President Donald Trump signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on the South Lawn of the White House, on July 4, 2025, during the 4th of July picnic. U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, attended the ceremony. (Photo by Daniel Torok/Official White House photo)
U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, is urging supporters and business leaders to push back against “messaging” from “legacy media” regarding the major tax and spending law passed by Congress in July.
Crapo spoke to a group of about 50 people Thursday morning in Boise at a breakfast held by Americans For Prosperity, or AFP, an advocacy organization founded by billionaires Charles and the late David Koch. The private event at a downtown hotel highlighted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is now a law and was supported by AFP through a $20 million campaign effort.
“Undeniably, AFP was the biggest ally we had in getting the One Big Beautiful Bill across the finish line,” Crapo said Thursday.
Crapo chairs the Senate Finance Committee, which, among its many areas of oversight, is charged with crafting tax policy. The Idaho senator played a key role in crafting the legislation.
He lauded AFP for going to the districts of lawmakers reluctant to vote for the bill.
“And it wasn’t because those House members and Senate members didn’t want to vote for the bill,” Crapo said, “it’s because their constituents were listening to the legacy media message about the bill and didn’t understand what it did, and AFP helped us there.”
Attendees included Idaho Gov. Brad Little, Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, state House Majority Leader Jason Monks, R-Meridian, and Boise City Councilmember Luci Willits.
Protestors call for open public meetings
Around 30 people protested the event outside, calling for public, free town halls instead. The protest was organized by the Idaho 50501 movement, which was also behind the No Kings Day protest in June, and Idaho Women in Action.
“Senator Crapo’s recent votes to restrict Medicaid and reduce funding for SNAP directly impact families across the state,” said in an Idaho 50501 press release. “Idaho 50501 and Idaho Women In Action believe these decisions should be discussed openly, with input from those most affected.”
Crapo had no public town halls scheduled as of Thursday, and a page on his office’s website with a calendar and map of town halls listed an August 2022 event as the most recent one.
Spokespeople for Idaho’s other members of Congress, Sen. Jim Risch and Rep. Mike Simpson, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on if they plan to hold town halls.
“As our townhall events, including tele-townhalls are organized and scheduled, we will update via our official office platforms, constituent emails, press releases and such,” a spokesperson for Idaho U.S. Rep. Russ Fulcher said.
Crapo highlights laws’ deficit impact, tax cut extensions
The Idaho senator said Thursday he was “defensive” of the narrative he’s heard that the tax and spending bill — which among many things made cuts to Medicaid and food assistance, extended tax cuts passed in 2017, added temporary cuts to taxes on overtime pay and tips, and increased spending for immigration enforcement and border security.
An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the total bill would raise the federal deficit by around $3 trillion in the next 10 years, FOX Business reported, and the law raised the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, which increases the legal limit on the amount the U.S. Treasury can borrow.
Crapo countered that analysis, arguing that the office should have used the baseline revenue with the tax cuts enacted in 2017 that were set to expire this year. His office requested that CBO score the bill, using the current tax policy as a baseline; that request shows a $1.2 trillion deficit decrease over the next decade.
“That’s where we needed help from AFP to get our colleagues to agree to take this hit because they were attacked as a gimmick,” he said.” I don’t think most Idahoans think it’s a gimmick to say that the refusal to raise taxes is not increasing the deficit.”
He also said it wasn’t just wealthy Americans and businesses who benefited from the tax cuts, noting, “billionaires are paying the same taxes this year that they paid last year.”
A larger percentage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that was made permanent in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act go to the wealthiest Americans, according to analyses by the Tax Policy Center, Economic Policy Institute, and the Bipartisan Policy Center. On average, all income groups receive a tax benefit from the extension — or would have seen a tax increase had the cuts not been made permanent.
The bottom 20% of household incomes would likely see an average increase of .5% in after-tax income as a result of the extension of the child credit and larger standard deduction, according to the Tax Policy Center. The highest-income taxpayers would see net tax cuts of 2% of after-tax income for those in the top quintile.
The Council on Economic Advisors, an office under the office of the president, estimated that the average Idaho resident would see a raise in wages by $3,400 to $6,400 in the next four years as a result of the legislation.
Another reconciliation bill may be coming
Crapo underscored that while the massive law addressed many of President Donald Trump’s main priorities, it did not satisfy all of them. He said the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus also wanted to see larger spending reductions.
Of Trump’s “eight or nine” priorities, Crapo said, the law accomplished “three or four” of them.
As chairman of the Finance Committee, Crapo was present when Trump signed the bill into law in July. He said the president called him out as knowing “more about taxes than anybody,” but said he and Crapo didn’t always agree.
“That’s because he didn’t get all eight of his things, and he only got them for a number of years,” Crapo said with a laugh.
U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said he wanted another major bill to continue the work, Politico reported.
To pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, lawmakers used what’s called the reconciliation process. Through this process, lawmakers avoid the filibuster in the Senate and only need a simple majority of votes rather than 60. Reconciliation can only address tax policy and certain types of spending.
“So we are going to do another reconciliation bill,” Crapo said. “The politics of that one are going to be much, much more difficult because we don’t have the (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) engine driving it. And the pressure in that one will be spending reductions, and any kind of spending reform in Washington is an intense battle, so look for that and keep saying nice things about me when we start cutting more.”
This article was first published by Idaho Capital Sun, part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords for questions: [email protected].
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