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Nebraska Sens. Pete Ricketts and Deb Fischer announced their commitment to extending President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, aiming to help farmers, ranchers and their families keep their taxes low.
At a Tuesday morning Nebraska Farm Bureau press conference, Fischer said an end to the tax cuts would create a $4 trillion tax increase next year and cost a family of four making $80,000 about $1,700 more each year.
“If Congress does not act to extend this law, it’s going to expire at the end of the year, putting families, putting ag producers and putting small businesses in jeopardy,” Fischer said.
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by a Republican-controlled Congress in Trump’s first term, introduced sweeping reforms to America’s tax code. Ricketts said these tax cuts are beneficial to farmers and ranchers in Nebraska -- especially family-owned operations.
“Agriculture is the heart and soul of what we do here in Nebraska,” Ricketts said. “One in four jobs is tied back to agriculture and drives our economy. Eighty percent of our farms and ranches are family owned, and so when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed, that had a tremendous impact on our farm and ranch families.”
Ricketts said the tax cuts doubled the taxable threshold for an estate tax, allowing some farming operations to be passed down without placing extra tax burdens on the new owners.
“That meant that half as many of our Nebraska farm or ranch families were going to be impacted by that death tax, thus making it easier to pass along that family farm or ranch the next generation,” Ricketts said.
The 2017 tax cuts also doubled the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 per child.
Nebraska Farm Bureau President Mark McHargue said that taxes affect everyone, and the 2017 tax reforms have worked for Nebraska.
“It's working well for us, and we need to ensure that we do get this extended,” McHargue said. “It's one of the things that we do need to check off the list to ensure that the economy here in Nebraska and in the country continues to work.”
Ricketts and Fischer said they are working with other Republican senators to extend the tax cuts permanently.
Both senators said they would like all reforms to be extended in one package. Additionally, Ricketts wants to see reduced taxes on Social Security. Fischer said she will work on extending tax credits for employers that provide paid family and medical leave, a reform she worked on adding to the budget in 2017.
Ricketts said the tax cuts will be offset by a large decrease in government spending. Earlier this month, the Senate passed a budget resolution, which sets the budget reconciliation process in motion. Congressional committees will now look for areas to save money.
“The Senate version, which the House has also adopted, makes these tax cuts permanent,” Ricketts said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do over the course of the next several months to get all the numbers to work together, and the different committees have got to find those savings. But that's our goal -- is to make these tax cuts permanent.”
The Senate is seeking about $4 billion in spending cuts. However, the House wants to cut at least $1.5 trillion, including $880 billion from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which some fear would slash Medicaid and SNAP benefits.
With instructions to increase spending on the military, courts and homeland security, it’s unclear how Congress will reconcile the cuts and spending increases with the potential revenue decrease from tax cuts. Under both the House and Senate resolutions, the debt ceiling has been raised.