In this episode, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GAetz) delivers a blistering attack on the uniparty, and lays out the facts behind the tax bill that passed the House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Jason Smith (D-Wash.) and Sen. Wyden (D -D., D-N.Y.C.) work together to pass the Tax Relief For American Families and Workers Act, a bill that will restore three key provisions from President Trump's 2017 tax reform that have a proven record of creating millions of jobs and sparking more investment and economic growth right here at home. The Tax Relief for American Families & Workers Act is pro-growth, pro-jobs and pro-American. It will create over $70 billion in new R&D investment and over 900,000 new jobs, increase small business investment by $400 billion, and generate $58 billion in additional take home pay for American workers. This package raises the expense cap for small businesses beyond the limit set in 2017, and updates it for high-pensions, taxes, and interest rates. Not only are we helping businesses at home, but also ensures America is standing with our key economic partner, Taiwan, by ending double taxation on American workers and families affected by the tax relief package, and by ending the penalty on child tax benefits. It s both pro-family, and affordable housing, and it s both a safe, man-made and affordable disaster recovery. We ll take this country back, and we are being crushed by high prices and high taxes. Firebrand. Thank you for joining the Firebrand Firebrand! Tweet me to let us know what you thought of this live stream! Timestamps: 4:00 - What do you think of this episode? 5:30 - What would you like to see in the next episode of Firebrand? 6:20 - What are your thoughts on the Tax Cut and Jobs Act? 7:15 - What is your favorite part of the Tax Bill? 8:10 - What was your favorite piece of legislation? 9:40 - What kind of tax relief that you would like to be implemented? 10: What are you looking for? 11:00 12:00- What's your favorite tax relief? 13:30 15:15- What is the worst tax relief you ve gotten so far? 16:30- What s your biggest tax relief plan?
00:05:37.000We're broadcasting live out of room 2021 of the Rayburn House Office Building here at the Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. The House of Representatives has just passed legislation reforming the tax code, and it is no bueno.
00:05:53.000I am going to expose in this episode how the Uniparty worked together to great effect against those of us who are trying to advocate for regular Americans and not the ones that the lobbyists and the special interests are paying off to do their bidding.
00:06:07.000So, unfortunately, they are uncorking the champagne on K Street right now at your expense.
00:06:13.000We're going to go through all of that.
00:06:14.000Thanks, everyone, for joining the live stream on X. B. Sully says, happy to be here to connect with fellow patriots.
00:06:32.000I remember the Blinken-Morrell CIA collusion.
00:06:36.000That was during the Trump campaign against Biden, where you had Blinken as a senior Biden campaign official working to try to get these 51 so-called intelligence experts to discredit all of the corruption that was being exposed regarding Hunter and Joe where you had Blinken as a senior Biden campaign official working to try to get And it was, in fact, someone at the CIA telling folks that they might not get their manuscripts approved for their books.
00:07:03.000They might have to go through more difficult red tape if they didn't do what the Biden campaign wanted them to do.
00:07:09.000That's what you'll find out if you'll Google it.
00:07:11.000And I remember being in those depositions.
00:07:13.000And there should be greater consequences in terms of not funding the very enterprises that were misused for politics.
00:07:23.000And that's why I have to break this cycle of continuing resolutions.
00:07:26.000So, I'm going to get now into this tax welfare mess that we are in in the House of Representatives.
00:07:34.000In the House Ways and Means Committee, they have jurisdiction over tax policy.
00:07:39.000And so, you had the chairman of that committee in the House, a Republican, Jason Smith, work at the behest of the Democrat lead on tax policy, Senator Wyden, And they came together with this bill, and I'll give you the opportunity to hear how Republicans and Democrats work together to pass it first.
00:08:00.000So here's Jason Smith introducing this legislation.
00:08:06.000The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act is pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-American.
00:08:14.000The legislation locks in $600 billion in pro-growth tax policies by restoring three key provisions from President Trump's successful 2017 tax reform that have a proven record of creating millions of jobs.
00:08:31.000Raising workers' wages and sparking more investment and economic growth right here at home.
