Missouri’s junior senator says the tax bill signed by President Donald Trump (R) in December is the most pro-growth tax bill ever passed by Congress.
Senator Roy Blunt addresses the Missouri House on April 4, 2018 (file photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)
During a recent roundtable discussion in Jefferson City, mid-Missouri business leaders said the tax cut has helped their companies. But they also told U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (R) that they are facing labor shortages.
“You know I think in the middle of the country it is particularly a problem right now, but we’re very close all over the country where there are more jobs available than the total number of people on the unemployment rolls. That’s never happened before,” Blunt says.
Missouri Retailers Association President David Overfelt says there’s currently a shortage of truck drivers, and another businessman told Senator Blunt there’s not enough workers in mid-Missouri for collision companies.
Blunt says the United States is in a “dynamic moment” in our economy.
Blunt, who serves on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, says the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017” has allowed numerous Missouri companies to reinvest in their workforce with bonuses and higher wages.
Senator Blunt tells Missourinet people have “a lot of confidence.”
“We doubled the child tax credit for a family of four that makes $75,000,” says Blunt. “That’s $2,000 more a year of their money that they get to spend.”
While he voted for the bill, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) was one of 48 senators who voted against it.
McCaskill told reporters in Jefferson City in late March that “the pharmaceutical industry took a $50 billion windfall from that bill, gave it to their shareholders and didn’t lower the price of prescription drugs a penny.”
Senator McCaskill says 83 percent of the money will go to one percent of the country, under the bill.
She also says gains by working families will be offset by higher prescription drug prices.
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