One Big Beautiful Bill: Q&A with Oklahoma Members of Congress

The massive bill containing the bulk of President Trump's domestic agenda, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, passed the U.S. House last month and is now under consideration in the Senate. Given the extremely narrow margin Republicans have in the House (the bill passed 215-214), Speaker Mike Johnson and other House leaders have pleaded with Republican Senators to minimize the changes they make to the bill, so that it doesn't lose any support in the lower chamber. The full text of the Senate's bill is expected early this week, while some portions of it were released last week. I interviewed Senators Mullin and Lankford, and also Rep. Brecheen, last Thursday and asked each about progress on the bill. Here are some of the highlights of those conversations:

Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK2)

CAMERON: You were among a small group in the House who demanded more significant cuts before being willing to vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill last month -- do you have any concerns about what you're seeing so far over in the Senate?

BRECHEEN: There's some concern. There's some, about $75 billion that were relative to the Ag provisions where they are watering down some savings, and some great reforms we had on the food stamp, SNAP program that are being watered down, that's of great concern. And so that, plus other changes, $75 billion, there's a financial services element, about 12 billion. I just sent a letter over to the chairman of that committee, saying that pretty soon, 12 billion here, 12 billion there, you're going to end up with real money. And for those of us that were part of the budget committee that helped create the framework, there were 38 of us, to include our Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, two days ago, we sent a letter over to the entire Senate and, of course, the White House, to work on this. And it said, for those of us that are on this letter, budget neutrality matters. We gave a 2.6 (percent) year over year growth element, but we put in some real savings -- and if you're eroding the savings, then you're messing with the opportunity for us to be straight-faced to the American people and say that, if we hit the expectation, the 2.6 percent year over year growth, which we believe is a legitimate number, plus the savings to counteract the outlays, we feel confident we've hit a budget neutrality element. And if they go to piecemealing numbers outside that framework, then we're going to end up not being able to be straight with the American people. So our great hope is they don't send us back a product that is worse.

CAMERON: Are there changes that the Senate could make to the bill that could cause you to vote no on this bill when it comes back?

BRECHEEN: Yeah. I mean, the 38 of us that signed the letter and said maintain the budget framework. 38 of us are saying we're serious. We're willing to go to the cameras and say, I voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill--I mean, some Oklahoma voters know I had some pause in Budget Committee. We worked that through to make sure the math works, and it's real math. I'm grateful to the White House and Speaker Johnson and leadership, they worked with us, specific to making sure the IRA -- wind and solar tax credits -- that those are real repeals, not fake math that never materializes. Since 1992, 13 different times Congress said they were going to do it, and they never did it. And, as the original version (of the OBBB) said it was going to implement four and five years from now, I knew in my heart that was gimmicky. We got that straightened out. I'm concerned that on the Senate side, that there--when the solar lobbyists are descending over there to try to make that gimmicky again. There's $500 billion (in savings) that is legitimized in what we did, the four of us, in holding that thing at the Budget Committee until it got straightened out, a big bulk of that 500 billion of the CBO score. So, I just want to be able to be truthful to the American people when they go back to the cameras, that what we did was--we can feel good about and not that we're pretending.

CAMERON: Just as certain things are red lines for you, some more moderate Republicans have threatened to change their votes is the Senate messes with the new, higher cap on state and local taxes (SALT)--

BRECHEEN: What was handed to the New Yorkers was excessive. It was excessive. And so, you know, there are some of us when we say we're going to vote no, we've proven we'll vote no. Then there are some who bark and they have no bite. And so people in our conference know who's serious, people know who, you know, really stands on conviction. And so our leadership will have to make an analysis, because my inclination is just--what's going on in the Senate, that they're going to lessen what the New Yorkers in the House got because there's no New Yorker serving in the United States Senate that's a Republican. So, as that gets lessened, leadership will have to really figure out if the 2 or 3 New Yorkers are really willing to not put a yes vote over that. But that alone, just the SALT provision, is $300 billion. It was given to three and four members of the conference to make their constituencies happy. And it's horrible, relative to the way it makes every other taxpayer have to subsidize high-tax states

Senator James Lankford (R-OK)

CAMERON: Talk to me about your involvement in putting together a final version of the One Big Beautiful Bill.

