Tax Reform

Ways & Means Committee Markup of HR 5861, "the Jobs and Opportunity with Benefits and Services for Success Act"– May 23, 2018

For our Subcommittee, the right approach must include addressing structural barriers in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program or TANF. Otherwise our policies will fail our rural, urban, and suburban constituents who hit these barriers daily and are being left behind. I work closely with a number of programs in Chicago that work alongside employers to provide real opportunities for people who have been left behind by the labor market and are hitting walls every time they try to get good jobs and make a better life. But as I talk to these outstanding workforce development programs, I am struck by how few of them get any support from TANF, which is in this Subcommittee's jurisdiction.

Currently, our law allows individuals to deduct qualified medical expenses that exceed 10 percent of a person's adjusted gross income for the year. H.R. 1 would repeal that itemized deduction come next year. The cost to repeal the medical expense deduction would be about $10 billion per year. Before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), there were 10 million households that claimed medical expense deduction. Also, prior to ACA 60% of all bankruptcies were attributed to medical expenses by Americans.

Congressman Danny K. Davis Statement in support of Chu-Davis Amendment to Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (as prepared)

Statement on Amendment Restoring the Adoption Tax Credit, Exclusions for Employer Dependent Care and Adoption Assistance Programs, and Expanding the Child Care Tax Credit to Strengthen Families

I strongly oppose this Republican effort to strip low-income seniors and those with severe disabilities of Supplemental Security Income benefits or SSI. I join in opposition with over 110 civil rights, disability, and aging advocates who have warned that H.R. 2792's harsh cuts will discriminate based on age, race, ethnicity, ability, and income, and will further criminalize poverty. I also strongly oppose the Majority's decision to condition the reauthorization of our successful home visiting program on this bill's harm to the elderly and infirm.