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WASHINGTON — Rep. Betty McCollum broke with all other Minnesota members of the U.S. House in voting against a new tax bill that would boost the child tax credit for low-income filers and restore several tax breaks coveted by the state’s business community.
The tax package was overwhelmingly approved by the U.S. House late Wednesday, 357-70.
Rep. Dean Phillips did not vote because he was campaigning for president in South Carolina. But all of Minnesota’s other members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, voted for the tax package. Why was McCollum, D-4th District, the only holdout?
Because she takes issue with the business tax cuts, which she called “just another Republican handout to big corporations and oil companies.”
The tax package would restore several business tax breaks that have ended or begun to phase out. They would allow businesses to immediately deduct the cost of their research and experimentation investments instead of spreading that deduction over five years.
The bill would also allow businesses the ability to immediately deduct 100% of their investment in machinery and equipment, a boon to manufacturers. The package would also relax limits on the deductibility of business interest expenses.
The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce hailed the legislation.
“We have supported and urged the passage of these important federal tax provisions dealing with businesses’ ability to invest in their operations,” said Beth Kadoun, vice president in charge of the chamber’s tax and fiscal policy. “
“The tax provisions allowing for R&D expensing, interest deductibility and full expensing are extremely important for businesses in Minnesota, especially the many small- and medium-sized manufacturers, to help in their ability to invest in new equipment and technology — enabling them to grow their operations and jobs,” Kadoun added in an emailed statement.
Kadoun also said she would be seeking similar tax breaks from the state government.
“It will also be equally important for Minnesota state legislators to conform Minnesota state income taxes if these federal tax changes are enacted,” she said.
However, in written remarks she planned to give on the House floor, McCollum said the tax package “gives big corporations a break while the rest of America picks up the tab.”
McCollum also wanted a larger increase in the child tax credit, which would be refundable under the bill for those families that earn too little to take the full tax break, which is $2,000 per child.
Although the bill was approved by the U.S. House by a large margin, it ran into trouble in the U.S. Senate Thursday when several GOP senators said they could not support it.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said his opposition was based on the possibility the legislation might help President Biden politically.
“Passing a tax bill that makes the president look good — mailing out checks before the election — means he could be reelected, and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts,” Grassley said.
Former President Trump pushed a large package of tax cuts through Congress in 2017 that critics say are heavily skewed toward corporations and wealthy individuals. But those tax cuts, like the ones in the tax bill approved by the U.S. House this week, are expiring or will expire in 2025.
Emmer-Omar feud over speech escalates
Relations that have been frosty for a while between Rep Tom Emmer, R-6th District, and the Democrat who represents neighboring District 5 — Rep. Ilhan Omar — sunk to a new low this week.
Emmer, who supported Omar’s ouster last year from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is now demanding Omar resign from Congress for comments she made in a speech to constituents at the downtown Minneapolis Grand Hyatt on Jan. 27.
Emmer, who is the House Majority Whip, has also called for an ethics investigation into Omar for her speech, given in Somali and subjected to several translations this week.
Omar said she was smeared by a faulty translation of her speech.
Things escalated even further when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, a fiery Freedom Caucus member, introduced a resolution on Thursday to censure Omar. The resolution accused Omar of seeking to “pressure the United States Government into certain actions” to help Somalia, where the congresswoman was born.
On Thursday, Taylor Greene told reporters that she “would love to expel” Omar and that “I think she should be deported, I honestly do.”
She was reminded that Omar is a U.S. citizen.
The brouhaha began when Emmer accused Omar on Monday of “appalling, Somalia-first comments” which he said are “a slap in the face to the Minnesotans she was elected to serve and a direct violation of her oath of office.”
“She should resign in disgrace,” Emmer said in a post on X.
A couple of days later, Emmer called for the ethics investigation, saying “No sitting member of Congress should be able to blatantly spew anti-American rhetoric and get away with it.”
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What caused all the furor?
In her now notorious speech, Omar assured her Somali constituents that the United States would respect Somalia’s sovereignty in the face of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) recently signed between Ethiopia and Somaliland, a separatist breakaway from northern Somalia whose claim to sovereignty has no international recognition.
As a part of the deal, Ethiopia has agreed to recognize Somaliland as a sovereign country in exchange for a 50-year lease of a part of its coastal land so landlocked Ethiopia could have access to the sea.
