IRS audits nearly two-thirds of middle-income earners, report says

Happy weekend to all. Welcome to the program that analyzes the week that was and helps position you for the week ahead. I’m Maria Bartiromo. Taxes are front and center on Capitol Hill as we near April 15th. On Monday, Republicans are fighting to keep the Trump tax cuts in place that are set to expire next year. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith warning the removal of these cuts will hit the middle class hard. Congress must act soon to prevent what will be the largest tax hike in history on workers, families, farmers and small businesses. Middle income earners will be hit the hardest. We will see even more closed for business signs up. If the law is not extended, Americans can expect to pay anywhere between 1 to 4% more in personal taxes as Democrats continue to claim that the 2017 cuts only benefit the wealthy. The life cycle of this governing goes as follows. Cut taxes for special interests, the top 1%, and then take away basic benefits for middle income American Democrats. We saw the corporate tax cut giveaway for what it was a scam. And while the Democrats claim that they are looking out for the middle class, we’re getting a new watchdog report which shows 63% of the IR s s recent audits targeted taxpayers with an income of less than $200,000 a year. Joining me now is House Ways and Means Committee member, Florida Congressman Greg Steuby. Congressman, good to see you. Thanks very much for being here. Your reaction? Yeah, this week we had a hearing in ways that kind of went through all of these issues and how important these tax cuts are. We had two small business owners that talked about how detrimental to their businesses if these tax cuts are to expire next year. It would have, they would have to cut employees, they would have to make sizable, they wouldn’t be able to invest in capital. They’d have to make sizable reductions in, in all the type of purchases that they make to be successful. That’s like a 43% increase on taxes on small businesses in our country. And that means jobs, Maria. I mean, people work for these small businesses. And if these tax cuts don’t get reauthorized and get reinstituted, a 43% tax increase on a small business means people are going to lose their jobs and they’re not going to be as successful and be able to hire people and increase investment in their businesses. Yeah. And what’s with all these audits for people making $200,000 or less? Yeah, we said that Republicans said that when Joe Biden pushed through the 80,000 new new IRS workers, we knew that they were going to go after small businesses. We knew they were going to go after low and middle income people. And now you’re seeing the results of that. And we tried to carve some of that back, but the expenditure was already made when the Democrats had control. And here we are. Oh, wow. OK And then there’s this. Just out on Friday, the Biden administration announced new details on their plans to cancel additional student loan debt. The president now is looking to wipe out nearly 7 1/2 billion dollars more. That brings the grand total of student debt forgiveness to $153 billion. Florida, one of the 18 states suing Biden over this latest bailout plan. Here’s how Governor Ron DeSantis responded earlier in the week. What he’s proposing illegally, he doesn’t have the authority to do it is to basically say, you know, if you’re a truck driver, you didn’t go to college, you don’t have student debt. Sorry, You’re going to have to pony up to pay the Student Loans of somebody, you know, who maybe got a degree in sociology or something and is not gainfully employed and can’t afford the loans. Congressman, how does the president get away with canceling all of this student loan debt despite the Supreme Court deeming it unconstitutional? Yeah, this is a complete election ploy to try to get young people to try to vote for them. They know it’s completely unconstitutional because the last attempt that they had at this, the US Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional. It’s completely unconstitutional. And thankfully, we have States and our attorney General in in the state of Florida filing a lawsuit on Florida’s behalf because states have to start standing up against the complete unconstitutional actions of this administration. And I’m glad to see that Florida is doing that. We’ll be successful in the end. But I think what the hope of the Biden administration is, is not before they dole out billions of dollars to people for quote UN quote student loan forgiveness, it’s completely unconstitutional. It completely usurps the congressional mandate where Congress, if if that is to be the law of the land, that’s something should pass Congress. He knows that even Democrats aren’t all going to vote for that because it’s so controversial. And yet there it’s not stopping them from attempting to dole out billions of dollars in student loan debt repayment, despite the fact that they know it’s unconstitutional. Well, in an environment where we still have hotter than expected inflation, we had the consumer price index out earlier in the week showing that prices are still elevated. You know, go buy steak up 28% year over year, bread up 20 plus percent. This is all because of all of the stimulus and this student loan debt forgiveness is just more stimulus. So $7 trillion later we still have inflation where it is. Do you think the administration or your colleagues understand the impact of all of this stimulus on the debt now $36 trillion? Yeah, the Democrats certainly don’t. They think that the continuing to spending and give these handouts to people will encourage them to vote for them in the upcoming November election. But if you look at the numbers, I’ve only been in Congress for six years, three terms. When I got elected, the debt was 21 trillion. We are now over 34 trillion. We have programs that we’re spending more money on interest on the debt now than we are on defense spending. These are huge numbers, Maria, that we have to get under control. Washington has a spending problem. I got elected to come out here in in fight against the spending in Washington. The American people see that and adding trillions more on the the already inflationary economy is the direction opposite of what we should be going. We should be cutting spending. And all of this is because of the decisions that the Democrats made. The trillions that they have dumped on the economy has caused this inflationary environment that we are in. And then dumping more billions of dollars on student loan repayment would further increase inflation. And yet you all are now talking about another spending package sending money to Ukraine while still not securing the border. Fox has confirmed that an Afghan national on the terrorist watch list is now in DHS custody after being caught and released twice while crossing into America. DHS Secretary Al Hamid Omayorca is finally admitting this week that the situation at the border is a crisis. And at the same time, Joe Biden is hinting at an executive order to tighten up ports of entry by the end of April. Your home state of Florida feeling the financial burden of this. A new report estimates health care for illegal migrants cost the state more than $500 million in just the last six months last year. So this is not just a national security issue. This is an economic issue as well, Congressman, isn’t it? And it’s an economic issue at all levels of government. It’s an economic issue at your local counties that are paying money. Like in Sarasota County, we have a hospital that gets $50 million in taxpayer dollars for needy care. So if an individual, an illegal immigrant shows up at the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, they’re required under law to treat them. And our tax dollars in Sarasota County are paying for that. Same at the state level for needy care, same at the federal level. So you have multiple levels of government that are spending money on this illegal immigration crisis. And it’s not just healthcare, it’s schools. I mean, these people show up that have children and they have children that they enter into the school system. The school system by federal law is not allowed to ask them if they’re here legally or not. So they’re entered into our school system, which is a drain and a push on our school boards and our school districts for more money to be able to spend on this. So to to be able to try to calculate the millions and hundreds of millions, well, it’s probably billions of dollars of taxpayer cost just in Florida on this illegal immigration crisis on top of allowing terrorism into our country, on top of allowing criminals into our country. I had a constituent on my district that was raped by an illegal immigrant. This was all caused by the policies of Joe Biden and Secretary Marcus, which is why we impeach Secretary Marcus in the House. And hopefully the Senate will move forward with removal proceedings in a trial over there soon. Yeah, we’re going to see if that happens this upcoming week. Congressman will be watching. Great to see you this weekend. Thank you, Sir.