Mike Lawler On GOP Budget: 'If The Senate Changes SALT Deduction In Any Way, I Will Be A No'

During a CNN interview on Sunday, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) spoke about the SALT deduction in the GOP budget.

Transcript

00:00look we entered into a good faith negotiation with the speaker with leadership going back

00:08really over two years when i first came to congress i made very clear that i would never

00:13support a tax bill that did not adequately address the issue of salt and this is an issue that not

00:21just impacts blue states it impacts nearly every state in the country 29 states blew through the

00:28current ten thousand dollar cap over the last seven years and so lifting the cap on salt is

00:35critically important to provide middle class tax relief and that's exactly what we did here

00:40by negotiating a forty thousand dollar cap with a five hundred thousand dollar income cap and one

00:46percent growth over the 10-year period and so i've been very clear with leadership all this past week

00:53that if the senate changes uh the salt deduction uh in any way i will be a no uh and i'm not going

01:02to buckle on that uh and i know in speaking to my other uh colleagues they will be a no as well

01:08that's up to the senate uh and and the leadership the fact is uh that salt is a pay for for other

01:16provisions in the bill so when i hear uh some of my senate colleagues or even some of my house

01:21colleagues say that you know this is uh a giveaway to blue states uh you know it's not the fact is

01:30uh the cap on salt has been used to for instance pay for the doubling of the standard deduction uh to

01:36pay for no tax on tips no tax on overtime because unlimited salt would be 1.3 trillion so we came to

01:44an agreement at about 350 billion dollars uh in total cost of of what it is for the forty thousand

01:51dollar salt cap uh but that is something that is vital to the middle class and working class we're

01:58talking about a cop and a teacher in new york uh who are getting hammered by property taxes and uh

02:05state income taxes new york is the only state in the country that still requires the counties to pay a

02:11quarter of the cost of the medicaid program so that's why part of the reason why our property

02:16taxes are so high in new york sure but at the end of the day donald trump was elected president of the

02:22united states uh and i was duly elected as a member of the house uh the fact is uh i am uh focused on

02:31addressing the issues that matter to my constituents number one was the affordability crisis and reducing

02:37the tax burden number two is reigning in the size and scope of the federal government this bill will

02:42for 1.5 trillion in savings that's about 150 billion in savings uh per year on an annual basis

02:51uh you're talking about 1.7 percent of the overall spend of the next year of the next 10 years which is

02:59about 86 trillion dollars so we are working through finding savings uh in addition obviously border

03:06security and strengthening our uh defense that is the core of what this bill uh has been about now

03:14what elon musk is talking about is discretionary spending and discretionary spending in large measure

03:20cannot be dealt with in a reconciliation bill that is what the appropriations process and the rescissions

03:28process is about and those uh will be coming up in the coming months and that's what we're going to be

03:34dealing with with respect to doge and a lot of the savings that they found

03:38that are in the coming months and that's what the

03:55are in the coming months and that's what they found and that's what the value of the