00:08:38.000This bill restores full R&D expensing, interest deductibility, and 100% expensing.
00:08:46.000Each of these policies will help American businesses grow, create jobs, and sharpen their competitive advantage against China.
00:08:55.000This will create over $70 billion in new R&D investment and over 900,000 new jobs, increase small business investment by $400 billion, and generate $58 billion in additional take home pay for American workers.
00:09:13.000Today, America's small businesses are being pummeled by high prices and interest rates.
00:09:19.000This package raises the expense cap for small businesses beyond the limit set in the 2017 tax reform.
00:09:28.000And it cuts paperwork for those small businesses by updating the IRS form last changed when Eisenhower was president.
00:09:37.000Not only are we helping businesses here at home, but this tax relief package also ensures America is standing with our key economic partner, Taiwan, by ending double taxation on American workers and businesses operating in both countries.
00:09:56.000The child tax credit provisions reflect the same structure established by the 2017 tax reform.
00:10:04.000We maintain work requirements while enhancing the benefit to support families crushed by today's inflation and remove the penalty for families with multiple children.
00:10:19.000The reforms include meaningful tax relief for those affected by natural and man-made disasters and encourage more construction of safe, affordable housing.
00:10:31.000At the end of the day, we are replacing bad tax policy with good tax policy by cutting off funding for the Employee Retention Tax Credit, a COVID-era program that costs six times its original amount, It is so riddled with fraud that the IRS put it on its dirty dozen list of the worst scams in America.
00:10:52.000This will save America- We are back live.
00:10:57.000And did you notice that the way they said they're paying for this tax cut is by repealing COVID dollars?
00:11:17.000Non-recurring savings in order to drive up the debt long term.
00:11:22.000This bill will increase America's debt.
00:11:24.000So it's really funny to hear Jason Smith talk about interest rates.
00:11:28.000We know, we've covered extensively on this program, that the highest interest rates that you are paying right now for home loans, car loans, on credit cards, all of that is driven by the debt and federal spending.
00:11:42.000And when you engage in a Tax cut, which isn't really a tax cut.
00:11:53.000Then, this argument, well, we have to pass this bill for China.
00:11:57.000We have to be competitive against China.
00:11:59.000This is going to be the new drumbeat every time they want corporate welfare.
00:12:04.000Every time some big business has the right lobbying firm, has given out the right bribe money and campaign donations, and they want your money for their goals to reduce their risk profile, it's always going to be, oh, well, you know, we have to...
00:13:44.000We've got a few other facts to share about how inflationary this bill is, and the real stinker is that this legislation is going to be a massive giveaway to illegal aliens.
00:13:56.000The point was made brilliantly by my colleague Chip Roy of Texas.
00:14:03.000I do rise in opposition to this legislation, and I do so reluctantly because I know of the significant amount of work by my friend from Missouri, by those, frankly, on both sides of the aisle to reach agreement, my friends on ways and means, important provisions in this legislation that are critical for job growth, for economic growth, critical for the well-being of our country.
00:14:29.000Numerous businesses I know in Texas and around this country that understand the importance of the expensing provisions, interest provisions, research and development.
00:14:40.000But unfortunately, as happens in this town, this legislation comes with provisions that, frankly, the people I represent are tired of.
00:14:51.000And it's provisions that would continue to expand the welfare state, as the Wall Street Journal editorialized about, by expanding the child tax credit in ways that will continue to fund people directly through refundable credits, which we find to be problematic.
00:15:09.000And we think undermines the kind of economic activity and incentive to work and incentive to, you know, produce value that we think is critically important for economic growth.
00:15:19.000But importantly, that that provision is also available to parents who are here in this country illegally of children born in the United States.
00:15:38.000Now, my colleagues on this side of the aisle rejoin that that was a product of the 2017 bill that was pushed by and passed by Republicans, including President Trump.
00:15:54.000And we should not be perpetuating it now.
00:15:57.000All through the 11th hour last night, I worked hard trying to find a way to come up with a provision that might be palatable on both sides of the aisle, this side of the aisle, to find a way to say, let's get that provision pulled off so we can move the pieces that will be good for economic growth and prosperity that I think has bipartisan support and clearly support on this side of the aisle.
