Congressman Tom Suozzi Exposes GOP Tax Bill Scam at Hearing

Summary

The MeidasTouch Podcast Summary Episode: Congressman Tom Suozzi Exposes GOP Tax Bill Scam at Hearing
Release Date: May 14, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, hosts Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas delve into a critical political event: Congressman Tom Suozzi's unveiling of what he describes as a "massive scam" within the GOP's proposed tax bill. The episode captures the essence of democratic scrutiny as Suozzi confronts the misleading promises made by Republicans regarding major fiscal policies.

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Overview of the Hearing

The core of the episode revolves around a congressional hearing where Congressman Suozzi challenges the Republican-led tax bill. Suozzi, representing the Democratic stance, meticulously dissects the bill's provisions, highlighting discrepancies between campaign promises and the actual content of the legislation.

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Key Exposures by Congressman Tom Suozzi

1. Unfulfilled Promises on Taxation of Tips

At [01:59], the Democratic Commentator introduces the issue, emphasizing Suozzi's role in exposing broken promises.

• Suozzi Questions:
  “Does this tax bill continue the payroll tax on people's tips?” [02:38]
• Tax Expert Responds:
  “Yes, it does.” [02:48]

Analysis: Suozzi highlights that contrary to President Trump's campaign claims, the tax bill does not exempt tips from payroll taxes, effectively nullifying promises made to workers who rely heavily on tips.

2. Payroll Tax on Overtime

• Suozzi Asks:
  “Does this bill continue payroll tax on overtime?” [02:48]
• Tax Expert Responds:
  “It does not exempt overtime from the payroll tax.” [02:56]

Analysis: Another promise unkept, Suozzi points out that overtime earnings remain subject to payroll taxes, contradicting assurances that such income would be tax-free.

3. Social Security Taxation

• Suozzi Inquires:
  “Does this bill remove taxes on Social Security benefits promised by the president?” [03:00]
• Tax Expert Clarifies:
  “Does not change Social.” [03:14]

Analysis: The tax bill does not eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits as promised, instead merely increasing the exemption amount, thereby falling short of campaign commitments.

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Impact on Health Insurance and Medicaid

At [08:14], Suozzi shifts focus to the bill's implications on healthcare.

• Suozzi States:
  “There are people that are on Medicaid... they're going to be cutting it from the federal government.” [08:14]

Analysis: The proposed tax bill threatens to reduce Medicaid funding, potentially stripping coverage from approximately 14 million Americans. Suozzi emphasizes the human cost, citing individuals facing severe health challenges who may lose their insurance.

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State and Local Tax Deduction (SALT) Issues

Discussed extensively starting at [09:46], Suozzi elaborates on the SALT deduction, a pivotal aspect for taxpayers in high-tax states.

• Suozzi Explains:
  “State and local tax deduction was the first deduction given to people in 1913... In 2017, Donald Trump and the Republicans capped that deduction at $10,000.” [09:46]

• On Broken Promises:
  “President Trump came to Long Island in 2024... we're not voting for this bill unless you give us our state and local tax deduction back.” [09:46]

Analysis: Suozzi criticizes the GOP for not restoring the SALT deduction as promised, instead offering only a slight increase from $10,000 to $15,000 for individuals and $30,000 for married couples. This partial fulfillment is portrayed as an insult to taxpayers in states with higher local taxes.

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Deficit and Debt Concerns

Throughout the discussion, Suozzi raises alarms about the bill's impact on the national deficit.

• Suozzi Warns:
  “The deficit is going to destroy our country. It's our biggest threat that we face...” [06:40]

• On Debt Ceiling:
  “They want to borrow $4 trillion... That's the biggest increase in the deficit that's ever happened.” [12:19]

Analysis: Suozzi argues that the tax cuts embedded in the bill will exacerbate the national deficit by an unprecedented $4 trillion, highlighting the unsustainable fiscal trajectory and questioning the effectiveness of supply-side economics touted by Republicans.

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Future Prospects of the Tax Bill

In the latter part of the discussion, Suozzi assesses the political viability of the tax bill.

