Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: To our next guest who is joining us now live
Speaker 2: from Capitol Hill, Republican Congressman Nicole Mallytakis of New York,
Speaker 2: who Zach just mentioned, is with us now here on
Speaker 2: Bloomberg TV and Radio. Congressman, welcome back to Balance of Power.
Speaker 2: You've obviously made it back safely to Washington from mar
Speaker 2: A Lago. I know you told Zach and have expressed
Speaker 2: that really this is about getting to two hundred and
Speaker 2: eighteen and whatever number it is on SALT that can
Speaker 2: get the requisite votes. But is there a floor and
Speaker 2: a ceiling, some kind of parameter around what that number
Speaker 2: actually realistically could look like you could share with us.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, I think your reporter got it just right.
Speaker 3: The low end, it would be doubling it from ten
Speaker 3: to twenty. On the high end, it would be one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand for individual I quite frankly think that is
Speaker 3: a little too high, in particular if we're looking at
Speaker 3: target and middle class families, I think it could be
Speaker 3: really more between the twenty and the sixty range. And
Speaker 3: this is just me knowing all the information I know
Speaker 3: as a member of Ways and Means and looking at
Speaker 3: the big piece, big picture, the big puzzle, knowing all
Speaker 3: the other pieces that need to fit into this equation.
Speaker 3: I think the idea here is to get some type
Speaker 3: of relief from the federal level for our constituents in
Speaker 3: New York, New Jersey, California, because their mayors and governors,
Speaker 3: quite frankly, are abusing them. They keep increasing their taxes.
Speaker 3: The property tax levy in New York City goes up
Speaker 3: year after year after year. It's the only municipality in
Speaker 3: the state that does not have a two percent cap,
Speaker 3: and that's unfortunate. This problem could obviously be resolved by
Speaker 3: our mayor and governor if they were just to freeze
Speaker 3: property taxes or lower the personal income tax rate, as
Speaker 3: President Trump did in TCJA in twenty seventeen. But you
Speaker 3: have to remember there's the other pieces. You have the
Speaker 3: standard deduction that was doubled. You had the child tax
Speaker 3: credit that was doubled. You had the Alternative Minimum tax
Speaker 3: which went away completely for the middle class, which was
Speaker 3: really crushing them and it actually prevented them from ben
Speaker 3: fitting from salt. So we can't have the AMT come
Speaker 3: back as part of this. I've made that very clear
Speaker 3: and so we're working with all these different pieces, not
Speaker 3: to mention the corporate stuff and the R and D
Speaker 3: tax credit and bonus appreciation, so many other pieces that
Speaker 3: are going to be part of this package.
Speaker 1: Fascinating, Congresswoman that you're also exploring some more creative ideas here.
Speaker 1: The reporting that we're reading coming out of the mar
Speaker 1: A Lago conference quotes you to suggests maybe we increase
Speaker 1: the deduction. If your state freezes or lowers the tax rate,
Speaker 1: maybe the deduction goes even higher. Now, this is getting interesting,
Speaker 1: and I wonder what the reaction that you got was
Speaker 1: from your fellow lawmakers, from the President elect, and maybe
Speaker 1: even from Democrats who you've floated this to.
Speaker 3: Well, I think my colleagues actually really like that idea,
Speaker 3: because part of the problem is we want to give relief.
Speaker 3: But if we give taxpayers money back with one hand,
Speaker 3: and the governor and mayor come along and just raise
Speaker 3: taxes and take it with the other, that's a problem
Speaker 3: and the taxpayer ends up losing at the end of
Speaker 3: the day. And so how do we incentivize, how do
Speaker 3: we change behavior, How do we hold the mayors and
Speaker 3: the governors that are treating taxpayers like ATMs accountable, and
Speaker 3: so we have to see if this can legally be done.
Speaker 3: That's the big question. Can we let's say double this
Speaker 3: deduction and then say maybe it goes up, it triples
Speaker 3: or quadruples if your state takes action to freeze put
Speaker 3: a cap on property taxes and freeze income taxes or
Speaker 3: reduce them. You know, these are ideas that we're tossing around.
