Advocated Cutting Debt and Deficit, Balancing the Budget
“Let’s Try to Find a Way to Get to Yes”
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, Congressman Vern Buchanan, Vice Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, joined the Hill Nation Summit for an interview with Kellie Meyer, Washington Correspondent for NewsNation. Buchanan highlighted how the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” is cutting taxes for small businesses and seniors. He also discussed the president’s trade agenda, the debt and deficit, and promising signs of bipartisanship in Congress.
Click here or the image above to view Congressman Buchanan’s remarks.
Here’s what Buchanan said about the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” and ongoing issues being debated in Congress:
The “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Supports Our Small Businesses and Job Creators
Kellie Meyer: “30 years in business, 20 years in Congress. What do you like better? What do you think has had more of an impact?”
Rep. Buchanan: “Well, the business is a lot more fun. Up here, I’m doing it because I want to try to make a difference ... and really promote small businesses, startups, entrepreneurship. People say, ‘Why are you always so pro-business?,’ and part of it is because they’re the job creators ... The bottom line for me is we need to find a way to work together and get some things done. And I’m optimistic about that, ideally.
Kellie Meyer: “I wanted to talk about the agenda items you’ve been ticking through. The ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill,’ talking about creating jobs there. You were just back in the district; what were some of the conversations you had with your constituents around that and the impact of that, especially on jobs?”
Rep. Buchanan: “I think on the small business side, people are very excited. ... I think the big thing is full expensing. It’s a powerful tool, whether you’re buying or selling. ... There’s a thing called 199A, which is a 20 percent reduction for pass-through [businesses], because at one point, we were at 37-39 percent on individual taxes with most pass-through entities, but we lowered the corporate rate to 20 from 35 [percent], and we had to find a way to deal with that. So full expensing and 199A, the combination of that package makes it very competitive ... That is a very powerful tool. Anybody that’s been in business knows that. It’s a huge tool, that’s why I’m very excited about what’s possible, what could be done.
88 Percent of Seniors Will See No Taxes on Social Security Benefits With the “One Big, Beautiful Bill”
Kellie Meyer: “You were one of the few congressmen that were around during the first negotiations on the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is that correct? Now doing this again, can you talk about what this will mean for the American people back home?”
Rep. Buchanan: “The big thing is, a lot of it’s going to be permanent. Before, we’d always say [we were preventing] the biggest tax increase and that’s because everything got sunsetted or would be getting sunsetted. I think the biggest part of it is the permanency. It helps families.
“I’ve got 200,000 seniors in our district. ... They’d always come in and say, ‘Why am I paying taxes? I already paid taxes. Why do I have to pay taxes again?’ 88 percent of my [senior] constituents—and I’m sure across the country—they now don’t have any taxes they’ll be paying on their Social Security. That’s a good thing.”
The President’s Trade Deals Are Win-Win for the U.S. and Allies
Kellie Meyer: “You’re Vice Chair of Ways and Means right now. We were talking a bit about trade and the president’s trade deals. I’m over at the White House talking about that a lot, both on the trade deals and then the tariffs, the impact on inflation, what this all means going forward. The cost of groceries, we saw the inflation report—the cost of groceries and gas, ticking up a bit. How do you explain this to your constituents, where the direction of the country is heading with this?”
Rep. Buchanan: "We’ve got 370 million people in the U.S., but there’s 7 billion on the planet. I’ve been to 85 countries—we’ve done little or no trade deals. We’re running a $1.2 trillion trade deficit, and some of them are very good friends of ours. You can set China aside for a minute, but when you look at Japan and other countries. ... I think Trump’s got the right ideas; we’re just trying to find a way to get something that’s fair and works for everybody. One of the big things I’d like to see is something with the EU. They’re about the same size in terms of population and their economy and everything in terms of the U.S., and lets see if we can do something together and work together. That’s something I’ve been pushing for 10 years.
“We need to get back in the trade business. I’m part of a bipartisan group. We travel around the world, we focus on trade and we focus on democracy and focus on different issues. But one of the big things is they all want to get and structure a deal with us, and our goal is trying to find a way to get there. ... In terms of the president, when you look at, he’s structuring this and saying he’s going to raise someone’s rates 20 percent or 30 percent or this or that or whatever, it’s his style of negotiation, but he’s getting a lot of people’s attention, and we’ve had no activity in this area, and now at least we’re back in the game.
“Let’s take, for example, Japan. We’ve got a huge negative [trade deficit] with them, and we’ve got to find a way we can get in the room and make it where it’s a little fair. At the end of the day, it’s got to work for both people. As a business guy for a lot of years, I believe in win-win in terms of negotiation, not win-lose. ... We want to make sure that we’re doing everything to work with our neighbors and our friends, but it’s got to be a little bit fairer, and that would make a big difference to the country.”
The Debt and Deficit Are a Bipartisan Problem and Require a Bipartisan Solution
Kellie Meyer: “I know you were talking a lot about what brought you to Congress was the debt and deficit. ... How do you tackle that, and what ways do you think Congress is moving in the right direction or not moving in the right direction on that?”
Rep. Buchanan: “Everybody has a reason why they ran, and mine was the debt and the deficit in 2006. We ran a $170 billion deficit at the time, and we were $8 trillion and change in debt. Now we’re $37 trillion in debt. The first trillion dollars that we take in in taxes go to pay the debt. That’s a trillion dollars a year. ... Last year, we took in about $5 trillion, we spent $7 trillion. ... We’ve got to find a way that we can work together.
“I don’t blame the Democrats, I blame both of us, and we’ve got to find a way to get this resolved. 49 out of 50 governors have to balance their budget. We need to balance it. My first week in Congress, [I introduced] a balanced budget amendment, and every new Congress, I put it in place. ... We’ve got to find a way to get together on that because I think at some point, it’s a matter of if, not when, this becomes a huge problem.”
Republicans and Democrats Can Work Together to Get to Yes
Kellie Meyer: “And that’s a key thing I think a lot of people don’t hear maybe that often is the idea of working together on this. You’ll often hear on the news, Democrats pushing back on Republicans for it, Republicans pushing back on Democrats, saying it’s their fault. You’re saying it’s both of our faults and we both need to come together to solve this.”
Rep. Buchanan: “If [Democrats] have something, they know they can go to Vern, and being senior on the list, when they bring me something, I try to find a way to get to yes. ... Just ask anybody that’s a senior member on the Democratic side on Ways and Means, or Ways Democrats in general. I just figure all Americans, let’s find a way to get to yes, and that’s the attitude I have, Democrats or Republicans or whatever, and I think that’s my reputation.
Buchanan is a respected leader in Florida’s business community and has created thousands of jobs over the course of his career. He previously chaired both the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Sarasota Chamber of Commerce. Buchanan currently serves as Vice Chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee.