• Suozzi Predicts:
  “I think that you're gonna have a fight in the House first... Then it's going to go over to the Senate...” [13:24]

Analysis: Suozzi anticipates significant opposition both in the House and Senate, especially concerning SALT deductions and Medicaid cuts. He suggests that moderate Republicans may push back against the bill's provisions, potentially leading to revisions or defeats in legislative voting.

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Notable Quotes

• Suozzi on Broken Promises:
  “It's like bizarro world... you're just in completely two opposite worlds.” [04:48]

• On Deficit Concerns:
  “The deficit is going to destroy our country... the biggest threat that we face.” [06:40]

• Regarding SALT Deduction:
  “State and local tax deduction was the first deduction given to people in 1913... In 2017, Donald Trump and the Republicans capped that deduction at $10,000.” [09:46]

• On Future Legislative Battles:
  “It's phony baloney... it's heartbreaking how many people are gonna have to suffer because of this bill.” [12:19]

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Conclusion

This episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast offers a thorough examination of the GOP's proposed tax bill through the incisive lens of Congressman Tom Suozzi. By highlighting unfulfilled campaign promises, the detrimental impact on healthcare and taxes, and the looming threat to the national deficit, Suozzi presents a vigorous critique of the legislation. The podcast effectively captures the tension and stakes involved, providing listeners with a detailed understanding of the political maneuvering surrounding one of the most significant fiscal policies of the time.

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For more insights and in-depth discussions, subscribe to The MeidasTouch Podcast and join the MeidasMighty community.

Transcript

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[Democratic Commentator]

Trump's one big, beautiful bill that they're trying to ram through Congress was exposed today in perfect form as one big, beautiful, massive scam. As Democratic members of Congress, led by Democratic Congressmember Tom Suozzi, pointed out that all of Donald Trump's promises when you actually raise read the bill, it turns out they are scams. So let me show you what Congressmember Suozzi was asking an individual who's part of the kind of nonpartisan tax group that like ranks these pieces of legislation. Here, take a look at this.

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

Okay on tips, the president said your tips will be 100% yours. Does this tax bill continue the payroll tax on people's tips?

[Tax Expert]

Yes, it. Yes, it does.

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

Overtime. The president said your overtime will be tax free. Does this bill continue payroll tax on overtime?

[Tax Expert]

It does not exempt overtime from the payroll tax.

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

The president said he's going to remove taxes on Social Security. Does this bill remove taxes on Social Security benefits?

[Tax Expert]

The legislation provides an increased exemption amount.

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

But does it remove taxes on Social Security benefits promised by the president?

[Tax Expert]

Does not change Social.

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

The president and this is the Republican.

[Democratic Commentator]

That's how it's done right there. Let's also show you Democratic Congress member Doggett. Here's what he points out. Let's play it.

[Democratic Congressmember Doggett]

Mr. Barthold, that this legislation fails to extend the enhanced tax credits that lower the cost of insurance for millions of Americans who purchase their own coverage through the marketplace.

[Tax Expert]

That. That's correct.

[Democratic Congressmember Doggett]

And when the Republicans permit these credits to expire in a mere seven months, what is the effect on health insurance premiums for those individuals that rely on the marketplace? Today.

[Tax Expert]

Work that our staff has done in conjunction with the Congressional Budget Office suggests that premiums will increase for individuals.

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

Sir.

[Democratic Congressmember Doggett]

Yes, sir. They go up about almost 8%, I believe, is the specific calculation that you did. And is it true that this failure on the part of Republicans will raise premiums not just for those. Not that they'll raise them really for nearly everyone in the marketplace, not just for those who receive the subsidies?

[Tax Expert]

That's. That's correct. That's part of the analysis.

[Democratic Congressmember Doggett]

If my understanding is correct, failure to extend this policy will result in an increase in the number of uninsured Americans. Is that right?

[Tax Expert]

That's correct, sir. That's.

[Democratic Congressmember Doggett]

Yes.

[Democratic Commentator]

Let's bring in Democratic Congressmember Tom Suozzi. Congressmember, some great questioning right there. Talk to us about it. This seems like it's one big scam. What do you make of it?

