Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We're
Speaker 1: speaking with US Senator James Langford, and boy, it's been busy.
Speaker 1: You got the vacation coming up, but still a lot
Speaker 1: of work to do.
Speaker 2: I don't have to have vacation or not coming up.
Speaker 2: In August typically is the one month a year that
Speaker 2: we are not in session. We're in session eleven months
Speaker 2: of the year. Typically we're not in session in August,
Speaker 2: so we can get a chance to be in our
Speaker 2: own states and get a chance to be able to
Speaker 2: travel around see people. This year, we've still got a
Speaker 2: lot of nominations to do. I have to tell you,
Speaker 2: it's been interesting the last six months. We have moved
Speaker 2: twice as many nominations for President Trump that we got
Speaker 2: done during his first term at this time. But we
Speaker 2: still have a lot to go and we're going to
Speaker 2: continue to be able to press through and get as
Speaker 2: many done as we possibly can.
Speaker 1: Well, recently we've had the big beautiful bill. How big,
Speaker 1: how beautiful? And how does it work for Oklahoma?
Speaker 2: You know, it's been funny for a lot of times
Speaker 2: when there's a big omnibus bill that's into the year
Speaker 2: type bill, the longer it sits out there, the less
Speaker 2: people like it. They find out there's things in it
Speaker 2: they didn't realize, and they don't like it. This one's
Speaker 2: been the opposite. It's been interesting. It is big, it's
Speaker 2: nine hundred and forty pages, but it was public for
Speaker 2: weeks before we actually voted on it, so everybody to
Speaker 2: have time to be able to look at it. But
Speaker 2: the longer it sits out there, the more people seem
Speaker 2: to like it. For if you're a farmer and rancher,
Speaker 2: the people are finding out that half of the farm
Speaker 2: Bill was actually done in this bill and so reference pricing.
Speaker 2: Of course, we dealt with the estate tax, which is
Speaker 2: terrible for farmers and ranchers where it literally takes away
Speaker 2: family farms. When someone passes away, the next generation has
Speaker 2: to sell the farm to be able to pay taxes. Well,
Speaker 2: we dramatically increase the limit on a state taxes to
Speaker 2: be able to help farmers or ranchers be able to
Speaker 2: maintain their family farms. So that's in there. We did
Speaker 2: a change that I've worked on really hard, dealing with
Speaker 2: the nonprofit donations for several years now. If you don't
Speaker 2: to your church or nonprofit, you couldn't write that off
Speaker 2: on your income tax anymore. Only the top nine percent
Speaker 2: of Americans were going to write off their stuff on
Speaker 2: their income tax. With their nonprofit donations, well I got
Speaker 2: that changed in this bill, where now individuals are able
Speaker 2: to ride off one thousand dollars of their nonprofit donations.
Speaker 2: A couple is able to write off two thousand dollars
Speaker 2: in their nonprofit donations. So that's been very popular. We're
Speaker 2: upgrading air traffic control, We're upgrading border enforcement, increasing border agents.
Speaker 2: We're upgrading our navy and our coast Guard, which are
Speaker 2: in desperate need of some upgrades, especially in the Coast
Speaker 2: Guard area. It's been a really big issue for a
Speaker 2: long time. But also we flattened out the tax rates.
Speaker 2: Democrats were fighting really hard to be able to raise
Speaker 2: every American tax rate. What was funny was they kept
Speaker 2: saying this all about millionaires and billionaires. What they were
Speaker 2: actually fighting for and people are finding out now every
Speaker 2: single tax bracket was scheduled to go up on January
Speaker 2: the first, and Democrats were fighting tenaciously to make sure
Speaker 2: that every single tax bracket in America went up in January.
Speaker 2: We were able to stop that. Just keep tax rates
Speaker 2: where they are right now. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: things in it that people are finding out, Hey, that
Speaker 2: actually works better for me.
