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Supporting Legislation to Make President Trump's Individual and Small Business Tax Cuts PERMANENT

I was honored to support the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in 2017 during my first term in Congress. The TCJA was the most significant overhaul of our tax code in decades. It made our tax system work better for hardworking Americans, small businesses, and American innovation. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the TCJA reduced federal tax rates for families across every income level while actually increasing the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of American households. The TCJA reduced taxes on middle-income families and small businesses, created nearly five million domestic jobs in the two years after its passage, and delivered the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. However, without congressional action, 23 different provisions of the TCJA, which have kept more money in the pockets of hardworking families and small businesses, are set to expire after 2025. That's why I just cosponsored the TCJA Permanency Act! This bill will permanently lower tax rates for individuals and families, preserve the 20 percent deduction for small businesses, maintain the higher standard deduction, lock in the doubled child tax credit, and permanently simplify the tax filing process. This critical legislation will lock in President Trump's tax cuts and ensure middle-income families and small businesses are not hit with yet another Biden Tax Hike as many already struggle to make ends meet under President Biden. I will always fight for upstate New York families, seniors, and small businesses!

Election Integrity Update: New York is Failing to Comply with Federal Election Law

This week, I led a letter with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (NY-21) to the co-chairs of the New York State Board of Elections, Peter Kosinski and Douglas Kellner, demanding answers about the state’s non-compliance with the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which requires states to collect critical personally identifiable information (PII) when accepting voter registrations. Under HAVA, voter registration applications must be complete with a unique identifier, or PII, such as the last 4 digits of an individual’s Social Security Number or a driver’s license number if an individual has one. However, a recent report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) outlined New York’s failure to comply with HAVA, including by maintaining more than 3.1 million New York voter registrations without any form of PII. PII is used to verify the identity of registrants. It is also key for good voter roll maintenance, as it is used to accurately update voter rolls when an individual moves to a different state, passes away, or even files duplicate voter registrations, either when moving within the same state or otherwise. Without PII, matching one John or Jane Doe to another is an incredibly difficult task that could lead to ineligible voters remaining on the rolls, voters registering in multiple states, or a voter receiving more than one opportunity to vote in a given election. Earlier this month, I led a letter to the Federal Department of Justice (DOJ) demanding the Department enforce HAVA and ensure New York and other states were in full compliance ahead of the midterm elections. The full letter is available here.

I Joined Sunday Morning Futures to Discuss President Biden, the Border Crisis, and Rising Crime

This week, I joined Fox News's Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss President Biden, the crisis at the Southern Border, and rising crime. In my interview, I discussed President Biden’s recent statements where he exhibited stark cognitive decline, and reiterated my call for the President to take the same cognitive exam that President Trump took during his term. Further, I said that I believed impeachment should be on the table for President Biden given his deliberate failure as Commander-in-Chief to secure the Southern Border and protect the safety of the American people. You can watch the full video here or at the link above.

Leading Small Business Committee Republicans in Oversight of Interior Department’s Regulatory Overreach

On Tuesday, I joined with House Small Business Committee Ranking Member Blaine Luetkemeyer in a letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland regarding the Biden administration’s expanding regulatory burdens on small businesses. The letter is part of the Small Business Committee Republicans’ ongoing commitment to reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens on small businesses. President Trump’s administration was laser-focused on reducing the burden on job creators by requiring two regulations to be cut before any one new regulation could be put into place. It was a policy innovation that cut bureaucratic red tape, helped our small businesses flourish, and created the strongest economy our country had seen in decades. Now, under the Biden administration, increased regulations are burdening our nation once again, especially at a time when we are already reeling from the lasting impacts of an ongoing supply chain crisis, labor shortages, and record-high inflation. This is especially true with Biden’s Department of the Interior, which is crushing our small businesses, farmers, and landowners with outrageous regulations. It is time for them to be reined in and once again serve the needs of the American people, not the bureaucratic elite. The Department of Interior has extensive powers in setting the policies and rules that govern our nation’s conservation policy. The Department’s bureaucratic intransigence is one of the primary reasons the channel connecting Sandy Pond in Oswego County to Lake Ontario was shut down last summer. This stopped boats in the harbor from accessing the wider lake, prohibiting tourists from accessing Lake Ontario for fishing and recreation. The shutdown devastated countless small businesses that were recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and rely on tourism for their livelihoods. It was an obvious example of the Department’s unwillingness to come to the table and develop solutions that benefit both conservation and small businesses. The information requested in this letter will better inform Congress so the Small Business Committee can enact thoughtful policies to bring the Department of Interior back to the table and address the concerns of small businesses. The full text of the letter is available here.

