East Idaho Times

U.S. Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, the lead Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, recently discussed tax policy with Larry Kudlow on Fox Business. The conversation focused on efforts to prevent a potential $4 trillion tax increase affecting American taxpayers.

During the discussion, Kudlow raised concerns about how congressional scorekeepers handle spending and tax cuts differently. He said, "You're saying [congressional scorekeepers] don't score spending, the current services spending baseline, as a brand-new deficit increasing bill—they just let that go on. But they will score a current services or current policy tax cut baseline all over again as a big deficit raiser. Now there's something wrong with that."

Crapo responded by highlighting discrepancies in budgetary assumptions: "There's over two and a half trillion dollars of spending in our budgetary system that has a current policy baseline. It's just assumed that it will grow and grow and grow. And yet, for taxes, no. They say you have to pay for them every year."

He further elaborated on his stance against raising taxes: "Ask Americans if keeping their tax policy exactly what it is today—instead of telling them that the average medium-to-low-income family has to pay another $2,000 a year—ask them if they think that that's the way that we should try to address our national debt."

Regarding preparations for future tax legislation, Crapo stated: “Whether we do two bills or one bill or the sequencing—that decision will be made by President Trump in consultation with the Senate and House Leadership." He emphasized his goal of passing effective legislation within the year to boost economic growth and avoid increased household taxes.

"The bottom line is," Crapo concluded, "I'm working to make sure that whenever that vote happens, we have a great bill, and that we stop the four and a half trillion-dollar tax increase and actually give people a boosted economy to grow their available income."