On the recordApril 16, 2015
I want to thank my colleagues, Jim McDermott and Marsha Blackburn, for joining me in leading the fight to make this middle class tax provision permanent. This provision is about tax fairness and equal treatment. If taxpayers in income tax States can deduct their State and local income taxes, so should residents of sales tax States. That, in America, is just fair. This provision helps hard-working taxpayers keep a little more of what they earn, which is even more important to families, given their stagnant paychecks over the past number of years. More than 10 million American taxpayers in nine States depend on this commonsense deduction, and the dollars that stay in the local community help grow their community rather than grow Washington's economy. A permanent State and local sales tax deduction provides certainty to American families, makes Federal budget scorekeeping more honest, and removes the asterisk from this temporary provision so the progrowth tax reform can advance. It is certainly important to Texas. Since it has been restored, my neighbors have saved more than $10 billion, which buys a lot of school clothes, gas for your car, and helps with rising college costs. To be sure, this provision isn't reserved just for sales tax States. It allows all American taxpayers to choose whether they deduct their State and local income taxes or their State and local sales taxes, whichever is greater. That is fair.…