Urging Companies to Expand Access to Communications Services for Iranian Protestors

On Thursday, I led a letter with Congressman Tom Malinowski (NJ-07) urging companies to expand access to key communications services, like cloud and hosting services, messaging platforms, developer and analytics tools, and access to app stores, for the Iranian people amid a government crackdown on protestors across the country. The letter was sent to the Chief Executive Officers of Google, Amazon Web Services, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Digital Ocean. The letter was also signed by Senators Robert Menendez (NJ), Marsha Blackburn (TN), and Ben Cardin (MD), and Representatives Maria Elvira Salazar (FL-27), Albio Sires (NJ-08), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-01), Andy Kim (NJ-03), and Katie Porter (CA-45). After 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested by the “morality police” for violating the country’s strict dress codes and later dying in custody, likely as a result of being beaten, protestors took to the streets to demand their freedom. The Iranian regime has once again violently cracked down on protesters, with at least 233 protestors now having been killed by Iranian security forces. The regime also has triggered widespread Internet blackouts to block communications, effectively stopping the protestors from communicating with each other or with the outside world. The full letter is available here.

Say NO to the Lower Overtime Wage Threshold for New York Farm Laborers

This week, I joined Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (NY-21) in a letter to New York State Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon opposing the proposed rule to lower the overtime wage threshold for farm laborers from 60 to 40 hours per week. The letter was sent as part of the 60-day public comment period in response to Commissioner Reardon’s harmful proposed rule. Lowering the threshold would damage our state’s economy through decreased hours and wages for workers, a diminished agriculture industry in New York, and increased prices for consumers. The letter was also signed by New York Representatives Lee Zeldin (NY-01), Chris Jacobs (NY-27), and John Katko (NY-24). On September 6, 2022, the New York State Farm Laborers Wage Board voted to advance a proposal to lower the state’s overtime wage threshold for farm workers from 60 to 40 hours per week, in spite of public comments from farmers, farm workers, and consumers strongly opposing the recommendation. On September 30, 2022, Commissioner Reardon accepted the recommendation. Prior to the proposal's recommendation by the Board, Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences projected that the rule’s implementation could force two-thirds of dairy farmers to make significant changes such as leaving the industry or investing in other states and half of fruit and labor farmers to reduce their operations or leave the industry altogether. I'm also a cosponsor of the Protect Local Farms Act, which would mandate federally that the overtime threshold for the agriculture industry cannot be set lower than 60 hours per week, effectively keeping New York’s current overtime threshold in place. Any individuals interested in submitting a comment regarding the rule are encouraged to do so by emailing [email protected] before December 11, 2022. The full text of the letter is available here.

Casework Success Story!

This week, my team of expert caseworkers delivered a tremendous victory for a constituent in New York's 22nd Congressional District. My office was contacted by a constituent requesting assistance with enrolling in Medicare. The constituent was set to retire in a few weeks and would be losing employer-sponsored health coverage. Despite applying months in advance, the constituent had not yet been approved for Medicare Part B coverage. In response, my team contacted the Social Security Administration (SSA) and within a few days, Medicare part B was processed, allowing the constituent to retire with no issues! If you or someone you know ever needs assistance with a federal agency, please contact my Binghamton District Office at 607-242-0200 or my Utica District Office at 315-732-0713. We are here to serve you!

Have news or updates to share? Email me! If you have updates regarding events in the community or other news to share from across New York's 22nd District, please visit the "Contact Me" page on my website to share it with me. My team will try to include as many of your updates from around #NY22 as we can each week.

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