Press Releases

Washington, DC – Today, Rep. Salud Carbajal (CA-24) voted against the harmful, Republican tax bill that narrowly passed the House of Representatives. The bill explodes our national debt by $1.5 trillion, repeals the individual healthcare insurance mandate, triggers a 4% reduction in Medicare payments, and increases taxes on 86 million middle-class families by 2027, providing 83% of the benefits to the wealthiest one percent of Americans and multinational corporations.

Carbajal released the following statement on his vote:

“Reforming our tax code is one area in which Democrats and Republicans can agree as we have in the past. We need to update and simplify our tax system aimed at making our tax code more competitive for businesses and fairer for middle-class taxpayers. Lasting reform requires difficult trade-offs to achieve fiscal responsibility.

“The GOP tax plan avoided these hard choices and instead, will raise deficits by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. We need comprehensive tax reform, but not a plan that ignores the fiscal repercussions and expects our children to reconcile this debt down the road.

“By 2027, many of the short-term individual benefits included to make this legislation more palatable will be eliminated, raising taxes on 86 million middle-class families. However, the permanent reduction for multinational corporations will remain in place.

“Additionally, as California continues to battle one of our largest and most devastating wildfires in history, this bill eliminates a critical deduction benefiting those who suffered financial losses due to wildfires not included in Presidential Disaster declarations.

“I have voted six times this year against dismantling the Affordable Care Act. Thanks to unprecedented public engagement, we defeated attempts to repeal this legislation that makes healthcare more accessible and affordable. Today’s vote signifies another attempt to undermine the ACA by repealing the individual mandate. This will mean 13 million Americans will no longer have healthcare coverage, driving up premiums by an additional 10% each year and creating even more uncertainty in our healthcare market.

“Sadly, the President and his party have shown more urgency in giving massive tax cuts away to corporations than they have for funding a bipartisan Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) that provides healthcare for nine million children or for protecting hardworking Dreamers from deportation.

“This tax hike is a bad deal for Central Coast families, and I will continue to vehemently oppose legislation that favors large corporations, while eliminating many of the tax deductions and credits that middle-class families and small businesses rely on.”