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

You know, it's like, it's like, as they say, it's like bizarro world where you're just in a what completely two opposite worlds. You've got the Republicans saying the big beautiful bill and it's going to improve the economy. It's going to do all these great things. And then you have the Democrats like myself saying this is going to massively increase the deficit. You say you want to be the party working class, but you're cutting the taxes for the wealthiest people in the United States of America. Again, you're paying for it by kicking people off of their health insurance. Some of the people that need it the most, almost 14 million people estimated by the Congressional Budget Office. And there's a whole bunch of provisions that they promised they were going to do for me, the state and local tax deduction is the big one that the president said, we're going to get the state and local tax deduction back. And they're not doing it. They're only increasing it from 10,000 to 15,000, 30,000 if you're married. But there's at least four Republicans that have come out and said, we're not voting for this bill unless you make it higher. So it's just, it's, it's, it's the same old divided attitude. You know, why can't we just, like, sit down and work together with each other? Why do you have to reduce the taxes for people who make a million dollars a year from 39.6 down to 37? I mean, why, you know, they don't need it. And you can, you can, you can pay for some other good stuff.

[Democratic Commentator]

So let's go through all those things one by one and break it down. So first there were the promises made and as you showed, promises not kept. Right. So MAGA Republicans are out there and they're telling people that the tax bill contains the payroll tax on tips that you said, does this tax bill continue, rather the payroll tax on tips? And the guy goes, it does. So that's not there. You talk about tax on payroll tax on overtime. Can you just talk through what Trump was saying on the campaign and what you exposed first as not actually being in this bill?

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

Well, Trump came out and said, you know, 100% of the tips are going to be yours. And so what's going to happen is you're going to have to continue to report your tips. You're going to have to pay your Social Security tax and the other taxes that you pay that are your payroll taxes, your employer is going to have to pay those taxes. And, and then when it comes time for your income tax at the end, they're going to say, oh, you don't have to pay the other taxes on those, but the taxes are that, you know, and that's, it's a wonderful thing to try and reduce people's taxes, especially people on tips or people who are getting overtime. Same, same thing. You're going to still have to pay your payroll taxes. But why can't we instead pay for this by increasing the taxes back to what they were before 2017, back to 39.6 for the people making a million dollars A year. I don't make. That doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, why can't we just. Why can't we work together? And we've heard. How many times have we heard about the deficit? The deficit. The deficit is going to destroy our country. It's our biggest threat that we face in our country. The deficit. They're increasing the deficit by $4 trillion. So to put that in perspective, the deficit in the past when we had to do like some big projects and stuff was 1.5 trillion. The they're going to do a $4 trillion deficit in one year. It's going to explode the deficit. It's just. I don't get it.

[Democratic Commentator]

So we first talked about promises made, promises not kept. But then let's talk about the threat to health insurance, the threat to Medicaid. How bad is this bill right now for people on Medicaid?

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

It's awful. There are people that are on Medicaid, there are people that got the Affordable Care act benefits when it was extended to their states, like the chairman of this committee's from Missouri. And this guy, Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri, a big Republican, wrote an op ed piece in the New York Times yesterday and said, you know, we don't want to still be the corporate, the corporatists in the Republican Party. Let's look out for the working families. And we passed a law, a constitutional amendment in Missouri to give them the right to have Medicaid used to pay for the Affordable Care act for people at certain lower income levels. And they're going to be cutting it from the federal government. So they're going to have to pay for it at the Missouri level if they want to conform with their Constitution. It's just nonsensical. Why would you make. Think about that, 14 million people. You know how many individual stories that is of people, like trying to get by and they have some tragic thing happen in their family and somebody's got cancer or they get hit by a car or somebody's got cerebral palsy, somebody's got dementia or something, some major problems, and now they're going to lose their health insurance. That's. It's just, it's rotten.

[Democratic Commentator]

Let's talk about salt. When you talk about salt, it's an acronym for State and Local Tax Deduction. What were you told was going to happen? And you have a lot of MAGA, Republican Congress members from New York also, you know, who said that they wouldn't be supporting it unless certain things were done with salt. Tell us about There what?

