All Things With Kim Strassel: Looking for Bipartisanship in Trump's "Golden Age"
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America's energy future begins now. More American oil and natural gas means more jobs, more security, and more innovation. America's moment is now. Learn more at lightsonenergy.org. Paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is All Things with Kim Strassel, a Potomac Watch podcast.

Welcome to All Things with Kim Strassel, a Wall Street Journal opinion page podcast. And I am so excited to say that this week we are joined by Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer, who's been starting his fifth term in Congress representing northern New Jersey. He is a senior member of the Problem Solvers Caucus. Welcome, Congressman, and thank you so much for being here. Thanks, Kim. Thanks for having me.

I want to spend most of this podcast looking ahead, but just one quickie on the recent past and in light of the inauguration on Monday. It was obviously a disappointing election for Democrats who lost the White House and the Senate and didn't manage to retake the House. Rub it in, Kim. Now, I'm just making it clear for listeners out there. But as you watched

inauguration. What do you think the message of this election was to your party and how does it respond going forward? I think the number one focus that we've got to make sure we're clear with voters about and which is something that I've been focused on for years is overall affordability, right? And making sure people know, and this is what I'm focused on in Jersey all the time, that we've got to do everything we can to lower their taxes, lower their costs,

and make life more affordable for them. And that that's where our laser focus is, whether, you know, and listen, people are dealing with higher costs. We know that, right? Whether you're talking about childcare costs or healthcare costs or food or rent and mortgages, right? Things are expensive. So I think what I took away from this election, and frankly, it's what I talked about at home all the time. What do we do to make your life more affordable?

And I think if we do that as Democrats and stick on that message and that page, I think we can be hugely effective going forward. Is government spending part of the reason things are expensive for people, inflation, that part of it? And was that part of the issue of the election? Well, you know this since you write for the Journal. There's a lot of factors that go into these things, and I don't think it's one or the other. I think the reality is the pandemic had a huge shock

on our economy, on supply chain issues. I saw this up close and I think that really had an impact. Frankly, it's why I think all of us need to focus in Congress and obviously at all levels on what we're going to do to make sure we continue to fight to get

at not just cost down and prices down, but what we're going to do to help ensure that people have good jobs and that we continue to grow the economy and deal with just cost of living things. So I've been going to, I'm on this diner tour, been to 21 counties in Jersey and I've

Literally, to a diner, I feel like I'm having the same conversation. People look at me, in fact, this couple just said to me the other day, they're near retirement age and said, "I'm not sure I can afford to stay in Jersey. It's too expensive." I'm trying to deal with all these costs between my prescription drug costs that I got to pay for my medicine all the time and food costs and eating at diners expensive and my rent's expensive, everything's expensive and basically said, "Help.

This is where I need you to focus." I said, "Well, don't worry. Since I first ran for office in 2016, I've had lower taxes, jersey values on my lawn signs, and I've been focused like a laser beam on doing everything I can to get costs down and get taxes down because I think that has to be our top priority." That's where I think we are and need to focus on as a party, and the other stuff

There's lots of other important things that I believe in, like, you know, making sure to protect the environment and reproductive freedom. But if we don't focus on the basic stuff, you know, I think what happens is voters say, hey, don't forget about me and if I can afford to pay for things today. I want to talk more about that and what Congress can do in that regard over the next couple of years. But

Going to put you on the spot here. Yesterday, this flurry of executive orders from Donald Trump. Tell me the one you liked the least and then harder, the one you liked the most. You're assuming that I, there was a flurry. I mean, like there were lots and lots and lots of them. So I've read the summaries of a lot of them and I will be reading more. I think we all will as we get through them. Let me give you my overall take.

What surprised me most, and I'll just talk about the day yesterday, because I think the executive orders were part of the broader approach. And I'll talk about the executive orders in a second. But there was a lack of outreach there.

to Democrats and discussions of bipartisan governing and getting things done together. And I was a little surprised by how shrill that approach was. You know, given how tight of a majority we're dealing with in Congress right now, a one-seat majority of the House, it'll, I guess, eventually be three seats.

But I was surprised there wasn't more of an outreach to say, "We're going to have to take on some of these challenges together," which as you know, we will. A couple of things. I'm on the Intelligence Committee. I was really taken aback by the decision just to give security clearance into a bunch of White House employees without going through the process.