LANKFORD: Multiple parts of the bill I've been very intimately engaged in trying to be able to work through -- a lot of the tax policy, I serve on the tax-writing committee, what's called the Finance Committee. So, all the areas of tax I've worked on significantly, whether it be individual tax, small businesses, manufacturing tax, energy tax pieces, and, quite frankly, international tax, that's also an area that I've been assigned to be able to work through. So there's a lot of the tax areas. The main goal there is to keep rates from increasing in January, which right now they're scheduled to dramatically increase for every single Oklahoman. And the other aspect is deal with some of the business taxes that are really important to small businesses and manufacturing, especially things like full expensing. If you're familiar with that, you know how incredibly important it is. If you're not, it's the most basic thing of-- do you have to take years to be able to write off a major purchase, or can you do it in the year that you actually purchase an item? The tax income is the same. But the way it actually works in business, it's so much better if you're able to write it off in the year that you actually purchase it, because that encourages more purchasing, more construction, more manufacturing.

CAMERON: You're on the committee that's handling the SALT cap issue, which was a critical piece in getting the bill passed in the House. It's not popular, though, in the Senate.

LANKFORD: We really don't want to do the additional state and local tax deduction that really benefits California, New York and Illinois. But there are some Republicans in the House that they really want to be able to do that. Federal taxpayers in Oklahoma that make the exact same amount of money as people in New York actually pay a higher federal tax in Oklahoma than what they would in New York, because the New Yorkers would get a chance to write off their high state taxes on that. Well, that's not fair to Oklahomans. And so that's a big debate between House and Senate. There are other areas of debate between the House and Senate we're trying to work through like permanency. We want tax policy to be permanent as much as possible on that. The House had several things that expired, that had a deadline on it, then it would go away. So, as much as we can--we're not going to get to all those things. But we'd like to have a stable tax policy that's consistent in as many areas as we possibly can, but we'll work this out, this part of the internals. The One Big, Beautiful Bill has three big sections of it and all of them are complicated: the tax policy piece to keep taxes from going up; trying to reduce the deficit by around a $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion; and then the third piece of it is investments in things like modernizing air traffic control, dealing with the dollars that we're still short for border enforcement long-term, our military investments that are also important to the country. So those three areas are all big and they're all looped into one bill. So yes, it's complicated to walk through all the different issues on it, but we feel confident we're going to get it done.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK)

CAMERON: You have strong relationships in the Senate and House. Are you playing any sort of mediating role in the changes to the House-passed version of the OBBB?

MULLIN: Yeah. a lot of negotiations are going on. I have been privileged enough to be tasked with the SALT (state and local tax deduction), and it's great conversations going on there. SALT doesn't affect anybody in the Republican Senate, but it does reflect a few (Republicans) that make the majority in the House. And both chambers have very slim margins. So, we have to be very mindful of what we can do. You look at SALT and you think, well, this is easy, this is a $350 billion carve-out that we can do in deficit reductions, I totally understand that -- it doesn't, ya know, I don't really like the fact that Oklahoma has to subsidize those that live in a poor-ran state like New York and California for their property tax. But the fact is, we--this is what happens up here, right? We gotta negotiate between people that we don't always see eye to eye (with), and a Republican in Oklahoma is different than a Republican in New York. But we still have to have a bill that can get us away from the Biden administration's policies and move us into the Trump era policies. To do so, we can't have--we're probably not gonna have a perfect bill, but we're going to have a good bill. And part of these negotiations are just that. I feel very optimistic that we're going to deliver for the American people. And as the president say, we made a promise to the American people.. in November, that's why they elected the Republicans to run the country.

CAMERON: So, is it fair to say the SALT cap is going to be lower in the Senate bill than what was passed in the House bill?

MULLIN: We're in negotiations. Let's talk about the facts when a deal's struck. And right now we haven't got a deal struck yet