Reps. Arrington and Pfluger Tout 'One Big Beautiful Bill' as Landmark Achievement in Fiscal and Border Policy

SAN ANGELO, TX — Republican Representatives Jodey Arrington and August Pfluger hailed the "One Big Beautiful Bill" (OBBB) as a pivotal piece of legislation that averted economic pitfalls while bolstering American strength in a discussion at the 2025 West Texas Legislative Summit. The bill, passed July 4, 2025, amid a razor-thin Republican majority in Congress, embeds key elements of the Farm Bill, makes permanent the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and delivers substantial spending cuts and border security funding.

Arrington, the Lubbock-area congressman and Chairman of the House Budget Committee, described the OBBB's passage as a "yearlong journey" and an "arduous process" requiring Republicans to "thread the needle to build consensus." He emphasized that the bill incorporates what he called the "best Farm Bill" provisions, addressing a critical gap after the standalone Farm Bill failed to pass in 2024.

Central to the discussion was the bill's extension of the 2017 tax reforms.

"Making permanent the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, with its corporate rate at 21%, led to record jobs, investment, and the lowest unemployment rates for females and minorities," Arrington said.

"It was low taxes and reducing regulation that drove that." He warned that without the OBBB, the tax cuts would have expired this year, imposing a "22% tax hike on the American people" on top of what he termed a "regressive inflation tax" over the past four years under the Biden administration.

Arrington also highlighted protections against the "death tax," noting that the bill permanently sets the exemption at $30 million for married couples—or $15 million per person—preventing it from being halved. "Instead, we got the biggest tax cuts, spending cuts, and investments in border security," he said, calling the bill "beautiful for what it would do" in advancing "America First" policies to make the nation "safe, strong, and prosperous."

Praising his colleague, Arrington credited Pfluger, the San Angelo representative and Chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), as his "wingman" in navigating the bill's complexities.

"You sent us the right guy to represent West Texas," Arrington told the audience.

On fiscal responsibility, Arrington pointed to the OBBB's "silver lining": a $1.5 trillion cut in "wasteful, unnecessary, or unconstitutional spending"—the deepest reduction in Washington history. Yet he lamented the ongoing challenge of $2 trillion in annual federal borrowing for a $7 trillion budget, calling it "a tax on our children." He outlined dire options for unchecked spending: "Go off a cliff like Greece, experience a slow decline, or inflate our way out of it." Arrington warned of "a level of unsustainability, of financial decline," urging a shift of resources to the private sector for "efficient investment" rather than "government largesse."

To address this, Arrington proposed the "Texas Two-Step": unleashing economic growth while bending the spending curve downward.

"It's the rot from within that ends the country, and one part of that rot is fiscal irresponsibility," he said. "We need to change the culture of Congress to consider our children and our global leadership."

Pfluger echoed these sentiments, focusing on the bill's border security provisions, including a $12 billion reimbursement to Texas for its state-led border secuiefforts. "I talked directly to President Trump about this and how unfair it was for Texas to have to provide for the common defense of the border," Pfluger said.

The discussion turned to entitlement reforms, with both representatives addressing Medicaid and SNAP cuts. Pfluger noted $50 billion in waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid in 2023 alone, with costs ballooning from $400 billion to $600 billion since COVID-19 in 2020, on track to exceed $1 trillion this year. SNAP faces similar issues, he added.

"It's common sense to add work requirements," Pfluger argued, describing it as a "social contract between working Americans and those who need a safety net." He criticized lax enforcement, pointing out that "not a single person in SNAP in California is required to work the 20-hour-a-week requirement."

Arrington alleged that illegal immigrants are receiving Medicaid benefits, a big portion of the estimated $9,000 per person in social services the federal government spends on illegal immigrants. This is more than what is spent on veterans or average American citizens. "If you just enforce the laws on the books today, it will solve," he said. He predicted Democrats would "demagogue" these reforms ahead of the 2026 midterms, warning that "the social safety net will not be there if we continue on this unsustainable path." Arrington noted that 41 states have expanded Medicaid to working-class income levels, but Texas has not.

The panel underscored the OBBB's role in embedding Farm Bill priorities, ensuring support for agriculture amid broader fiscal tightening. As the discussion wrapped, both representatives called for sustained vigilance to preserve the bill's gains, positioning it as a blueprint for future Republican-led reforms.

This discussion was a part of the West Texas Legislative Summit. The summit explores how west Texas is "driving American strength" and is a one-day event attended mostly by Texas lawmakers . It was held on the campus of Angelo State University on July 29, 2025.