[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 180 (Monday, November 6, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H8499-H8500]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE REPUBLICAN TAX PLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, it has been just about 100 hours since the 
House Republican leadership released their tax plan finally, not only 
to the American people, but also to their own rank and file Members.
  I represent a great district, it is eastern Connecticut, it is about 
half the State geographically, and it is home to the University of 
Connecticut, Electric Boat shipyard, Groton Navy base, Coast Guard 
Academy. I am very proud of the fact that these are really sharp folks, 
and in that less than 100-hour period, I have had about 700 emails and 
calls into my office from people who have looked at this plan, have run 
the numbers, have looked at what the existing Tax Code provides, and 
looked at what the net impact will be if this plan were ever to become 
law.
  Louis from Norwich, Connecticut, who is a tax preparer, describes a 
neighbor of his who is 68 years old, she lives by herself, she earns 
$33,000 in pension and Social Security income, only of which $21,000 is 
taxable, and she has a small mortgage.
  She looked at the Republican tax plan, which includes a standard 
deduction of $12,500, and that is it. Her new tax will be $1,014 if 
that plan were to go into effect.
  Under existing law, the itemized deductions that she can claim today 
are roughly about $12,500, the same amount as the standard deduction, 
but she is also able to claim a personal exemption, which every 
American is entitled to under the existing Tax Code. With that existing 
plan, her net taxes are $445. So this tax plan will more than double 
her taxes.
  Now, $33,000 a year for a 68-year-old, I would say that is barely 
middle class, but certainly it is middle class under a lot of 
definitions as a homeowner, yet this tax plan is increasing her taxes 
by over 100 percent.
  Mark from Clinton contacted me about the fact that this tax plan is 
going to eliminate the deduction for qualified medical expenses above 
10 percent of your adjusted gross income. What does that mean? If you 
have got medical expenses for eyeglasses, hearing aids, or you have 
someone in a nursing home that you are paying out-of-pocket expenses 
for, or you have a home healthcare aide coming into your home that is 
not covered under your insurance, you can deduct that off of your taxes 
to the extent that it exceeds 10 percent of your adjusted gross income.
  Mark from Clinton is one of those people. Clinton, Connecticut, is a 
very middle class community. His taxes are going up.
  That qualified medical deduction, again, is something that was 
repeated over and over from individuals who contacted my office, who 
can't believe that, again, they are doing the right thing, they are 
paying their bills for their healthcare--for themselves or for their 
kids or for their aunt or their parent--and they are losing that 
deduction. I am sorry. The standard deduction that is being offered as 
a compensation doesn't come close to helping an individual in that 
situation.
  In addition, the State tax deduction, which the present Tax Code 
allows, is gone under this proposal. In the State of Connecticut, they 
have calculated that families that earn between $50,000 and $200,000 a 
year will see their taxes increase by 14 percent under this proposal.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about a plan which was sold to the 
country as a tax cut for the middle class. Again, there are lots of 
other economic incentives that they put in there supposedly for 
corporations to cut their corporate tax rate and cut the rates for 
people in the top 1 percent. Again, it is totally imbalanced, but I am 
going to set that aside for the moment, because what was also 
guaranteed and promised was that middle class Americans would see their 
taxes going down, people like Louis from Norwich; Mark from Clinton; 
and Jason from Niantic, who is going to lose his college student loan 
interest rate deduction.
  They eliminate the college student loan interest rate reduction. 
Again, we are living in a time right now where student loan debt is 
$1.3 trillion. One of

[[Page H8500]]

the few ways that you can manage that debt is being able to deduct it 
off of your taxes. That is being eliminated under the House Republican 
plan.
  Now, if I sound a little worked up, it is because, literally, within 
minutes, the House Ways and Means Committee is going to start marking 
up this bill. Not one hearing is being held for outside voices to sort 
of at least crunch through the numbers of this proposal. The plan is 
for Speaker Ryan to force a vote next week. We are talking less than 10 
days for rewriting the U.S. Tax Code, which has not been rewritten 
since 1986.
  When it was done under President Reagan, it took a year for the 
process to unfold, and that was the right way to do it, to allow the 
subcommittees to take a look at their provisions of the Tax Code on the 
Ways and Means Committee, to hold hearings, to actually have an 
intelligent, thoughtful exchange of ideas before you mark it up, rather 
than jamming it to the floor, when you are taking away people's 
qualified medical expenses. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

  The deduction that people get for dependent care assistance 
programs--if you have a kid who is developmentally disabled and needs a 
personal care attendant in your home right now, you can deduct that--
that is being taken away.
  This is a bad plan. We need to slow down; we need to give the 
American people a chance to understand this better. Again, I call on 
the Ways and Means Committee to, again, slow down and cancel the 
markups that are scheduled this week.

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