Delco basks in budget spotlight
Toomey, Meehan, Ryan all hit town to push GOP tax plan
There should be a line somewhere that reads, “As goes Delco, so goes America.”
It comes as no surprise that Delaware County has found itself once again in the national crosshairs, a potential side effect of a majority Republican community adjacent to a Democratic stronghold like Philadelphia.
Now the political spotlight once again highlights the county of 563,894.
Two visits from Donald Trump during campaign season to Aston and Chester Township and a Town Hall event in Haverford by Democratic Nominee Hillary Clinton suggested the significance of the region to the powers in Washington.
This week, pitstops from Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan, R-7, and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on the days leading up to and following the announcement of a Republican-fronted tax reform bill once again showcased Delaware County’s national importance.
Meehan, who referred to the top House Republican as a “great friend,” introduced Speaker Ryan to the workers of Penn Machine in Aston, a pipe-fitting manufacturer founded in 1931.
“He made the tax reform announcement yesterday and here he is today,” Meehan said.
Meehan is on the House Ways and Means Committee, the chief tax-writing committee in the House of Representatives, consisting of 24 Republicans and 16 Democrats. The panel has jurisdiction over taxation, Social Security, Medicare, as well as enforcement of child care laws and foster care and adoption programs.
Its Senate counterpart, the Senate Finance Committee, which Toomey serves on, has similar influence in which senators will vote upon a bill drafted by the committee.
Toomey last November defeated Democratic challenger Katie McGinty in the most expensive Senate race in history, with at least $139 million spent by advocacy groups and the candidates.
Meehan currently holds more than $2,337,398 in cash on hand and is among the top fundraisers in the House. An array of Democrats, including state Sen. Daylin Leach, are vying to oppose him in the 2018 election.
Toomey spoke at the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce in Springfield to discuss tax reform, a few days prior to the announcement of the president’s tax plan, and just a day prior to the Graham-Cassidy health care bill floundered and failed to even get to a vote.
Republicans couldn’t garner the 50 votes from 52 total members, so Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pulled the bill prior to the vote on Wednesday, leaving Republicans to pivot to tax reform.
President Trump unveiled the roadmap of the tax reform bill at a rally in Indiana Wednesday. The next day in Aston Ryan struck many of the same points the president did.
Ryan offered the bill as a means to re-establish the United States’ manufacturing industry as a global competitor, maintaining that current regulations prevent industry from competing with countries like China.
“When we tax our businesses, our manufactures at much, much, much higher tax rates than our foreign competitors they win, we said.
Meehan said, “How this tax is designed, it’s not about the rich, it’s about ... giving you a chance to put money in your pocket.”
Their pitch to “simplify” the tax code includes reducing the tax brackets from seven to three — 12, 25 and 35 percent taxable income — but no one has yet to detail what income ranges fit within each bracket. Chief amongst their pitches will be to incentivize business growth in the United States by dropping the corporate tax from 35 percent to 20 percent.
On Monday, Toomey struck a similar tone.
“This is self-inflicted, we’ve got a tax code that creates an incentive to have a multinational headquartered anywhere but the United States of America,” Toomey said. “That’s a very bad idea.”
Both Ryan and Toomey claimed that multinational tax theirs, lose,” Ryan
corporations are losing anywhere from $2 trillion (Toomey’s words) to $3 trillion (Ryan’s words) in profits from the overseas subsidiaries of multinationals that Toomey said “isn’t reinvested in the United States.”
Toomey called Monday for a repatriation tax that would levy taxes on the offshore earnings of multinationals in transition back into the American economy.
“No longer will there be an incentive to have these corporate aversions,” Toomey said. “No longer will American businesses be at a heightened disadvantage.”
Clearly the stakes are high for Republicans, as they hold the presidency and majorities in both the House and the Senate, to push through legislation on a variety of topics. Health care has been a major setback for Republicans, with several key leaders in
who voted against their party heralded as heroes by some, and berated by others.
Meehan is up for re-election in 2018, where he will face a currently stacked field of Democratic challengers, top of whom is state Sen. Daylin Leach, D-17 of Upper Merion, who gained notoriety for his fresh-mouthed takedowns of Trump on Twitter.
So far as the Republican machine goes, Meehan is in good company.
“The people in Congress who work on this issue are dedicated people ... I would argue that some of the most gifted men and women in Congress are on this committee,” Ryan said. “And you need to know how fortunate you are to have this man, Pat Meehan, who will be writing the legislation to get us more jobs, more paychecks — thank you for what you do.”