Lankford on Reducing Debt: ‘Only Way ... Is a Growing Economy & Limiting’ Spending

DICKERSON: We turn now to Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford. He joins us from Oklahoma City.

Welcome, Senator.

I want to talk with this tax cut bill. You have talked about the debt and the deficit throughout your career. All of the independent analysis says that this tax cut bill will add a trillion or more to the debt. Why then is this a bill you can support?

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R), OKLAHOMA: Actually, all the independent analysis doesn’t note that. The Joint Committee on Tax does note that, but the Tax Foundation doesn’t. There’s a lot of others.

We have 130 different sets of economists that are out there, and part of the challenge is always looking at which one is right. All of them are putting a forecast out there. All of them have different numbers. We have some as high as a 5 percent growth. We have some as low as 0.8 percent growth. All of them show economic growth.

The guess is, how much economic growth is in the bill itself? The target of any time you do tax reform is to try reduce taxes on individuals and on businesses, so they have more money to spend, they can spend that money. That encourages the economy to grow. We know it will grow. Now the guess is how much.

DICKERSON: That’s right. And the Tax Foundation is still around $500 billion to the debt, and there are — the majority of independent analysis shows even larger.

And that bet you’re making, isn’t there a big downside risk that you have talked about throughout your career, which is that the negative effects of increased debt kill the growth that you’re trying to create?

LANKFORD: Absolutely.

The biggest issue that would have if we have accelerating debt is to have the issue of continued investment from the federal government into more and more interest payments. We have to get the economy growing, though, to actually get on top of this.

We have said for years the debt has become so large, the only way to be able to get on top of this debt and deficit is a growing economy and limiting your spending.

We have limited spending over the last several years. It’s been very small in its growth for spending, but the economy has also been flat in the last decade. We have not had a decade like the last decade since the 1940s.

So, we have got to get the economy growing again. We’re not growing again. We never do get on top of the debt and deficit without that. So you’re right. This is something that’s designed to be able to energize the economy. It should work. A lot of people that we looked at and examined independently say it will work. And so the focus for us is, let’s get this economy growing.