This is not something we take lightly given all of our national security and secrets on the line. And I think we have to, you know, that's not ever something that we rush on. So that was concerning. I was surprised by the immediate withdrawal from our climate relationships in the world that was

I mean, you know, I know that's something that's not the president's favorite, but just immediately, instead of talking about things like affordability and what we're going to do to get costs down, it was go after climate, the top secret stuff, the ending birthright citizenship, which I believe is deeply unconstitutional. So anyway, I thought there was that very partisan approach versus any attempt to work together. And, you know, listen, you've got a tax bill coming up that I believe is going to be tough doing on their own. And yes, I know they're trying to wrap together

tax package immigration and some permitting and climate issues into one large package called reconciliation, and they'll be right now doing it on their own as a partisan vote. I think that's a tall order for them. As someone who's lived on the other side of this, these things are not easy to do on your own, especially if you have such a narrow majority. I think there's ways that we can all on different issues work together here. I hope

And if it's good for Jersey, you know, I've always said, listen, I'll work with folks ever. If it's good for Jersey, I'll fight back when it's not good for the families in New Jersey. But there are opportunities to work together. We'll look for those. But there wasn't a lot of outreach yesterday. Yeah, I keep wondering when both sides come to the realization that there are deals being made. I have to tell you, I think one of Donald Trump's biggest surprises back when he took office eight years ago was the hostility shown to him, which I always thought was strange because he's a dealmaker at heart.

So maybe everybody figures that out at some point and moves on. One other big piece of news from this week, the Senate yesterday passed the Lake and Riley Act.

which requires Immigrations and Customs to take custody of and detain undocumented immigrants who are charged or arrested or convicted for certain acts of burglary or theft or larceny. 48 House Democrats voted for it. A dozen Senate Democrats voted for it. All the Republicans from New Jersey voted for it. All the Democrats in the House voted against it from New Jersey. You didn't vote. Why didn't you vote? And will you vote for it when it comes back to the House?

because it's got some amendments, so it needs another House vote. Yeah, and I voted for it last year, just so you know. I wasn't unfortunately able to get there. I was a little bit, sure, you know, a lot of people who aren't feeling great these days with a lot going around, you know, but I have voted for it before. And listen, I believe if you are a violent criminal, you know, you shouldn't be here. And that's been my position.

So you mentioned bipartisanship, how you wish you'd seen Trump do more of it. In your mind, and again, you are part of the Problem Solvers Caucus. You work regularly with Republicans, a variety of Democrats and Republicans who want to try, as the name suggests, solve problems. What are the top three or four issues you see as bigger bipartisan working areas between GOP and Democrats this year?

Listen, I think many of us, you probably haven't seen working on this, I think around tax reform, especially a lot of conversation between Democrats and Republicans around SALT, the state and local tax deduction and restoring SALT, which would cut taxes for middle class families here in Jersey. And so I think tax reform, there's plenty of areas where we could work together. It might mean folks are not getting everything they want, but there's plenty where we can work together. Many of us also worked together last year on

on immigration reform as we have in the past, actually the problem solvers caucus and many of us have worked together. You know there was a bill that was pretty much done, that was ready to be voted on, that one of the more conservative members of the Senate, more liberal members of the Senate led and many of us in the House are working with them on that and other legislation

where we really felt we could find a way forward with both tougher borders, but also living up to our values as a country and on processing and judges and work and other places where we could find common ground. Unfortunately, as you know, the then former President Trump from the outside really kiboshed it by

really discouraging progress on that, which was a real shame. Then admitting he wanted to have it as a political talking point instead of actually solving the problem. So I think there's a lot we can do on those issues just as, and on certain things related to permitting and other things where we could find common ground. And many of us are already talking about how we could do that.

But this is a decision that the Republicans are going to have to make. Do they want to go it alone or do they want to try to find places of common ground? And my view is if it's good for Jersey and it helps my families and it's going to cut taxes and lower costs here, let's sit down and talk about it. And obviously, I'll fight when I need to if it's going to mess with Jersey families. But if there are places to work together, as I always have, I'm willing to sit down. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, more with Congressman Josh Gottheimer.

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Welcome back. I'm Kim Strassel here with All Things and I'm here this week with New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer. Do the problem solvers have a position or any legislation they've worked on or areas that they have identified talking about cutting spending and the deficit? Sure. I mean, those are issues we've worked on a bunch in the past, especially as part of debt ceiling packages and

And you might imagine being fiscally responsible is something that a lot of people who are on that table, both Democrats and Republicans, believe is critically important. But the bottom line is we got to talk to each other and you got to work together and get stuff done. We have a long record, whether you're talking about the infrastructure bill or

the CHIPS Act or the semiconductor or the PACT Act to help veterans, even things like gun safety, we were able to do a bipartisan deal on that no one would think you could do a bipartisan deal on and say that's impossible. When you, and we did stuff on COVID, you know, when you work together and are willing to talk to one another, it's incredible what you can do, but you got to be willing to actually have those conversations and be willing to say, I'm going to get 80% and take the win versus getting 100% of nothing. And that's kind of

our general approach and how we work together. Okay, let's drill down on one area because you've mentioned it now a couple of times once in the possibility of some sort of a bipartisan deal. And that is, of course, with regard taxes. You are an

an ardent supporter of getting rid of the cap on state and local tax deductions. And just to make sure everyone knows what we're talking about here, this is a provision that allows residents of states, and to be clear, it tends to usually be people in high tax, blue states, to deduct their state and local tax burden from their federal tax. And there was a cap put on that as part of the 2017 tax reform of $10,000.

