Whether it’s a constituent contacting my office, shaking my hand along a parade route, coming up to me at Sunday mass or sitting next to me at the barbershop, the one issue I hear more than any other is how damn hard it is for people to make ends meet in the Hudson Valley.
The affordability crisis is real, and it’s severe.
Well, here’s some good news: The House just took a significant step toward doing something about it.
The passage of HR 1, a k a “the Big, Beautiful Bill,” quadrupled the SALT cap to $40,000 and is poised to deliver significant tax relief to nearly every home and business owner in the Hudson Valley (and beyond).
It was a hard-fought victory for middle-class and working families, already drowning under the tax-and-spend policies in Albany that have made New York the highest-taxed state in the nation.
Quadrupling the SALT cap will be a lifeline for the teachers, nurses, small-business owners and first responders who keep our communities strong, and for all of the working-class families and retirees on fixed incomes across the Hudson Valley.
That’s why I took on House leadership and members of my party to secure this win, and to block efforts to cut the federal share of Medicaid funding to the state.
These changes would have resulted in a massive tax increase.
For those who falsely claim lifting the SALT cap was only a tax cut for the rich, that’s a bunch of bull.
Over 93% of Hudson Valley home and business owners will see a tax cut if this bill is signed into law. Those are the facts.
Better still, we achieved more than just increasing the SALT cap to help ease the affordability crisis for local families and seniors.
The bill eliminates federal taxes on tips and taxes on overtime pay, directly helping restaurant workers, firefighters and other hourly employees who rely on these earnings.
It prevents a looming middle-class tax hike by preserving key provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, like the $2,500 Child Tax Credit for nearly 88,000 families in NY-17 and the Small Business Deduction for over 78,000 businesses in our district.
Without this legislation, families earning our district’s median income would have faced a tax increase of nearly $4,000 starting next year.
We also made health care more affordable by preventing harmful cuts to safety-net hospitals, boosting physician reimbursements and cracking down on pharmacy benefit managers to lower prescription-drug costs.
Sadly, instead of working with us to deliver much-needed tax relief for New Yorkers, hyperpartisan politicians like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries continue to sit on the sidelines and launch bogus, class-warfare attacks that have no basis in fact or truth.
Frankly, to hear them criticizing an increase in the SALT cap is truly astonishing. When they had complete and total power to raise or scrap the cap, they sat on their hands and chose to let it stay in place, once again being held hostage by radical leftists like AOC and Bernie Sanders.
And this bill doesn’t stop at tax relief. We expanded Pell Grants to include workforce training and eased access to out-of-state pediatric care for kids on Medicaid and CHIP.
Plus, despite the lies being told, we protected Medicaid for those who genuinely need it, like seniors, single parents and those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The so-called “cuts” you hear about were actually common-sense reforms that require able-bodied adults without dependent children to work, volunteer or go to school 20 hours a week.
They were enhanced eligibility checks to cut waste, fraud and abuse, so people can no longer scam the system, including registering in two different states. And they were citizenship verifications that prevent illegal immigrants from siphoning benefits from this critical program.
These are practical and popular solutions that reflect the values of the Hudson Valley. Anyone who tells you differently is lying. Plain and simple.
As an independent voice in Washington, I’ve never been afraid to challenge my own party or work across the aisle to get results. This bill is a historic step forward — a tax cut that rewards hard work, supports families and levels the playing field.
I’ll always keep fighting for NY-17. Now let’s just hope the Senate passes the bill soon.
Mike Lawler represents New York’s Hudson Valley area in the House of Representatives.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