Speaker 3: I've also said, maybe we want to limit the property
Speaker 3: tax portion of this deduction for primary residences, right so
Speaker 3: that could actually target the people that truly need it.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of different ideas being floated around,
Speaker 3: and as a member of the Ways and Means Committee,
Speaker 3: we are obviously crunching the numbers, but we have to
Speaker 3: wait until the Budgets Committee gives us the top line
Speaker 3: and the reconciliation instructions to really figure out how to
Speaker 3: put together this Rubik's cube. And that's you know, in
Speaker 3: the meantime, would between the math and trying to figure
Speaker 3: out what our options are and we'll go from there.
Speaker 2: Well as we talk about the kind of structure of reconciliation. Congressman,
Speaker 2: was there consensus built at mar Alago this week? Und
Speaker 2: around the one bill or two idea or is this
Speaker 2: still a live debate? What messaging were your you and
Speaker 2: your colleagues delivering to the president elect? What was he
Speaker 2: saying in return?
Speaker 3: But I think the majority of our membership, certainly all
Speaker 3: the members of the House Ways and Means Committee, want
Speaker 3: to see one bill. And if you saw what happened
Speaker 3: in the last week of session right last year, that's
Speaker 3: the reason why we need one bill. It's hard to
Speaker 3: build consensus when you have such a slim majority. And
Speaker 3: the last time they did two reconciliation bills, it was
Speaker 3: under Gingridge in nineteen ninety seven and he had a
Speaker 3: much larger majority. You have to remember TCJA there were
Speaker 3: thirteen no Republican votes.
Speaker 1: We don't have that luxury.
Speaker 3: We have one. We have a majority of one. So
Speaker 3: we have to build consensus, and I think the best
Speaker 3: way to do that is to put the different pieces
Speaker 3: that members care about together, the border security measures, the
Speaker 3: energy production measures. Those will satisfy some of the border states,
Speaker 3: the energy producing states, and you have the salt states
Speaker 3: get something with our salt relief. And overall we support
Speaker 3: as a conference, we support tax cuts, we support border security,
Speaker 3: we support American energy dominance. So let's just drill down
Speaker 3: and negotiate with each other on those finer details of
Speaker 3: each of these and get one bill passed so we
Speaker 3: get to the two eighteen. If you kick tax to
Speaker 3: the end of the year in a separate package, I
Speaker 3: very much fear that it will expire and America will
Speaker 3: see four trillion dollars in tax increases. We cannot afford
Speaker 3: to allow that to happen. It's too risky to do
Speaker 3: it later on in the year and not upfront with
Speaker 3: this first package.
Speaker 1: Well, congress Woman, that's as long as we've ever gone
Speaker 1: in a conversation. I think before you mentioned the border,
Speaker 1: So let's get to it. There is a thought out
Speaker 1: there on Grover Norquist suggested it a little bit earlier
Speaker 1: in the broadcast that Donald Trump's plans to issue some
Speaker 1: one hundred executive orders, many of them aimed at the border,
Speaker 1: will give you breathing room to actually craft a single
Speaker 1: bill that would include border security and the tax issues
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. Is that the way you're looking
Speaker 1: at this, Let the President handle the border out of
Speaker 1: the gate. We'll back him up with legislation when it's
Speaker 1: done being written here and our debate concludes on the Hill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know, the Senate has made the argument
Speaker 3: that we need to do too, because we want to
Speaker 3: do the border wins early on. There's a way we
Speaker 3: can achieve that. First, as you say, the President can
Speaker 3: issue the executive orders, and he will do that to
Speaker 3: undo the policies of the Biden administration. But we've also
Speaker 3: passed legislation. Just the other day, we passed a Lake
Speaker 3: in Riley Act, which would require those who commit certain
Speaker 3: crimes to be detained and deported. And we're working through
Speaker 3: pieces of legislation that can get bipartisan support and the
Speaker 3: sixty votes needed in the Senate to get that out
Speaker 3: the door and put it on the president's desk for
Speaker 3: when he arrives next week. So I think we can
Speaker 3: score those border victories early and then really when it
Speaker 3: comes to the reconciliation, it has to have a fiscal implication, right,
Speaker 3: So we can't necessarily do Lake and Riley Act in reconciliation.