Her office provided an English transcript of Omar’s talk, which matched other, independent translations of the speech nearly word-for-word.
Here’s the key section:
“… the other day, when we heard that some Somalis, or those who say they are Somalis, entered an MOU with Ethiopia, many people called me and said, ‘Ilhan, you should talk to the U.S. government — what is the U.S. government going to do about this?’
My response was: the U.S. government will do what we ask it to do. We should have this confidence in ourselves as Somalis. We live in this country. We are taxpayers in this country. This country is one where one of your daughters sits in Congress. While I am in Congress, no one will take Somalia’s sea. The United States will not back others to rob us. So, do not lose sleep over that, O Minnesotans. The lady you sent to Congress is on this, and she is as cognizant of this interest as you are.”
In an emailed statement, Omar said “the attacks being lobbed against me are not only completely false, they are rooted in xenophobia and Islamophobia.”
“This is a manufactured controversy based on an inaccurate translation taken entirely out of context,” Omar said. “I am embarrassed for Tom. This is clearly a desperate attempt to garner attention after his failed four-hour Speaker bid last year and a gross misuse and waste of taxpayer funds for something that is clearly false.”
Omar also said “I categorically reject these disingenuous attempts to malign my character and question my loyalty to my home, America. … As I said in the video — I support a unified Somalia, which aligns with longstanding U.S. policy favoring a one Somalia approach.”
On Tuesday, Molly Phee, the State Department’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, was asked about the Ethiopia-Somaliland agreement during a press briefing.
“The United States shares the view of the African Union … and other international organizations, as well as the majority of African partners on the continent, that Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity need to be respected,” Phee said. “We share a concern that this proposed memorandum of understanding could be very disruptive to our shared struggle …”
Lawmakers have frequently weighed in on foreign policy matters that pertain to their homeland or their constituents, as debates over Israel, Cuba and Northern Ireland have shown.
This and that
Sen. Tina Smith was supposed to shine as a keynote speaker at the Washington Press Club Foundation’s annual congressional dinner on Wednesday night at the Waldorf Astoria.
But Smith was a no-show, laid low by the flu. The Democratic senator did, however, provide a video of brief remarks, all slamming Rep. Dean Phillips, D-3rd District, who is challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination for president.
“I would feel terrible if I showed up and got everybody sick. The only way it would have worked is if everybody had agreed to get up and leave the room when I started talking. You know, kind of like a Dean Phillips rally,” Smith said.
“Poor Dean, he took a real beating in New Hampshire,” Smith added. “But he’s staying on the ballot for South Carolina because you can’t spell Dean Phillips with only one ‘L.’”
The South Carolina Democratic primary is on Saturday. In 2020, the Palmetto State gave Biden a huge boost that firmly put him on the path to his party’s nomination. So, Phillips faces an enormous challenge in the state.
Local media has reported that Phillips has struggled to gain traction.
“Phillips, the longest of long shots, spent a rough and lonely five days on a swing through South Carolina recently during which he made his case to voters at a few small events, saw members of his own state party fly in to bash him and had to beg a roomful of Democrats to stop talking for five minutes to listen to an abbreviated version of his stump speech,” The (Charleston) Post and Courier reported.
Your questions and comments
A reader questioned why former President Donald Trump’s victory in Iowa last month was considered by many to be a historic landslide.
“I wonder why Trump’s predictable win is called historic,” the reader wrote. “The win may not be due to rural voters but it is clearly due to the MAGA subset of Republican voters. 100,000 votes out of 3 million doesn’t say much. Small Republican turnout. Lots of people didn’t vote. The failure of the majority of Republican voters to engage in their primary process is a huge problem. I wonder if the public nature of the Iowa caucuses is a deterrent. Lots of people are intimidated by the violent rhetoric and sometimes action of the MAGA subset.”
Another reader commented on Rep. Pete Stauber’s praise of the approval of federal money to replace the Blatnik Bridge, funds that come from a massive infrastructure bill promoted by President Biden that the Republican lawmaker voted against:
“A subtle reminder to Mr. Stauber that if Pres. Biden and Congress had not prevailed, he would never have any money for the bridge that he could advocate for,” the reader wrote.
Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond. Please contact me at aradelat@minnpost.com.
