Vice President Mike Pence visited Buffalo on Tuesday to meet with Rep. Chris Collins and discuss Trump’s tax reform plan with local businesses.
More than 200 supporters greeted Pence at the airport upon his arrival around noon, according to The Buffalo News. Pence greeted the crowd and shook hands with Collins, an early supporter of the Trump campaign and then left for a Republican fundraiser at Salvatore’s Italian Gardens.
Roughly 80 protesters demonstrated in front of Salvatore’s, chanting “this is what democracy looks like."
The fundraiser brought in more than $400,000 for Collins.
Following the Salvatore’s fundraiser, Pence discussed tax reform at Performance Advantage Co. in Lancaster. He touted Trump’s tax reform plan. The plan will cut income tax rates, double the standard deduction but eliminate personal exemptions and reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent. It would also allow a one-time repatriation of corporate profits earned overseas and eliminate the state and local tax deduction from the federal income tax.
“This tax cut, first and foremost, is designed to help American families struggling too often to make ends meet,” Pence said, according to The New York Post.
Pence also made a phone call to the late Officer Craig Lehner’s mother to offer his condolences, according to a Buffalo News source.
Pence did not address Collins’ current ethics scandal. Collins is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics, which has been looking into Collins’ stock transactions with a company called Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited for several months. Last week, the OOCE said violations of federal law could have occurred.
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