00:16:17.000And I'm getting a lot of correspondence from people that I represent who are sick of the same old game in this town.
00:16:25.000Who are sick of saying we're just going to keep doing the same thing and we're going to in this case again continue to expand the welfare state and in this case do so in a way in which it entices people To be in the United States illegally, benefit from being here illegally,
00:16:41.000and do so at a time when we have a heightened level of illegal traffic into the United States, 300,000 people crossing the border in December, millions who have crossed under this president, and we're now, in the middle of that crisis, going to continue to fuel the fire.
00:17:10.000Grammy McGee on X. Complaints about the big corporations being all that matters to far too many people.
00:17:17.000I agree that's why you had the glue for this bill to pass because there was such a giveaway to corporate America and we don't stand for that.
00:17:26.000We want the middle class of the country to succeed and we believe that corporations ought to be successful but the best way to make them successful is not to give them these targeted Opportunities to not pay taxes.
00:17:38.000It's to have a fair, flat tax across the board that everybody pays and then everybody makes a contribution and everybody can thrive.
00:17:46.000And you don't have government putting their hand on the scale.
00:17:50.000A lot of comments in the live stream also.
00:18:08.000Chip Roy is in the fight against the efforts by the Uniparty to send more money to Ukraine.
00:18:13.000So I think his voting record on those matters has been pretty closely aligned to what you've seen from myself, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massey, Tim Burchett.
00:18:23.000There's a good group that stands against The inflationary act of sending money to Ukraine and I would count Chip Roy among that.
00:18:31.000So on this tax bill masquerading around the floor, really it's a welfare bill, the feistiest debate The most tense back-and-forth exchange was between myself and Drew Ferguson.
00:18:46.000Now, you'll remember that Congressman Drew Ferguson is from Georgia.
00:18:50.000He has announced that he is not seeking re-election to the Congress, and he was one of the 20-plus members who refused to vote for Jim Jordan at the end of Jim Jordan's campaign for speaker.
00:19:02.000Here's my debate against this bad welfare bill and my exchange with Congressman Ferguson.
00:19:10.000To the extent that this is a tax bill, there are good provisions in it on business expensing for economic growth.
00:19:17.000But my friends, this is not a tax bill.
00:19:20.000This is a welfare bill masquerading as a tax bill.
00:19:24.000The Wall Street Journal was correct to identify the ways in which this legislation vastly expands the welfare state.
00:19:32.000And so this is how the bipartisan agreement came together.
00:19:35.000If the Republicans were willing to give the Democrats what they wanted for illegal aliens to get massive subsidies and welfare, then the Democrats were willing to give the Republicans what they wanted on a bunch of business welfare.
00:19:48.000The child tax credit, as currently contemplated, will be a massive pull factor to bring people into this country illegally.
00:19:56.000And we could have, as the majority party, demanded constraints to stop them from being able to use the money that way, but bipartisanship was more important than good policy.
00:20:07.000And as my friend from Kentucky, Mr. Massey, noted recently, If you aren't paying taxes and you get a refundable tax credit in the form of a check, that's not a tax cut.
00:20:34.000These R&D tax credits that they've put in there are so targeted, they're bought and paid for by the lobbyists who fund their campaigns and give them donations, and it is entirely wrong.
00:20:45.000We should have a flat tax code, and the R&D tax credits that they're putting in Are deeply misguided.
00:21:13.000The complete mischaracterization about the child tax credit is the most intellectually dishonest conversation that I have heard on this floor in a very long time.
00:21:24.000This is about making sure that people that work And their families have the ability to get ahead.
00:22:11.000If my characterization of the child tax credit is intellectually dishonest, I'd love to hear the warrant behind that claim because none of my colleagues can state how a huge sum of this money is not going to hand up in the hands of illegal immigrants.
00:22:25.000And when it comes to evaluating that context in the era of Trump versus the era of Biden, it is somewhat embarrassing that I would have to remind a Republican colleague that it's the Biden administration that's let in 10 million additional people, which vastly blows out the cost of this particular endeavor.
