Congressman Lee Zeldin Votes NO on Final Tax Reform Bill
Long Island, NY - December 19, 2017 - Today, Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1) issued the following statement after voting against the Conference Report to Accompany the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (H.R. 1):
"Getting this bill done and getting this bill done right should not have been a binary choice. My goal in this tax reform mission has always been to ensure the hard working men and women of Long Island keep more of their paycheck, reduce their cost of living, and are able to save more for retirement. Unfortunately, this bill is not the tax relief they were promised.
There are many good aspects of this bill, including a necessary reduction in the corporate tax rate, but it should not be done on the backs of ANY hard working, middle income taxpayers. That was totally avoidable and I still don't understand why spending cuts couldn’t have been used as a more responsible pay for.
On balance, this bill remains a geographic redistribution of wealth, taking extra money from a place like New York to pay for deeper tax cuts elsewhere. New York is a net contributor that now will be contributing even more. This bill chooses winners and losers in a way that could have and should have been avoided.
While adding back in the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction to a $10,000 cap was progress, it was not enough progress. While I support fully maintaining the SALT deduction, a better policy if a change was to be made would have been a phase down of SALT over a period of time to a level that fully protects middle income itemizers. With that being said, all New Yorkers must confront the reality that our deduction is so high because our state and local taxes are so high. ALL levels of government must work on tax relief moving forward."