Speaker 3: But we can increase border patrol, we can increase technology,
Speaker 3: we can put some things in there that would help
Speaker 3: with the deportation of criminals, and maybe adding judges to
Speaker 3: hear these asylum cases. Faster, so I think we can
Speaker 3: achieve both things here. And the bottom line is a
Speaker 3: president really just wants to get it done. I don't
Speaker 3: think he cares at the end of the day on
Speaker 3: whether it's one or two. I think he just wants
Speaker 3: to get the policies done that will get America back
Speaker 3: on track. We've made the case that it should be
Speaker 3: one bill, and I think he sees the merit of
Speaker 3: one bill. As I said, considering what happened at the
Speaker 3: end of last year where we had so much back
Speaker 3: and forth within our conference, well, and part of.
Speaker 2: That saga at the end of last year Congressman was
Speaker 2: a question over whether the debt ceiling should be lifted
Speaker 2: or abolished entirely before Trump takes office. How was that
Speaker 2: interplaying in the conversations this weekend. When is that going
Speaker 2: to happen, and what legislation and what could potentially be
Speaker 2: the trade off is we've seen reporting that it might
Speaker 2: be debt sealing in exchange for wildfire relief in California.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, interestingly enough, a lot of members believe
Speaker 3: that the debt limit piece of this is probably the
Speaker 3: most complicated because that's where you see the most friction
Speaker 3: Within our conference, there are some members who never voted
Speaker 3: to increase the debt limit, and we have to understand
Speaker 3: that the debt limit is money that's already been spent
Speaker 3: that we're paying the bill. We don't want to prevent
Speaker 3: a default. So the responsible thing to do is to
Speaker 3: address that debt limit and do it before June. I
Speaker 3: think we're just going to look for any vehicle where
Speaker 3: we can get it. It could be with disaster aid,
Speaker 3: it could be within the reconciliation, it could be within
Speaker 3: the government funding mechanism, you know, the federal budget. So
Speaker 3: we'll see, we'll see what vehicle where we can get it.
Speaker 3: But it does need to be addressed before June. The
Speaker 3: sooner we can do it, the better. Let's get it
Speaker 3: out of the way, since it's the most contentious peace
Speaker 3: and then get to the other real policy issues that
Speaker 3: the Americans people have been waiting for. Right They want
Speaker 3: to get this economy back on track. They want to
Speaker 3: see the tax cuts extended and enhanced. They want to
Speaker 3: see our border secure and people who are here legally
Speaker 3: committing crimes deported, and they want to see us lower
Speaker 3: those energy costs and produce more energy domestically.
Speaker 1: Congresswoman with regard to the border. While you're with us
Speaker 1: here in our remaining couple of moments, a warning from
Speaker 1: Immigrations and custom Enforcement. Without emergency funding, they could be
Speaker 1: forced to release tens of thousands of immigrants, including some
Speaker 1: deemed to be public safety threats. We've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about the number of migrants being held in hotels, for instance,
Speaker 1: in places like New York City. Are you in touch
Speaker 1: with ICE and with border patrol on this matter? Would
Speaker 1: Congress be there to prevent the release of people dangerous
Speaker 1: to Americans?
Speaker 3: Well, I have not heard about this. If there's an
Speaker 3: issue with the funding, because the funding is there for
Speaker 3: the next uh you know, to the end of March.
Speaker 3: I think what they need to do is actually find
Speaker 3: a way to shift the funding so instead of housing
Speaker 3: individuals uh and transporting individuals into America's cities, we're actually
Speaker 3: deporting them and repatriating them. Uh. And I and if
Speaker 3: there are committing crimes and they don't have legitimate asylum claims.
Speaker 3: So I think that we met with Tom Hollman about this.
Speaker 3: I mean, particularly New York City has been destroyed, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, by havoc being waked by illegal immigrants, gang members,
Speaker 3: drug traffickers, people who are bad, dangerous people. They've they've
Speaker 3: committed murder, they've committed robberies, they've committed all sorts of
Speaker 3: crimes in our city, and we need to get them
Speaker 3: out of our city and our country. And so the
Speaker 3: question really has been how does the incoming administration legally
Speaker 3: Is there a way for them to shift some of
Speaker 3: the funny Monday money but has actually been used to
Speaker 3: provide incentives and house these individuals and give them h
Speaker 3: free services to actually remove them from our country. And
Speaker 3: that's I think what the incoming administration is gonna have
Speaker 3: to address when they get there next week.
Speaker 1: From New York's eleventh District, Nicole malli Otaka is great
Speaker 1: to see you, Congresswoman. We thank you