Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., distanced himself from senators opposed to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's impact on the national debt, telling Newsmax on Monday he was working to reduce its impact on deficit spending as much as possible.
"I'm going to let each one of them make their own decisions," Lankford told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" of the senators.
"What we're trying to do is to be able to get as much deficit reduction as we can possibly get. All of us are concerned about that. But every time you reduce a program, somebody says, 'Hey, that's a big program in my state,' whatever it may be.
"And so we're going to reduce the spending as much as we possibly can get 51 votes for and say 'we're done,' and then to be able to send it over to the House, because we've got to do deficit reduction, that has to be a part of this.
"We also got to prevent the largest tax increase in American history."
Lankford went on to state that instead of adding to the deficit, the bill would reduce mandatory spending by $1.5 trillion.
"So here's the beautiful part about it. It is mandatory spending," he added. "So it is literally the $1.5 trillion in reduction spending now. But it also will be the next 10 years and the next 10 years and the next 10 years.
"So this is not one of those cases where it's all loaded up at the very end and then doesn't happen. This is a change in how we do spending. That's what's desperately needed."
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Nick Koutsobinas ✉
Nick Koutsobinas, a Newsmax writer, has years of news reporting experience. A graduate from Missouri State University’s philosophy program, he focuses on exposing corruption and censorship.
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