Hoyer Discusses the GOP Tax Scam and Need to Fund the Government on MSNBC
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Press Release
For Immediate Release:
November 29, 2017
Contact Info:
Mariel Saez 202-225-3130
WASHINGTON, DC - House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) joined Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC today to discuss the Senate GOP tax scam and the need for Republicans to work with Democrats to fund the government. Below is excerpts from the interview and a link to the video:
On the GOP Tax Scam:
“…It's a bad bill. And what is happening is that Senators are not deciding on policy, they're deciding on politics. They're deciding on the proposition that if they don’t pass a bill, politically they will be badly damaged. But they have taken neither the time nor the care to review this bill. And as you just pointed out, it's being changed as we speak so that when it comes to a vote, if it comes to a vote this week, Senators are not going to have the faintest idea what the ramifications of this bill are and the harm it's going to cause to the American people – the millions of people who will lose health insurance as a result of some of the provisions; the fact that some 82 million Americans will get a tax hike, not a tax cut in this bill; and the wealthiest Americans will get over 60% of the benefits. None of this really makes any sense in terms of growing the economy, creating jobs, and making sure middle-class Americans can succeed. So that I think it's very, very unfortunate the way this bill is being considered. And I would hope that Senators would take the time and have the courage to slow this down, say no to things they don’t like, and say we ought to work together with Democrats to come up with a bipartisan tax reform bill as we did in 1986.”
On The Need to Fund the Government:
“Historically, over the last seven years, Republicans have been unable to come to agreement on pursuing fiscally responsible pieces of legislation… What happened yesterday was unfortunate. Yesterday, Leader Pelosi and Leader Schumer were ready to go down [to the White House] and have a discussion, as they had in the past, to talk constructively about how can we move forward. And in fact, the result of the last meeting, we had a no-drama continuation of government funding last September… The problem here is the President said… no deal is possible. He hadn't met, he hadn't sat down, but he was already saying no deal is possible. So Leader Schumer and Leader Pelosi were left with a sense that they were just being used as pawns to pretend that [Republicans] were pursuing bipartisanship. And in that case, that was not something that, I think, they thought they ought to lend themselves to.”
On Sexual Harassment Allegations on Capitol Hill:
“We need to make sure we have a safe working place for all the women who work on Capitol Hill as well as the men. That's the first objective. Everybody needs to know how to redress a grievance that they have without feeling threatened... We're adopting a training, mandatory training, for our members, but we need to do much more than that.”
“We have a process to determine, were these allegations founded? If they're founded, yes, [Rep. Conyers] should resign.”
Click here to watch a video of his remarks.
On the GOP Tax Scam:
“…It's a bad bill. And what is happening is that Senators are not deciding on policy, they're deciding on politics. They're deciding on the proposition that if they don’t pass a bill, politically they will be badly damaged. But they have taken neither the time nor the care to review this bill. And as you just pointed out, it's being changed as we speak so that when it comes to a vote, if it comes to a vote this week, Senators are not going to have the faintest idea what the ramifications of this bill are and the harm it's going to cause to the American people – the millions of people who will lose health insurance as a result of some of the provisions; the fact that some 82 million Americans will get a tax hike, not a tax cut in this bill; and the wealthiest Americans will get over 60% of the benefits. None of this really makes any sense in terms of growing the economy, creating jobs, and making sure middle-class Americans can succeed. So that I think it's very, very unfortunate the way this bill is being considered. And I would hope that Senators would take the time and have the courage to slow this down, say no to things they don’t like, and say we ought to work together with Democrats to come up with a bipartisan tax reform bill as we did in 1986.”
On The Need to Fund the Government:
“Historically, over the last seven years, Republicans have been unable to come to agreement on pursuing fiscally responsible pieces of legislation… What happened yesterday was unfortunate. Yesterday, Leader Pelosi and Leader Schumer were ready to go down [to the White House] and have a discussion, as they had in the past, to talk constructively about how can we move forward. And in fact, the result of the last meeting, we had a no-drama continuation of government funding last September… The problem here is the President said… no deal is possible. He hadn't met, he hadn't sat down, but he was already saying no deal is possible. So Leader Schumer and Leader Pelosi were left with a sense that they were just being used as pawns to pretend that [Republicans] were pursuing bipartisanship. And in that case, that was not something that, I think, they thought they ought to lend themselves to.”
On Sexual Harassment Allegations on Capitol Hill:
“We need to make sure we have a safe working place for all the women who work on Capitol Hill as well as the men. That's the first objective. Everybody needs to know how to redress a grievance that they have without feeling threatened... We're adopting a training, mandatory training, for our members, but we need to do much more than that.”
“We have a process to determine, were these allegations founded? If they're founded, yes, [Rep. Conyers] should resign.”