Adam Gray Says Costs Are Too High – He Voted to Keep Them That Way

Congressman Adam Gray posted on social media this week that everyday costs are already too high for Central Valley families.

He’s right. He’s also the reason a lot of them are.

One year ago this month, Gray had the chance to do something about it. H.R. 1 came to the floor of the House, legislation that created a deduction on tipped income, a deduction on overtime pay, a deduction on auto loan interest for American made vehicles, and quadrupled the State and Local Tax cap to $40,000. It was, whatever else you think of it, the most direct tax relief Congress has delivered to working families in years.

Adam Gray voted no.

Not present. Not “concerns about the process.” No.

Think about who that vote hit. A waitress in Modesto who works doubles through the summer. A line worker in Merced picking up overtime because the mortgage went up again. A family in Madera signing a car loan at a rate that would have been unthinkable five years ago. Every one of them got something out of that bill. Their congressman voted against all of it.

The bill became law anyway. The deductions are in effect right now. Valley families are claiming them, and they’re claiming them despite their representative, not because of him.

What Gray offers instead is a newsletter. He points to bills he has cosponsored and bills he has introduced. We’d note, gently, that voters cannot cash a cosponsorship. Introducing legislation is a press release with a bill number attached. Casting a vote is the part of the job that actually changes what somebody pays at the pump or takes home on Friday.

This is not a new pattern. Adam Gray has spent more than a decade in elected office, first in Sacramento and now in Washington. In all that time, the Central Valley’s cost of living has climbed relative to its wages until this district became one of the hardest places in California to make a middle class living. Gray has been in the room for most of that. He has had every opportunity to change it.

What he has developed instead is a talent for sounding like a fighter while voting like a follower. He tells the Valley what it wants to hear and then goes to Washington and votes with his party’s leadership. Those two things cannot both be the real Adam Gray, and Valley families are entitled to know which one is.

We are partisans; nobody should pretend otherwise. But this is not really a partisan argument. It is an argument about whether a vote counts for more than a post. Any voter in this Valley, of any party, can look up how their congressman voted on H.R. 1. It takes about thirty seconds.

Everyday costs are too high. Adam Gray is right about that. He was also given one chance to lower them, and he passed.

Voters in this Valley keep receipts.