US Republican Representative Nicole Malliotakis Talks Economy, Medicaid & Congestion Pricing
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Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. The news coming out of Washington has so much to do with what's happening right now on Wall Street. And it's where we start our conversation with Congresswoman Nicole Malia Takis, the Republican from New York's 11th District, with us live from World Headquarters in New York. And Congresswoman, we want to welcome you back as always.

Bloomberg TV and radio. Do you worry about the intersection in this case of Washington and Wall Street? The words of the president, or at least as he posted on Truth Social, appear to be pulling us lower here, referring to the Fed chair as a major loser, even though he did appoint him initially. This is the impact of the rhetoric in American politics now, no?

look i think that we need to be focused on governing with a confident steady hand here i think the most important thing that we can be doing is making sure that we pass this very important tax package that we prevent an expiration of the existing 2017 tax cut and jobs act that in itself i think is something that can send a very strong message that we get back to washington next week and we saw we see pieces of this bills

Being furnished by the individual committees. I think there's a question right now around the world whether we can get it the job done I believe that we can and we must or else it's a four trillion dollar a tax hike and you'll see a lot of the provisions that were so important to the American economy Expire right we have so many things at stake here. You have interest deductibility R&D

uh... expensing you have bonus depreciation you have the corporate tax rate that would go from twenty one percent to thirty five percent of this were to expire and of course the other provisions that lifted millions of americans out of poverty that created seven million jobs uh... there's a lot here and uh... we need to make sure that we not only pass it but that we

expand it in a way that we add more pro-growth policies so we can see the economy really prosper and repatriation of manufacturing is another big component of this as well that I've been working on.

Well, and we know, Congresswoman, that any expansion of tax cuts will require offsets based off of the kind of framework that the House is working with here. So it becomes a question of the spending cuts. I'm sure you're well aware that the House Energy and Commerce Committee is going to begin marking up its portion of this massive reconciliation bill, and that will be the Medicaid bill.

Have you seen a list of proposals or any kind of draft around what exactly will be put forward when it comes to Medicaid, knowing you have looked for assurances on that front? Do you expect you'll see one before the markup? Well, what we have seen is the menu of options, right? And we're talking about the entire energy and healthcare portfolio. So it's not just Medicaid. It obviously deals with regulations. It deals with broadband spectrum sales. It deals with other components, right?

emission vehicles, things like that that could be offsets. With the Medicaid piece, we've made it very clear to the speaker, to the chairman of this committee, as well as to the President of the United States, that there is a group of us that will not support any package that would diminish, meaning taking individuals who are legally eligible for Medicaid off the rolls.

If they are eligible, they need to be able to keep their eligibility. Now, aside from that, specifically we're talking about our senior citizens, our people with disabilities, children with developmental disabilities, pregnant women. These are people that we are really laser focused on. Yes, we can implement work requirements on people that are able bodied. They should be contributing in this economy and working that would remove them off of Medicaid and put them on most likely private insurance.

uh... saving the government money as well uh... and of course the fraud getting rid of it which accounts for roughly fifty billion dollars a year in medicaid alone that's five hundred billion dollars over ten years when you're looking for a savings of roughly eight hundred eighty billion dollars over ten years

that's a big chunk of it right there that we're gonna save. And so we've just made very clear that in terms of reimbursement rates for our states, New York for example, 50% federal reimbursement, we will not allow that to be lowered. So that was one thing that we pushed back on as well as per capita caps on traditional Medicaid. That's something that we've also said is a red line for us and we've received positive feedback from the speaker and a commitment that they're not gonna touch those things.

That's really interesting. We saw your letter to House leadership on this last week, Congresswoman. There's been a lot of talk about a millionaire's tax. And I wonder if that's something you might warm up to if it means not raiding Medicaid. Well, it's certainly on the table. It's being considered. We have to make sure that we have a tax structure that is fair. Obviously, the president has a lot of priorities, which we share. We want to see working class, middle class communities get some relief. We want to see the SALT cap

increase, the deduction increase for people that I represent here in New York who are struggling with high property taxes and income taxes as well. We want to make sure that we're protecting our seniors who are on social security and that they're not having to pay taxes

on their small social security checks. And so if we want to do these things, then we need to find the money to offset it. And so we're looking at every option on the table. I think that we're having serious discussions about where this money is going to come from. And that's one of the options that is currently out there. But we also want to make sure that we're preserving

the other various aspects of the TCJA that were so critical for our economy that created jobs, allowed companies to expand and invest

and repatriate manufacturers. Another big piece of this that we're very much focused on, how do we give a lower rate for new facilities that are built here or expanded here to create and manufacture so we can repatriate some of this stuff that's happening overseas, in particular pharmaceuticals, that we're relying on communist China for such a huge portion of our medication here in the United States. That has to end. If we've learned anything from COVID, must be a priority in this package.

Congresswoman, as you talk about the various options here, is one of the options being considered taxing carried interest as ordinary income? Is that something you would support if it's on the table?

Well, that is one of the proposals that the White House has put forward. They do want to address the carried interest. This is something that we've heard a lot from people in opposition. Obviously, the real estate industry, venture capitalists, very concerned about the carried interest proposal. It's on the table, but we are still evaluating this and other options. The other thing that has been on the table, which we met with many real estate industry individuals here in New York,

today actually was about the sea salt corporate salt for property taxes for income taxes here in the state this one in particular is very concerning because the the real estate industry cannot bear to have the sea salt removed basically or imposed on the property portion so if they start seeing that they can't deduct this business expense

from their federal taxes, it will put really a big burden on these real estate companies, these buildings, and we'll see maybe foreclosures, we'll see property values decline, which will then reduce the roles that our local government receives on property taxes. So I think that's a big one that I've been pushing back on just as a member from New York City. It could be very detrimental to our city, but it affects municipalities all across the

the country, particularly those states that don't have an income tax, states like Texas and Florida rely a lot on real estate taxes. Congresswoman, we only have a minute left. I'm curious, did you pay a congestion tax?

To get to our studio earlier today, I thought it was coming down on April 20th per order the Transportation Department. Well, unfortunately, our governor and the MTA want to continue to violate federal law. And so I was forced to pay that fee, but I hope not for long. And I was very happy to hear President Trump and Secretary Duffy today say that they're giving them just one more month. Or else they're going to look at other measures to try to penalize the MTA.

the state and the MTA for not complying with federal law. The president was right to rescind that approval from Joe Biden that was basically a rubber stamp without the environmental impact statement required under NEPA. That is why I am among those who have sued the MTA and the state. We hope that they comply because it's an unfair cash grab on the people I represent.

All right, we'll leave it there. Congresswoman, thank you, as always, for your time. That is Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis of New York joining us from our global headquarters in New York.

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