Tax Reform
Mr. President, I come to the floor today painfully aware of the many reasons to oppose this reckless, wasteful Republican tax plan. It is a shame because I still believe we need smart tax reform that puts working families and small…
Mr. President, I come to the floor today painfully aware of the many reasons to oppose this reckless, wasteful Republican tax plan. It is a shame because I still believe we need smart tax reform that puts working families and small businesses first and that prepares America to compete in the 21st century, but that is not what we will be voting on this week.
We are voting on the Trump tax plan this week--a plan Republicans hope to ram through the Senate with a simple majority vote, 51 votes. With 51 votes, Republicans will raise taxes on millions of middle-class families and those working to join the middle class. With 51 votes, Republicans will hand huge tax cuts to big corporations with no strings attached and no guarantees that workers will see higher wages. With 51 votes, they will take healthcare coverage away from 13 million Americans and hike premiums for everyone else. With 51 votes, they will saddle our children and our grandchildren--like my new grandchild--with another $1.5 trillion in debt.
Now, any one of these reasons is reason enough to oppose the Trump tax plan, but, for me, as the senior Senator from New Jersey--a State of nearly 9 million people, a State with the eighth most productive economy in America--I cannot and will not support a tax bill that reads like one giant hit job on New Jersey's middle class.
Just how bad is the Trump tax plan for New Jersey? Well, take the House version--which is a bill so awful that 11 out of 12 Members of Congress from New Jersey voted against it, many of them Republicans-- take that plan and make it worse in the Senate. The Senate bill is worse because it totally eliminates the State and local tax deduction, otherwise known as the SALT deduction.
Even President Trump's external economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, recently said ending the SALT deduction will hurt ``a lot of different people,'' and a lot of these people who will get hurt live in States like New Jersey.
In 2015 alone, nearly 1.8 million New Jersey households deducted a combined $17 billion in State and local taxes from their Federal tax bills, and over 1.5 million New Jersey homeowners with sky-high property taxes deducted nearly $15 billion that same year. These taxpayers aren't high rollers. They are middle-class families who had to work hard to achieve the American dream. In fact, tax data tells us that 83 percent of New Jerseyans who claim the State and local tax deduction make under $200,000 a year, and about half of those make under $100,000 a year. So the families who get hurt live in every corner of our State--from Ocean County, where it will cost taxpayers $1.3 billion, to Burlington County, where it will cost taxpayers $1.37 billion, to Passaic County, where it will cost taxpayers $1.16 billion in deductions. That is wrong. It is just plain wrong to ask these hard- working families--folks who weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouth, who had to work hard for every dollar they have, who had to fight their way into the middle class--it is wrong to ask them to pay more just so big corporations pay less, and do so permanently, and those born to multimillion-dollar inheritances pay nothing at all.
Ending the State and local tax deduction will literally force New Jersey families to pay taxes twice on the same money, and rubbing salt in their wounds is the fact that Republicans let corporations keep on deducting their State and local taxes on top of the huge tax cuts lavished on them by the Trump tax plan.
If protecting the State and local tax deduction is so important for big corporations that make billions of dollars a year, surely my Republican colleagues can imagine how important it is for a middle- class family in a State like New Jersey to keep it.
Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of Congress treating States like New Jersey as America's piggy bank. My constituents already pay too much in taxes. New Jerseyans can't afford to subsidize the rest of America more than we already do. Yet Republicans now want to dig even deeper into the wallets of New Jersey's middle class with the Trump tax plan. To borrow an old phrase as you come into New Jersey from the Lower Trenton Bridge: ``What New Jersey makes, the GOP takes.''
Some have speculated that this tax bill was designed to punish Americans who live in so-called blue States. Certainly, I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past an administration as cynical as this one to punish States that voted against Trump in the 2016 election, but ultimately this isn't about red States or blue States. It is time we start calling these States what they really are. These aren't blue States. They are America's blue-chip States. They are America's innovation States, America's economic powerhouse States.
States like New Jersey are home to millions of makers, not takers, and we are proud of it, but our success didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen by accident. New Jersey's success is predicated on our priorities and our investments. New Jersey is a donor State precisely because we invest in public schools and higher education so New Jerseyans continue driving innovation in fields like biotechnology, agriculture, and medicine.
New Jersey is a donor State precisely because we invest in mass transit and infrastructure so workers can commute to high-paying jobs, whether in New York City or Philadelphia or in the financial district in places like Jersey City and Hoboken, and family and friends in nearby States can easily travel to the Jersey Shore.
New Jersey is a donor State precisely because we invest in public health and law enforcement because we are stronger when we have safe communities and a healthy workforce. In fact, the Fraternal Order of Police says ending the State and local tax deduction will hurt States' ability to ``recruit the men and women that keep us safe.'' That is their quote.
In short, New Jersey is a donor State. We see the States ranked by their deduction, their per capita income, their education rank. There is a correlation. It is a donor State because we believe in opening the doors of opportunity to as many people as possible. That is how a small State like New Jersey continues to punch above its weight economically to the benefit of all Americans and especially the Americans who live in less productive States that are more reliant on Federal spending.
For more than a century, the State and local tax deduction has encouraged
States to invest in education and infrastructure and opportunity for all. It is ironic that Republicans, who talk so much about supporting the States, want to single out those like New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts that invest in the middle class. That is why Senator Cantwell and I will be introducing an amendment to protect the State and local property tax deduction, and I hope a majority of our colleagues see the value in that.
For as long as I can remember, I heard my colleagues on the Republican side talk about protecting--not punishing--success. No matter how you slice it, ending, limiting, or capping State and local tax deduction is a massive tax on the success of States like New Jersey.
The Trump tax plan will raise taxes on millions of middle-class families across America, not in a few years, not in a decade-- immediately.
I refuse to support a tax bill that enriches the few at the expense of the many, that saddles our children with trillions of debt, that sets the stage for Republican cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security because when that debt rises, the next thing we will hear is we have to deal with the entitlements--but not entitlements given to corporations permanently--and that punishes the success of millions of hard-working, middle-class families in States like New Jersey. That is not something I am willing to do.
I yield the floor.