President Trump is about to make a third appointment to the Supreme Court.
In today’s Congressional Corner, New York Congressman Paul Tonko, a Democrat from the 20th district, continues his conversation with WAMC’s Alan Chartock.
This interview was recorded September 28.
Alan Chartock: Here we are with Paul Tonko, great friend to WAMC. Paul, I'm exhausted just from thinking about what's going on. Let's start with the New York Times. Americans are expected to pay their taxes. I know the Chartock’s pay a lot of taxes, I’ll bet Paul Tonko pays a lot of taxes. What's the deal?
Representative Paul Tonko: You know, it's very discouraging. For the longest time, this president has said, well, because of the audit, I can't interrupt that, I'll get to you when it's done. We've been hearing about this audit for years and now we know why. I mean there was what, 10 or 15 years where zero dollars were paid in taxes, and something on the average of $750 in certain years? It just tells us that there were, you know, many, many reasons that claiming certain things like hair appointments and styling bills, and really, really questionable things were a way to reduce that tax burden and to bring it down to nothing. And I think the American public, the average person, says you know, look, I give my fair share. But when you see something like this it's very angering, and it's probably why he didn't share the information. But I think the bigger concern, or an equal concern is, you know, who are these loans? Who does he owe money to and is that a risk to our national security?
There was no mention of the Russians in this Paul Tonko, but an awful lot of people think there is a relationship that has developed between Putin and Trump. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Well, I think the Times article was dealing with just the information they had, which was very damning, I believe. That then, really brings to mind a series of questions that additional information would be required to prove or disprove. So I think that this is the start of an investigation that will really get down to issues of national security, just to whom are these debts owed and what will that mean, if anything, to our national security? How does it influence his actions as president? So I think something like this will hang in there as a discussion point for many weeks and seeing that we're getting to some 30 days before an election, will probably be the talk of the election from now until Election Day with a lot of people already voting with early voting. So this undoubtedly will really influence the voters out there. I think it's going to anger many people to think that the President of the United States just does not share in any of the burden here of providing any kind of tax dollars.
Now, well, Paul Tonko let's assume for a second that the Senate goes democratic, the president becomes a Democrat, and the house remains democratic. Do you think that there will be changes made as a result of some of the things that we see Trump well, getting away with?
Oh, I think there will be efforts to tighten up some of the areas of law, I think there will be further investigation. To me there this there's some serious concern here about irresponsible behavior, if in fact, if not, avoiding the true burden of taxation owed the country based on his business operations. I think what angers people are the loopholes that are out there that enable something like this to happen. So I think that would be the first order of review, the first order of business that would be addressed. But then would also be, I would hope, the deeper plunge into, you know, just what are these relationships that to which he owes money? What are they and how do they influence or impact our national security, and that will call for another round of activity. But, you know, it's amazing that this has been avoided for so many years, and that we're just told that the audits were being conducted and we had to wait and now it's no wonder why the information was not exchanged; it was to just not allow the public to know how irresponsible this president has been when it came to a tax liability.
Indeed, well, you know, Paul Tonko, when you think about it, 40% or so of the American people are with this guy, do you think that changes at all?
I think there's got to be some within that block of support that say, hey, look, I pay my fair share. In fact, we live, some of us, paycheck to paycheck. I think some people are in lower income strata that are in his base. And I would think the average person who works hard, raising a family maintaining a household and paying their fair share would be, I think, would be angry about this. I think it's the natural human reaction. You know, especially for someone who has touted himself as being such a wealthy individual and having such great influence and being such a clever and productive and efficient business person. Well, you know, anybody, I think people, are much more easily able to grow wealthy by not paying their bills and not paying their taxes.
Well, Paul Tonko, my friend, Richie Neal, your colleague, Ritchie Neal as the chair of the Ways and Means Committee said that Trump was gaming the system? Is gaming a tough enough word?
Well, I think it's a good start. You know, again, we want to go through and thoroughly investigate what's happening here. But obviously, what you have here is, you know, someone not really paying their fair share, obviously. It looks incredibly irresponsible. I think it's again, going to be a huge response coming from the electorate as it’s unveiled in this stage of the election.
Paul Tonko, there are those people who think that there's a possibility that there's some criminal mischief that has been happening here too. If the democrats get into power, do you think they're gonna say, well, you know, why should we pursue that? You know, it'll just make things more difficult between the Trump people and the democrats?
If there was a cause for closing loopholes, or preventing reoccurrences of this sort of behavior, I think we owe it to the American public to do the right thing. I think that this should be scrutinized, I think you're probably going to get, I would anticipate we will get, a call for action here to further review what has happened. As you know, as was was done in the impeachment proceedings, there were many concerns about Russian influence, and there were many concerns about irresponsible behavior and this just adds to that suspicion that things weren't done in as clean and ethical fashion as the public deserves.
I know the Chartock’s pay a lot of taxes and I assume, Paul Tonko, you pay them too, right?
We do pay taxes. You know, the thing is, you want that to be a fair burden. All of us in this republic are looked at to responsible individuals that should be part of the solution. When someone like this avoids their tax liability in frivolous ways, I mean, you know, the appointments of his daughter to get fees as a consultants while she's part of an organization and some of the frivolous things that we heard about just in the capsulized version of the report last night. It just causes you to wonder how you think you could get away with stuff like this.
It's always wonderful to have our friend Paul Tonko on with us on the Congressional Corner. Paul, we'll be talking to you again real soon and then we’ll come back and maybe we'll ask you about the Supreme Court.
Thank you so much. Always a pleasure to be with you and our friends at AMC.