I am going to give you an opportunity. I know that you recently introduced some legislation to get rid of that cap. I'm going to let you try to make your best pitch for why people like me should subsidize people who live in New Jersey. I handed out at the inauguration little salt shakers that said uncap the salt because I really fundamentally believe in, you know, if to understand this in the basic way before you pay your federal taxes and this went on for 100 plus years,

you could deduct your state income taxes and your property taxes so that you didn't get taxed twice on the same income, which is really the base case of why you should be for salt because you should never get taxed twice on the same income. Anybody from any state should believe that. The second reason, if you're from Jersey, we obviously have higher property taxes and income taxes.

And in general, we are very good citizens to other states. I affectionately call some of these states "moocher states" because they take far more than they put into the federal kitty. Like Mississippi, around $4. In Alabama, around $4. They get back about $4 for every dollar they put in. Louisiana gets half of their state budget every year from the federal government, 50%. So they start from half from you campaign for them. And listen, we've always had this where one state

basically subsidizing another. New Jersey gets far less than a dollar back for every dollar they pay in federal taxes. And one of the ways we've dealt with it is we've had this provision to make sure we don't get taxed twice on the same income, which we know in 2017, as you pointed out, the tax hike bill went through because for Jersey and our families, our middle class families, they really got whacked. Millions of people started paying higher taxes instead of lower taxes because capping this deduction out at $10,000

And, you know, it was a huge hit for our families who generally are pretty good to families in other states. But the redder, moocher states turned around and said, not good enough. I know you do all this for us, but we want to whack you here too. And I think it's totally outrageous. I think we should not get taxed twice on the same income. And I think...

We should bring back the deduction. And that's my bipartisan legislation with Andrew Garbarino. That's exactly what it does. It brings back the SALT deduction like it was for more than 100 years. Well, we can certainly agree. I don't think any state should be a moochers state. And I'd be all for getting rid of the SALT deduction entirely and also getting rid a lot of the graft and pork, some of a lot of which, for instance, came in that bipartisan infrastructure bill you were talking about that handed out money

to states right and left, some more than others. Come on, but help some of our, I mean, you're talking about critical investments in our roads, our bridges, our rail, mass transit. You can't be totally against that. Oh, and all those charging stations that didn't get built for the EBs that I don't want to buy.

I got you don't like EVs. I have you should buy a Ford Mustang electric. They're great. You should buy a diesel pickup. They're better. But anyway, and I'd put my diesel pickup up against your Ford electric any time. I'm ready. Bring it. All right. We'll bring it. We'll bring it. I lived in New Jersey for a while. So you guys have got some good stretches of road. What kind of diesel you got here? What kind of

truck Chevy diesel Duramax yes yeah you know if you told me at F-150 we could talk

Oh, my God. You're a Ford person, too? I love Ford. Oh, man. This whole podcast was a mistake. They make electric Ford. You know, they got the lightning now, too. OK, wait. But to go back here, according to your own press release, and I just thought this is really interesting. You talk about, you know, Jersey has the highest out migration in the entire country for the last seven years, with families and businesses citing affordability and taxes.

And you also noted that the median property tax bill in Bergen County is more than $15,000, which, by the way, is insane. That's 15 times higher than in a state like Mississippi. So isn't the problem that New Jersey taxes its citizens into submission? And shouldn't like the focus be on getting New Jersey to be a reasonable tax entity? I mean, listen, I'm announcing this week my tax cut plan for Jersey, which is all about lowering property taxes 15% for families.

getting income taxes down for middle-class families as well. And actually from a growth perspective, giving incentives to businesses who bring jobs here and for our seniors to help them stay and retire here. You know, I'm all about lower taxes, which has always been my approach.