Speaker 1: We actually went to some recisions. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, our recisions the terms that not a lot of
Speaker 2: people know. In fact, it's the first time our recisions
Speaker 2: passed through Congress in more than thirty years. Our recisions
Speaker 2: during the middle of the year, when the law has
Speaker 2: been made, appropriation bill, when the law has been made,
Speaker 2: House Senate President of all signed it and requires that
Speaker 2: funding to be done. A recision is when the White
Speaker 2: House says I don't want to spend this money. Will
Speaker 2: you allow me Congress to be able to not spend
Speaker 2: this So the White House sent over nine billion dollars
Speaker 2: in requests saying I don't want to spend this money,
Speaker 2: a lot of it's foreign aid, some of it was
Speaker 2: for NPR and for PBS, and said hey, I don't
Speaker 2: want to spend this money anymore on it. Congress went through,
Speaker 2: debated it, and then actually approved it. So that is
Speaker 2: nine billion dollars in savings going back in directly into
Speaker 2: this year. Those are all Doge cuts that were made
Speaker 2: and proposed when Doge was making all these different proposals,
Speaker 2: we've now been able to enact that into law.
Speaker 1: How are we doing on energy as far as oil
Speaker 1: and gas, and I guess even wind and everything else
Speaker 1: when it comes to Oklahoma. Anything legislative working in our
Speaker 1: favor here in Oklahoma?
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously Oklahoma is truly all the above and all
Speaker 2: the below energy state. All different types of energy don't
Speaker 2: bother us, but we want to make sure we've got
Speaker 2: more of it. Democrats in twenty twenty one were able
Speaker 2: to put in a new tax just on oil and
Speaker 2: gas companies. They called it tangible drilling cost IDC's you
Speaker 2: heard that term before. This is just the basic cost
Speaker 2: of drilling. Well. Democrats created a new tax on that
Speaker 2: said we're going to tax oil and gas manufacturers different
Speaker 2: than any other manufacturer. Is tax I was able to
Speaker 2: get into the One Big Beautiful Bill a repeal of that,
Speaker 2: to say oil and gas companies should be treated the
Speaker 2: same as every other company. You shouldn't have some new
Speaker 2: attack on oil and gas companies as Democrats did, and
Speaker 2: say I'm going to attack them more and try to
Speaker 2: be able to stop their production through increasing taxes on them.
Speaker 2: This just treats oil and gas that's same as everyone else.
Speaker 2: That's all we're looking for on it. Let them compete
Speaker 2: on a level playing field. We need more domestic energy.
Speaker 2: All of us who drive our truck, drive our cars,
Speaker 2: fly on an airplane, or any other use for petroleum
Speaker 2: like carpet and tile and so many other things that
Speaker 2: are out there. We've got to be able to maintain
Speaker 2: a steady supply of domestic energy production. So this just
Speaker 2: puts them back on a level playing field, adds Oklahoma
Speaker 2: jobs and makes a big difference for drilling in the future.
Speaker 1: Senator Langford, how can people get a hold of you?
Speaker 2: You know, everybody seems to find a way. Actually, we've
Speaker 2: got literally tens of thousands of contacts on that, which
Speaker 2: is great. We love having the communication with oklaholments. The
Speaker 2: best way to be able to reach me just go
Speaker 2: to my website Langford dot Senate dot gov. Langford dot
Speaker 2: Senate dot gov. That's got all the different places to
Speaker 2: get connect with me. You've got phone numbers, has has
Speaker 2: email addressed, as has got our social media pagents which
Speaker 2: at Senator Langford at all the different social media platforms.
Speaker 2: You can even buy a new Benjamin Franklin two hundred
Speaker 2: and fiftieth anniversary stamp and be able to put that
Speaker 2: on a mail a letter. The Post Office would be
Speaker 2: very excited if you would mail a letter on it.
Speaker 2: And we've got our address there Langford dot cend dot
Speaker 2: gov if you want to send that to us as well.
Speaker 1: Senator, thank you very much for being with us today.
Speaker 2: You bet glad to do it. You'll take care of
Speaker 2: keep braying for the nation.
Speaker 1: We'll do