Freshman Republican Rep. John Katko isn’t backing the president’s plan for free community college, but he says it’s a discussion worth having.
President Barack Obama proposed a free Associates Degree for community college students in his State of the Union address last night.
"Can we afford that? I don’t know. But should we talk about the affordability of college for people on a general matter? Absolutely. And I think there’s something there we can work with," said Katko, the congressman for central New York, afterward.
Obama says a free two year higher education should be the new equivalent to a high school diploma. Katko says college affordability was one of the areas the president touched on that could be a place for common ground.
The Syracuse-area Republican sat in on his first State of the Union last night. Katko’s Republican Party controls both chambers of Congress. He says the president’s proposal to eliminate a tax loophole for inherited wealth would have unintended consequences.
While Katko supports tax reform, he says President Obama’s idea of taxing assets passed down would hurt upstate New York farmers.
"Those farmers aren’t rich, but they do have a valuable asset, that being their land," he said. "If you talk about eliminating that inheritance tax, the tax break for inheritance, those tax breaks are gone."
Katko says generations of family farmers work hard to maintain those farms. He says the president should think about that before he pushes too hard for closing the tax loophole.
Obama also called for a raise of the capital gains tax -- a tax on things like stock dividends. He's proposed tax breaks for middle class income earners. Katko says tax reform shouldn’t include "class warfare."
Katko says the president should have focused more on alleviating poverty, a problem that grips many upstate New York cities. But he says raising the minimum wage could hurt job growth.
The president also called for authorization from Congress for the use of force against Islamic State militants. Katko says he would back that under the right circumstances.