Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The House Freedom Caucus’ Harmful And Extreme Proposal To Extend The SALT Caps

Washington, D.C. - Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the House Freedom Caucus' extreme proposal to extend the SALT caps and impose a new cap on businesses in New York and around the country, vowing to do everything in his power to remove the entire SALT cap and fight similarly harmful proposals. Below are Senator Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Last fall, Donald Trump went to Long Island, New York, and claimed he would "get SALT back."

That's good news, very good news, because it was precisely Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans who created the SALT cap to begin with.

These harmful policies double-tax hard working New Yorkers. They have hurt so many middle-class families - teachers, firefighters, police officers, construction workers - particularly in higher-cost areas like Long Island and the Hudson Valley of New York.

So, it is good that Donald Trump and some Republicans have seen the light, and they have heard from vociferous Long Islanders, and now they are changing their minds about SALT.

But let's not forget: these costly caps are set to expire at the end of the year.

So, to our friends on the other side: if you want to actually lower costs for Long Island, Hudson Valley, and other families across the country - all you have to do is do nothing at all on SALT caps. Let them expire, which they will right at the end of this year. And then they're gone for good, all of them.

Yes, if Congress simply says nothing about SALT caps, all of it will go away and that is what we should do.

But instead of ensuring New Yorkers we will get SALT back, the House Freedom Caucus wants to impose a whole new round of SALT caps. They want to place new SALT caps on New York businesses, small and large, and want to push an increase in the SALT tax on New Yorkers.

The House Freedom Caucus is a group of very powerful, hard, hard-right Republicans. The House Freedom Caucus' SALT plan will increase costs across Long Island and the Hudson valley almost immediately.

I've got only one response to the House Freedom Caucus' SALT proposal. As we say in Brooklyn, "fugeddaboudit!"

There is no scenario under God's green Earth that New York taxpayers will ever accept another unfair SALT cap like the House Freedom Caucus proposes. New York families from Long Island to the Hudson Valley and across the state have suffered long enough at the hands of broken Republican tax policies.

I will do everything I can, first to remove the entire SALT cap tax, and second to never let a new proposal that for the first time imposes the SALT cap on businesses, small and large, to be put into effect. I'm going to do everything I can to fight this dastardly proposal.

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