The state budget may have passed, but now sights are set on a federal budget.
Local U.S. Representative Darin LaHood joined our WLDS’ AM Conversation to discuss the federal budget, as well as federal taxes.
LaHood says that, in terms of aiding the economy, the newest budget will help, but he believes businesses need better tax reforms.
“I think the budget helps, I think tax cuts help too, or tax reforms. We haven’t had comprehensive tax reform since 1986, so 30 years. Particularly look at the high corporate tax rate, we have the highest in the industrialized world. You look at a lot of the corporations, here in the United States, they park their profits in other countries that have low corporate tax rates. If we lower our corporate tax rates, the plan we have in the house lowers it to about 20 percent, that will bring back a huge influx of money back to the United States,” says LaHood.
He also tells us that, in order to get the national debt decreased, the country much have a better growth rate.
“The last time we brought our debt back down to 0 was when we had a growth rate of about 3 or 4 percent and that was in the late 1990s. What happened, when we had that 4 percent growth rate we brought our debt down to nothing. Of course people know, our debt when President Obama came in was about 8 trillion dollars, were now at 20 trillion dollars over the last 8 or 9 years. That’s simply unacceptable. Our growth rate hasn’t been above 1 or 1 and a half percent. If we get that growth rate up to 2, 2 and a half, 3 percent that helps drive down our debt,” LaHood explains.
LaHood tells us about the next things the House of Representatives will be working on.
“In the House, we already passed health care, now that’s in the Senate, that’s an important piece of legislation that people want us to act on. Obviously tax reform is important for the economy, the country added about 225,000 new jobs Friday, which was more than expected, but tax reform is an important part of that. I think later on, infrastructure has to be a part of that, and I think the American people want us to act on those things,” says LaHood.
Darin LaHood recently also hit a major milestone by taking on and closing his 2,000th constituent case. A record for any US Representative.