Congressman Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, joined KHTS live Tuesday morning to discuss his priorities for the current legislative session and how he plans to address issues within California’s 25th Congressional District (CA-25).
On Tuesday morning, Garcia joined KHTS News Director Michael Brown live on air to talk about how he intends to attain some of his legislative goals in the House of Representatives despite Democratic control over both houses of Congress and the White House.
“I think there is some common ground that we need to focus on,” Garcia said “Some of the key issues that I ran on are actually falling into that bucket.”
One such issue is the removal of the current state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, which Garcia is looking to remove via his first piece of legislation for this session: the SALT Fairness Act.
“We have a time where Californians are leaving because they can’t afford to stay here,” Garica said. “We’re being overtaxed, we’re being over-regulated, our kids can’t go back to school, they can’t play in sports, and frankly affordability is just at an all-time low right now. This removal of the SALT cap will be a significant help.”
Currently, under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a $10,000 cap exists for state and local tax deductions. If the SALT Fairness Act is passed, that cap would be removed, and Garcia said that an average family of four in Santa Clarita could see between $2,000 and $5,000 more in their tax returns as a result.
“That’s a big deal, and this is something that will get bipartisan support,” Garcia said. “I’m confident that we’ll be able to get this passed in this next session.”
Despite hopes for bipartisan cooperation over the next two years, Garcia said there would be issues that he “is looking forward to fighting,” which he believes includes pushes to increase taxes, “over-regulate” businesses and defund the military.
See Related: Garcia Joins House Republicans In Demanding Better Conditions For National Guard In D.C.
“These are the fights that I’m looking forward to fighting and making sure that we’re holding the line, supporting law enforcement, supporting the military, and most importantly supporting the average taxpayer and making sure that we’re not killing jobs in the interest of politics, which is unfortunately already starting to happen here in the first couple of weeks of the term,” Garcia said.
The interview came just a week shy of President Joe Biden being sworn into office in an event that required the deployment of several thousand members of the U.S. National Guard to prevent any further political violence in the wake of the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
“I was just heartbroken,” Garcia said as he recalled the events of the Capitol assault. “It was an insurrection on our nation’s capital, and there’s no doubt about it. Anyone that defends that is not thinking things clearly. Those individuals need to be held personally accountable, and charged and prosecuted.”
The riot at the U.S. Capitol came as supporters of then-President Donald Trump arrived in Washington D.C. to protest the certification of Biden’s electoral college victory, which Garcia ultimately voted against.
“That’s not how we protest and that’s not how we make positive change,” Garcia said. “We’ve got to just continue to do what’s right. We’ve got to be active, we’ve got to fight the fights and we’ve got to do it in a classy manner. We’ve got to do it in a manner that’s dignified and respectful of the opposite side.”
Garcia also discussed several other pieces of legislation he had signed on for, as well as Southern California Edison’s implementation of Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS).
To hear the full interview, check out the video above or click here.
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