Senator Cornyn visits Mission, advocates extending Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

MISSION, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Senator John Cornyn was in Mission on Thursday, meeting with small business owners at 5X5 Brewing Company. Cornyn was in the Rio Grande Valley to push for an extension to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) signed by President Donald Trump during his first term.

Parts of the tax cut bill are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, and making them permanent has been a top priority for the President and Congressional Republicans.

The business owners at Thursday's roundtable discussion pushed for the Senator to make that extension a reality. The group represented a wide range of business interests from shipping, hospitality, the agriculture industry, and more. Each participant took the opportunity to express how the tax cut program had helped their businesses, and in turn, their communities.

Several members of the panel cited the positive impact changes to equipment depreciation rules had made. According to the Internal Revenue Service, the TCJA allowed taxpayers the option to expense the cost of any property and deduct it in the year the property is placed in service. 

Business leaders also expressed concerns about inflation and rising costs. They expressed concerns that consumers could be reaching a "tipping point." That at some point, they couldn't continue to just pass those higher costs to their customers without eventually losing business.

Senator Cornyn is a member of the Senate Finance Committee and could play an instrumental role in shepherding an extension of the tax cuts through the legislative process.

Critics of the original TCJA, and efforts to extend it, point to an increase in the federal debt. A report from the Congressional Budget Office published in March states, "CBO estimates that if provisions of the 2017 tax act were extended and there were no other changes to fiscal policy, debt held by the public would reach 214% of GDP in 2054, 47 percentage points higher than in the long-term baseline projections."

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget concludes that it would add $4.5 trillion to the debt over the next decade, and eventually $37 trillion over the next 30 years.

“Ultimately, I think what we have to look at, two things. One is the level of spending, and one is the level of debt, and we need to begin to close that. Which is why we’re not just dealing with taxes, we’re also dealing with the spending part, because we do need to close that gap as much as we can,” Senator Cornyn said.

The Senator's office released a statement stating that if the tax cuts were allowed to expire, 62% of Americans would see a tax increase in 2026. They calculated that for a family of four, making $75 thousand per year, that would translate to an increase of $1,500.

Cornyn said he'd like to see Congress get the extension done quickly, perhaps by the end of July, so the President can move on to other priorities. The budget framework has already been approved, but so far, there aren't any hard budget numbers allocating where the money would be spent or how lawmakers would address the rising debt numbers.