And frankly, we should make Jersey more affordable for people. I think that's critical, critical for growth and critical, of course, for our families who are struggling to raise a family here, retire here, to come here. So yes, I'm all for lower taxes. My broader point, though, is in the meantime,

we are subsidizing these mutual states. And I've said to some of my colleagues who are against the SALT deduction, just don't take a nickel back more than you pay into the kitty, and we can have a conversation. But you're talking about a lot of states, Kim, that are red, that as you know, are being subsidized by blue states. And they're on the dole from the blue states. And I think it's ridiculous. My point is, if you look at that, there's a lot of

parts of the system that you could say that's ridiculous and that's ridiculous all on salt is you have to believe kim that you should not get taxed twice on the same exact income if you can't deduct it out you're paying taxes twice on the same dollar so you're all for getting rid of the estate tax then too and many investment taxes i'm all for making life more affordable for people i'm just on the subject to double taxation you know let's talk about fords

And get on why you don't bleed blue. We're going to take one more break. When we come back, more with New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer.

From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is All Things with Kim Strassel, a Potomac Watch podcast. Welcome back to All Things with Kim Strassel. I get the impression, I mean, is the SALT issue big enough for you? If there were a tax bill that Republicans put together, a reconciliation bill, and it made changes to SALT that you were happy with, would you potentially be a vote on that reconciliation bill?

Well, I'm certainly not going to negotiate here in public. But listen, I've always said that if something's good for Jersey, I'm willing to talk about it. And I think the challenge they're going to have with reconciliation overall is you're stuffing so much in, and it's going to have so many problems in the end with different parts of their own Republican caucus, as you know, who disagree on a lot of things, like the tax bill they have disagreements about, and like immigration. It's going to be very tough for them to find that agreement. And so my view is...

When that doesn't work for them and there are places they want to sit down and talk about in pieces and break it up and talk about it individually of what it looks like, I certainly, if it's good for Jersey, of course I'll be at the table talking to them. What it ultimately looks like and what the details are always matters. And that's why I'm not going to say yes or yes here if they give X because I got to see the full package and how it affects my state and the folks I represent. But the bottom line is we should be talking to one another now.

now. Many of us are having conversations. It's important that we have those conversations. And if you talk about where I was disappointed, going back to the president's speech, his inaugural speech,

You would hope that there would be more of an outreached hand about saying there are places we can work together, that we could put the country first. And I think there are, you know, we're going to have to work together to get things done. We did it in this last Congress. There were places we worked together and we should try to find those places, what the country wants us to work together to solve some of these toughest problems.

Let's finish on something we do agree on because this is also a fun one. But you also, I think you have introduced legislation to try to address New York City's new congestion tax. Tell everyone how that would actually work, how you might get the federal government, if this were to pass, involved in this tax.

which is hurting commuters into New York City. - Crushing them, yes. It's happening right now. If you drive into New York from Jersey, you pay about 18 bucks to go over the GW Bridge or through the Holland-Lincoln Tunnel. And if you go into New York south of 60th Street,

You're a nurse, an electrician, firefighter, a cop, a teacher. You're going to work every day trying to make ends meet. New York is now charging you an extra $9, which they keep every nickel for themselves, for their mass transit system, which is one of the worst run mass transit systems in the country that loses billions of dollars a year because of woeful mismanagement. I mean, they lost $700 million in 2023 from people who rode and didn't pay, literally just jumped over the turnstile.

They've done really nothing to crack down on this. The number, I believe last year jumped to 800 million. This is how poorly run the place is. Listen, they needed money. They turned around and said, "Ooh, there's Jersey." They hit their own people in their own outer boroughs of New York who have to go to work too. They're getting hit, many of them with this congestion tax when they come in, plus Connecticut and Westchester, anyone else who comes and visits.

It's-- and the problem is, you got trucks now avoiding New York and are going to the GW Bridge by me, and they're pumping pollution all over the place, the smog. And so it's costs, it's more smog. What we're doing in Congress and another-- in bipartisan legislation that I'm working on with a bunch of members from New York.

is we're saying, listen to the MTA, their mass transit system. If you want to whack families with this extra nine bucks a day, which is $2,300 a year in this new tax, you can't also get federal grants to fix the MTA. You can't have both.

both. It's outrageous. They want to double dip everywhere and triple dip when they can, and just keep taking and taking and taking, not actually fixing their problems or making things better. That's basically what we're fighting back against. There's court cases against this. Listen, I'm going to fight this thing. I won't stop. We have other approaches here that we think we can stop it. The administration has signaled they're interested in getting involved.

I mean, I've not talked to about this, but again, if they want to help stop this, that's great. But the bottom line is it's outrageous and it's crushing hardworking families. Okay. So I'm going to say that we agree taxes are bad. How's that sound?

I think you and I can agree that we need to lower taxes and then for people and give them a break. Okay. Lower costs, lower taxes. That's not bad. Come on. Look, problem solving. I know. Look, look where we got. Congressman, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. We also want to thank our listeners. We are here every week with fun episodes like this. If you like the show, please hit the subscribe button and you can write to us at pwpodcast at wsj.com.

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