JUST IN: Lankford Breaks Down His Pro-Growth Tax Win in The One Big Beautiful Bill on CNBC’s Squawk Box — “This Is Absolutely Pro-Growth”
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WASHINGTON, DC — Senator James Lankford (R-OK), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, joined CNBC’s Squawk Box to break down his permanent, pro-growth tax policy included in the One Big Beautiful Bill that will deliver results for American businesses and workers.
Excerpts:
On The Benefits Of Full Expensing:
“A lot of companies are looking to be able to buy a new piece of equipment, whether it’s a big truck, if you’re a delivery service, or whether it’s manufacturing, whatever it may be, they’ve had to depreciate that out after several years, and now they can do it in the year that they actually purchased it.
“So that expense happens that year. That helps them in their taxes. That also incentivizes them to buy more equipment, which helps more manufacturing, which helps more jobs, which helps the economy. It’s one of the most, if not the most pro-growth portions of the bill. And its permanent tax policy, unlike what we did in 2017, where it diminishes a little bit each year. Now it is 100% expensing every single year from here on out.”
On Washington Budget Scoring Vs. Economic Reality:
“This is absolutely pro-growth. And the issue on deficit spending is you’re going to depreciate this asset out over several years. So the way the Congressional Budget Office looks at this, they look at what’s called a ten-year window. They look at the next ten years. So they would say things that you buy eight years from now — they can’t count the depreciation on your 11, 12, 13 — they can’t count those. So they consider that ‘deficit,’ as crazy as it sounds. It makes no difference to the federal Treasury whether we do it all in one year or depreciate out over several. But it makes a huge difference to that small business, that manufacturing business, that corporation, whatever it may be, to be able to do 100% expensing this year in the year that it actually occurred…”
On Future Legislative Efforts And The Push For More Deficit Reduction:
“There needs to be another reconciliation bill. As you remember, you go back to January, February, March, the Senate was saying overwhelmingly, let’s do three bills…. The House came back and said we could only do one…. We got as much deficit reduction as we could get done in this bill and actually get the votes to be able to pass it. Our desire is to be able to bring up another one, to be able to keep going and to keep working on what are we doing on deficit reduction.
“Well, the Speaker has actually brought up the possibility of another one. We’ve obviously worked on the possibility of another one. We have what’s called a rescission bill that would come up… next week, that would be about $9 billion in reduction.
“Whatever progress we can make to be able to whittle down the deficit, we need to be able to do. But at the same time, we can’t hurt the economy. We have to have a growing economy. We have to reduce our spending. That combination has to be there.”
On Trade And Tariff Negotiations:
“We’ve already had some tariff agreements…. Obviously, Vietnam is a big one, they’re very close to settling the issues with. India, that’s a very significant trade partner, so we’ve got several that are either in process, that’ve got some progress, that we have a signature on, and there are quite a few of them that they’re actually getting very, very close, so they’re trying to be able to extend the deadline to August 1st…. I’m one of those folks that likes low tariffs and no tariffs, that takes an agreement to be able to do that. They’ve got to be able to open up their market… so that we can actually get greater access to there.
“We’ve got lots of countries that are allies that still block out American products. Let’s get that fixed.”
On Confronting The Reality Of A $2 Trillion Deficit:
“Well, let’s find out on that [Midterms]. The American people are going to decide what happens on the midterms. But yes, I would hope that we could actually get more of these — the Republican-only bills that actually focus on deficit reduction — before the midterm election. I think the American people are supportive of trying to be able to bring down this $2 trillion deficit.
“It’s always, ‘I want you to bring down the deficit, but don’t affect the thing that I like.’ That’s just not going to be possible with a $2 trillion deficit.
“I think there are a tremendous number of people across the country that get that. They say they’ve got to balance their budgets. Their state has to balance their budget. The federal government’s got to be able to do that the same.”
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