It’s crunch time for the United States Senate as they work through their version of the House-passed federal reconciliation budget, which includes improved reference prices, crop insurance coverage and business tax breaks.
South Dakota Senator and Senate Majority Leader John Thune is pushing his republican colleagues to get the bill finished by President Donald Trump’s July 4, 2025, deadline.
“We lowered tax rates for owners of small and medium-sized businesses, farms, and ranches and made it easier for them to recover the cost of investing in their businesses. Which in turn, freed up cash for them to invest in their operations and their workers.”
Thune pointed to a couple, including the pass-through deduction many agriculture producers take on their individual returns.
“The Section 199a small business tax deduction and full expensing for new capital investment in domestic research and development. Our legislation will permanently extend these key provisions.”
It does the same for the immediate expensing of farm and other equipment, plus a doubling of the estate tax exemption and survival of the 45Z biofuels credit. However, the Senate would scale back by some $80 billion the proposed SNAP cost-shifting to the states and would also reverse a House boost to the state and local tax break that secured the votes for House passage.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer says the bill, based on non-partisan scoring, still costs more than it generates in economic growth.
“Even after you take into account any impact, any economic impacts, the so-called dynamic scoring, created by the Republican bill, is still a ‘loser’ for middle- and working-class families. Only the wealthy gain.”
But Thune argues another independent review shows the bill produces more revenue than it costs, with lower tax rates and higher wages for all incomes, but the opposite if current law isn’t extended. And for farmers, it means a modernized safety net and greater tax certainty.
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