost all the tax breaks to the rich and powerful and have people go along with it. Id like to ask the two senators, what do you think the finance committee will do on this bill . How will it be different from what the house is as of now, what we have been led to believe is, after the legislation gets out of the house ways and Means Committee, chairman hatch intends to lay down his own mark. Now, he has been part of this gang of six. So we dont know what hell do. My hope is that he will see over the next few days how many of his constituents in utah get hurt, how damaging this is to the middle class, how harmful it is to students. Hell say, i dont want to go that route. Now, i cant tell you what the odds are, but one of the reasons that we are going to be working around the clock right now, particularly with this unheard of concept where rich neil has got to have a markup of a bill on monday, with virtually no information. Bill bradley called up the other day, hes a friend of all of ours, and was intimately involved in the 86 bill. And i explained to him what was going on. He was just incredulous, because in the finance committee, they took days and days to try to find common ground. They were on the floor of the senate for weeks in an effort to try to come together. And the point i just made to chairman hatch is, i said, you know, if you decide you wont accept our principles, focused on the middle class, not on the people at the top, not wrecking Social Security, and medicare, you arent going to get a bipartisan bill. And if you just pass this on a partisan offramp only, you might be able to get a sugar high, but youre going to see that you and your party have a lot of problems in the days ahead. So what were trying to do is generate as much visibility and focus on what this bill actually does. So that after rich neil and ways and Means Committee do everything they can, we can build on it and hopefully in the senate produce something different. I have an infrastructure question. The House Republicans are proposing to eliminate private activity bonds, which were used are used for airports or used for a lot of other things, and congressman neil, youre part of a group of 20 democrats who proposed the bill earlier this week for Disaster Recovery bonds, liberty bonds you should know i also lifted the cap on private activity bonds. Yes. We were in the majority. Youve described it. Its stimulus. Its stimulus. And anybody who has been to an airport in america today, anything thats been expanded recently or over the last four or five years, it was lifting the cap on the private activity bonds. Even now when you go through what they have done with municipal finance here, they shaved back the exemption on municipal bonds. And theyre not going to be quite as attractive as they once were. So i cant wait until mayors and others begin to take a look at this information. If i just may say on that i want the whole score, because the leader talked about deficit. The deficit, and thats been a big problem. Many americans just want to know what it means to them and their lives. And its bad news. But in terms of our country, and our responsibility, the increase in the National Debt is huge in the tenyear period. But in the out years, it is it hemorrhages money. It hemorrhages. Its a hemorrhaging bill. And those of you who care about deficit, and we supposedly have deficit hawks in the congress, although, as ive said before, theyre becoming an endangered species. If they care, they have to know that we always have to do when we did health care and all the others, it was the first ten years, the second ten years. The second ten years are very detrimental to our country. Theres almost no turning back from what they want to do. We have to stop them now. One other point related to your question. Im going to excuse myself, because we have votes. Two former members of the house will take over. Both class of 1980. Although youre a little quicker than me. Another issue about jobs. Not only do private activity bonds getting rid of them hurt jobs, thousands and hundreds of thousands of construction jobs, but housing is hurt badly by this. Thats why the realtors are against it. Thats why the Home Builders are against it. And i just saw a reuters story that said the Home Building the home index the index of companies that have to do with homes, furnishings and everything else, one sixth of our economy went way down after this bill came out. So theyre talking about jobs. But Small Business is unhappy with it. And f. I. B. Is not for this bill right now. The homeowners and realtors are not for it. You have quasi municipal finance for roads or bridges or stadiums or things like that. Theyre not for it. And the job gain they think theyre going to get, we had these the head of the democratic leader of the kansas leng Legislature Come in and tell us the experience when sam braun back, made the same exact promise as our republican friends are making today. It was a disaster. They not only put kansas in a huge deficit, but they cut back on services, some School Districts had to go to four days a week. And they lost their elections. And thats the other thing about our you know, in a certain sense, this is a winwin for us. God forbid, they pass this awful bill. Theyll pay a huge price. Theyll pay a huge price. Because the public will know about it by a year from now. They can rush it through now. But were going to fight it tooth and nail, just like health care. We thought maybe if they would even pass health care, you know, they would pay a price, because it would hurt so many people. But we know how bad this is for the country. And thats how were thats why were going to fight it. Yes. As far as the state and local Tax Deductions are concerned, how much responsibility do the state legislatures of say, new york, california, new jersey, really have . Because these are highly taxed states. Sure they are. They made a choice. New york has you know, you go to long island. They have great education. Theyre willing to pay more taxes for education. That should be their choice. And they shouldnt have to pay double tax because thats their choice. Our republican friends generally believe in states rights. But not on the issue of state and local deductibility, it seems. Senator schumer, a question on earlier today, President Trump met with several members of the Republican Senate and talked about immigration and specifically about the daca issue and he stressed he does not want daca fix to come up in the spending bill in early december. Whats your reaction to that . Well, im going wait to talk to some of my colleagues, republican colleagues, who were in the room before reacting. Ive only heard news reports. Senator harris and a few others have talked about not supporting a spending bill if there is no daca i think were all of the view that were going to do everything we can to pass the bill. But we expect it will pass, because we have a lot of republican support for this bill. And i think its going to do better than people think. No matter what donald trump says on one given day or another. Yes. Mr. Schumer, i just have a quick toss this is about taxes. I wanted to ask about your reaction to the donna brazil article on politico today. I havent seen it. Okay. Do you have any reaction . I havent seen it. Someone asked me already. Do you believe theres correction in the dnc . Im going to read the article. Okay. Last one. Is it going to be tougher to get any kind of concessions for the republicans on salt in the senate than the house . Because theres nobody from the states, the hightax states . I think salt, while many senators dislike it, will have more political it will cause there will be more house members reluctant to vote for the bill because of salt than senate members. Its sort of an interesting dynamic, as i said. In the senate, you have a lot of deficit hawks. In the house, the hard right, which used to be a deficit hawk, whenever there was any spending program, has now seemed to have given that up. Although Pete Peterson today said this would be horrible for the deficit. And so its a different dynamic. But its a dynamic that makes it harder to pass the bill, because what you have to do to win over the house makes it harder to win over the senate. Thank you, everybody. As we wrapup with congressional democrats, among the changes in the republican tax plan, reducing the number of tax brackets, cutting tax rates on corporations and limiting the mortgage Interest Deduction to loans of 500,000 or less. Now the plan also caps local and state property Tax Deductions at 10,000. It also increases the Child Tax Credit, and the bill would no longer allow medical expenses or property loss to be deducted. House republicans today unveiling their tax proposal that would reduce the number of tax brackets and cut rates on corporations, also limiting some Tax Deductions like the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction. If you want to read the republicans bill, you can go to cspan. Org congress, and that will take you right to our congressional chronicle page where you can read all 429 pages of that proposal. House Republican Leaders unveiled that tax plan this morning in the capitol. At the announcement we heard from House Speaker paul ryan, ways and Means Committee chair kevin brady and other Republican Leaders. Heres a look
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