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

I don't want to take up too much time on this, but let me just tell people. State and local tax deduction was the first deduction given to people in 1913. So when they first started the federal income tax code, they said, we're going to tax your income at the federal level. And the governors and the mayor said, don't do that, don't do that. We want to tax them at the local level because we got to pay for schools and garbage and things like that. We don't want you to tax the federal level, just use tariffs the way you always used to in the old days. They said, no, we're going to deduct. You're going to let you deduct your state and local taxes, the money you've already paid in taxes from your income, so you don't have to pay taxes on the taxes you've already paid. That was in place for 100 years. In 2017, Donald Trump and the Republicans capped that deduction at $10,000. That's a killer for people in New York and California and Illinois and Massachusetts and other places that have unions, other places that have low rates of uninsured people, that insure our children, insure our adults. So we have higher taxes to pay for these. We have more mass transit, more infrastructure, so we have higher costs because of those things. Now they took it away. They said, we're going to cap it at $10,000. That made people's taxes actually go up. So a bunch of people came out and said that we're against this. We want to get the state and local tax deduction back again. President Trump came to Long island in 2024 during the campaign and said, I'm going to get your salt back. I'm going to get it back. I'm going to make things better for people here. We're going to get salt back. And a bunch of Republicans in this Congress came out and said, we're not voting for this bill unless you give us our state and local tax deduction back. And they said, you double crossed us. You've only increased it from 10,000 to 15,000 for a person filing singly, or 30,000 if you're a married couple. And they said, this is an insult. This is unfair to us, and it is unfair. So I'm hoping that these Republicans that have stood up and said, we're not voting for this unless we get salt will stay strong and they will hold people's feet to the fire and get us our state and local tax deduction back. Again and again. Just raise the taxes on the richest people in the country back to what it was under Clinton, what it was under Obama when the economy was booming. 37, back to 39.6. It will generate hundreds of billions of dollars.

[Democratic Commentator]

Finally, what happens next? Because I know we're hitting that debt ceiling soon. Treasury Secretary Scott Bettson put out statement like the account. He said something even like the accounting games I'm playing right now by the way, which is like a total red flag. I'm not going to be able to do them. I think he said come July or you know, or whatever it was. It's, it's coming up pretty soon.

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

The bottom line, some Republicans are going to try and say this bill is going to pay for itself because we're going to have so much economic growth. Their whole trickle down thing, supply side economics, that never has worked ever before. It's not going to work this time. And the cuts that we're doing is going to pay for. It's not going to pay for itself. And how do we know it's not going to pay for itself? Because the Republicans are putting in this bill an increase in the debt ceiling to allow the president to borrow $4 trillion. I know you hear these numbers. Trillions, billions, millions, $4 trillion. The total debt of the United States of America right now is in about 30 some odd billion trillion dollars. They want to add $4 trillion to it. They want to increase it by 10% in just one year. That's never happened before. It's the biggest increase in, in the deficit that's ever happened in the history of the country just from these tax cuts that they're providing in this bill. So it's all phony baloney. I mean it's just really just, it's heartbreaking how many people are gonna have to suffer because of this bill and because of those, you said, the broken promises that have been made.

[Democratic Commentator]

Is this gonna get passed though or is this gonna get this? I mean, I've heard senators say that they're not what's gonna happen. What do you expect?

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

I think that you're gonna have a fight in the House first over the next week about whether to increase the state and local tax deduction or not. And the people are going to try and get it increased and there's going to be a bunch of other moderate Republicans who are saying you're cutting Medicaid too much. You're cutting Medicaid too much. Too many people in my district are going to suffer because of this. Then it's going to go over to the Senate where there's going to be even more pressure on the cuts to Medicaid that they're not going to want to cut Medicaid. So a lot of these Republicans may be walking the plank in the House only to have the Senate try and change it later on or they're all going to walk in single file and do what the president asked him to do when he calls them up and says, hey, you got to do this.

[Democratic Commentator]

Well, great questioning today and please come back and let's talk about what's happening. Keep our audience updated.

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

Congratulations on the Webby.

[Democratic Commentator]

Thank you, Congressmember Congressman Tom Suozzi.

[Congressmember Tom Suozzi]

Congressman, I appreciate it. Congrats.

[Democratic Commentator]

Thank you so much. Have a good one. Everybody. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 5 million. Can't get enough Midas. Check out the Midas+ substack for AD. Free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Phillips, Bukowski and more. Sign up for free [e-mail].