00:22:44.000Under Trump, you didn't have an open border, so there was less a concern about drawing more people here illegally through this child tax credit.
00:23:18.000Yes, under an ideal circumstance, I would want our tax policy to broaden the base and lower rates and be a flatter system.
00:23:27.000And while the system we have right now is certainly not ideal...
00:23:32.000We should not advance bills that make it worse, that go in the wrong direction of a flat, fair, easily-to-comply-with tax code.
00:23:43.000This is going to be inflationary, this is going to drive up interest rates, and it's going to put a ton of money in the hands of illegals who didn't pay the tax in, but are going to get the refund.
00:23:54.000And here's the answer, Congressman Ferguson said.
00:23:58.000Anyone can get this child tax credit with an employee ID number, not a social security number.
00:24:05.000And all these people who are coming across the border illegally and getting this phony asylum status, they get a tax ID number.
00:24:12.000So they're going to get the checks on all of this.
00:24:16.000We easily could have written into this bill that you have to have a social security number that is valid in order to receive the benefit.
00:24:24.000But you see, they didn't do that because they wanted the Democrat votes, and so they were willing to do a massive giveaway to illegals in order to facilitate their corporate welfare.
00:24:37.000Further debate on The Point was made by Kentucky's Thomas Massey.
00:24:41.000He was a guest on this program recently.
00:24:57.000We are going to give cash payments, checks, to people who don't even pay taxes.
00:25:02.000The hard-working constituents that I represent in Kentucky are tired of getting up at 6 a.m., driving an hour or two to work, working their hind ends off, To watch their neighbors collect these checks, of which there will be more of after this bill.
00:27:47.000188 Democrats voted yes, and only 23 Democrats voted no.
00:27:54.000So if you look at the yes votes, the 357 yes votes, 188 of those came from Democrats, and 169 of them came from Republicans.
00:28:04.000So we passed a welfare bill yesterday that we dressed up like a tax bill, but it's really a welfare bill in drag, And we passed it with more Democrat votes than Republican votes.
00:28:38.000SALT is an acronym for state and local taxes.
00:28:42.000And there was this big deduction that people got in blue states for their state and local taxes off of their federal income taxes.
00:28:50.000And one of the ways that we actually paid for Part of the Trump tax cuts was to remove that deduction.
00:28:58.000And as a Florida man, I supported that because if you have some crazy high taxes in New York or Connecticut, sorry New Yorkers and people from blue states, I love you, but I don't think people in low tax states should have to subsidize people in high tax states just because you guys have a bunch of goons in your state legislatures and on your We're good to
00:29:30.000people in Arizona, Florida, South Carolina to subsidize the high taxes that other people are paying.
00:29:39.000And so the New Yorkers, the New York Republicans, who special breed of cat, they want to introduce a bill to increase the extent to which married people can claim that deduction against their federal taxes with their state and local liabilities. they want to introduce a bill to increase the extent I will oppose this.
00:29:59.000I call on all Florida representatives to oppose the efforts to degrade, erode, or even take one grain of salt away from the Trump tax policies.
00:30:13.000It is the obligation of every Florida representative to defend those Trump policies on salt.
00:30:20.000And not to go back to subsidizing people in high tax states.
00:30:24.000And if Floridians vote for the advancement of this type of legislation, then they are betraying the people of the Sunshine State.
00:30:35.000We have a demand that we're making of the leadership.
00:30:38.000If they want to bring that salt bill to the floor, we want legislation on the floor that says that you don't get welfare unless you have a valid social security number.
00:30:48.000So if they're going to get a salt vote, we want to vote to make sure that illegals are not just raping the system.
00:30:56.000Because they're able to use a tax ID number instead of an actual social security number.
00:31:01.000Those negotiations are ongoing and I will be participating in their continuation as soon as we conclude this program.
00:31:08.000So thank you so much for tuning in, for lending your advocacy and your enthusiasm We give weekly reports on the bills.
00:31:21.000You can read them, understand them, click through to the links on some of the reporting on the major things going around here in Washington and also back home in Florida.
00:31:29.000And of course, make sure you're subscribed with notifications turned on.