Tax Equity, and an Economy That Works for all Americans

Special interests and giant corporations have used the tax code to rig the system and enrich themselves, even as wages and benefits for the average American worker have stagnated. Fifty five of Americans’ largest and most profitable companies paid nothing in federal taxes in 2020. No corporation should be able to exploit loopholes and rely on an army of lobbyists to avoid doing their part.

Max will work hard to ensure that the wealthiest amongst us don’t pay a lower tax rate than teachers, cops, firemen, and restaurant workers. Max took action and helped lead the charge to abolish the carried interest loophole, which allows specific entities and individuals to claim their compensation for services as investment gains, allowing them to pay lower tax rates than middle class workers. At the same time, we also need to create a tax system that gives hard working Americans a tax cut, not corporations and the wealthiest amongst us like the Trump Tax Scam did. To achieve this tax fairness vision, Max supports raising both the long-term capital gains tax rate for the ultra wealthy so they no longer pay a lower tax rate than middle class workers as well as the floor of the alternative minimum tax, which has unfairly excluded middle class families. Max supports closing egregious corporate tax loopholes and creating a minimum corporate tax rate, while at the same time ensuring that America’s overall corporate tax rate remains competitive. At the same time, Max supports meaningfully expanding the earned income tax, child tax credits, and restoring the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction, ensuring that middle class New Yorkers are no longer saddled with this unfair and targeted tax increase. Max also supports closing the stepped-up basis loophole, an unfair tax policy that allows for assets to pass from one generation to the next with significant tax benefits. Lastly, Max believes that NYC and New York State must maintain its tax code competitiveness with other states in order to attract business and entrepreneurs.

In short, our tax code and regulatory system cannot set back innovation and the rate of business or job creation, but it also should not exist to disproportionately benefit the wealthiest amongst us and the largest of corporations. The tax code must be on the side of the working and middle class. While in office, Max was a leader in pushing the bipartisan Restoring Tax Fairness for States and Localities Act, which would make substantial strides towards fully restoring the SALT deduction for all hard-working Americans, including thousands of public safety workers.

Economy

As a congressional district with one of the highest rates of unionization in the country, NY-11 deserves a Member of Congress who won’t undermine workers’ rights and attack their right to organize. Max stands as a nationally-recognized supporter of organized labor and will continue to fight for organized labor to be the bedrock of a strong middle-class.

Max helped lead the effort to pass the bipartisan Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act through the House which would expand labor unions’ negotiating power, provide new protections for unions and workers, and stiffen penalties for companies who abuse workers’ rights. Max opposes those in both parties who’ve sold out the working class by undermining unions in the name of shareholder dividends and stock buybacks, and has worked to ensure workers receive higher wages, reasonable hours and better benefits including quality healthcare coverage and paid sick leave. American workers built this economy and it’s time they get their rightful share in the prosperity that they created. As Congressman, Max will work to finally pass the PRO Act into law and finally restore unions as a fundamental driver of the American middle class.

Max also believes that those who’ve worked throughout their lives deserve to retire with dignity. He supports the Social Security 2100 Act, which will expand and protect Social Security into the next century against insolvency and ensure no American is forced to age in poverty. Max will also fight Republican attempts to raise the retirement age and cut Social Security benefits, just as he delivered for hundreds of Staten Islanders and South Brooklynites who were unfairly denied the Social Security disability benefits they deserved.

Max is also a supporter of the fight for 15 and was a cosponsor of the raise the wage act while in Congress that would have raised the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15.00.

Inflation and gas prices

Max supports the government's recent action calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether companies are using illegal methods to keep gas prices high and punish them accordingly. He also supports using all the tools at our disposal to increase OPEC’s oil production and to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve so as to reverse the increase in gasoline prices. While it is evermore urgent that America transition away from a gasoline-based transportation system, hard working New Yorkers should not be subjected to egregious shorterm price hikes as this transition is carried out. And Max will fight for both administrative action and legislation to fix our supply chain issues which are also driving inflation, while working to combat COVID-19 and address childcare issues so that workers who want to, can return to the workforce and labor supply can meet demand.